Page 42 of Under the Lies

Home. I wouldn’t call this place home.

He can’t see my face, but it’s like Noah knows my mood has shifted. I feel his fingers brush against my lower back.

“Thanks.”

“I can’t tell you how happy our boy here is now that you’re back. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say happy since I doubt he lets him feel such a joyous emotion, but he’s definitely less grumpy now.”

Noah glares. “Seriously, Thea? Go away. We’re in the middle of something.”

She shakes her head. “Can’t do that, Noah.” Turning her body slightly, she points across the room to a man with reddish-brown hair and ink on his knuckles. “He wants to talk to you.”

Noah’s hand drops from my back and my body becomes cold as he moves away, angling his body semi in front of mine.

“You brought him here?” Noah’s furious question is directed at Thea.

Thea, like with his glare, doesn’t back down. She simply raises a sculpted brow. “Want to use your inside voice?”

“Want to tell me why you brought Seamus Kelly here?” he shoots back, not using a friendly tone.

“Who’s Seamus?” I can’t help but ask. He doesn’t look the friendliest as he stares over here with a nasty scowl.

“No one,” Noah answers the same time Thea says, “He’s complicated.”

Well then. It looks like the Complicated No One is walking this way.

Noah curses, glancing at me.

Thea’s arm wraps around my shoulders, pulling me close. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep her company.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” he mumbles, looking at me. Another curse escapes. “Wait here,” he tells me before meeting Seamus halfway.

With bent heads and low voices, they look tense in conversation before walking out of the room. Some mingling people watch them disappear before shooting looks at Thea and me.

I try to ignore them as I ask, “What’s that about?”

“He’s been giving Noah a hard time about some business they did recently. It’s not a big deal.” Thea simply shrugs, but her words are calculated. As if carefully picking them one by one before stringing them into a sentence.

Noah’s anger at seeing Seamus didn’t feel like a small deal, but if I press more, it’s not going to result in anything. So I accept her answer for what it is and try to think of something to fill the lapse of conversation between us only to get distracted by my name in a nearby group.

“What’s she doing here with him?” a woman asks in a failed whisper. Her bird-like gaze darts to me.

My lungs tighten while my ears strain to hear more.

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t surprise me,” her friend answers, matching tone. “Don’t you remember what people were saying when she mysterious moved away after graduation?”

What did people say? I watch the first woman with a whispering deficiency shake her head.

“It was because she was—”

I never get to know what she says next. Thea pulls me away from them. “C’mon, let’s get you a drink.”

One drink turns to two and two turns to three. By the time I’m on my fourth—or is it fifth?—glass of champagne, Noah comes back, looking more agitated than when he left. I giggle as the crowd parts for him. So obedient, everyone is afraid to get in his way. To stand up to him.

Noah doesn’t pay attention to them, they’re peasants beneath him, as his eyes roam over the faces—looking for someone. Looking for me.

A cheap thrill caresses me with the knowledge.

He doesn’t see me right away, I’m hiding behind a fake plant, the fake fronds tickle my exposed skin, but the spot gives me the perfect advantage to watch him undetected.

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