Page 39 of The Shadows Beyond
“Many, many is a bit of an—”
“Many,many,Julien!” she practically screamed, banging her cup on the table. “Many,many! We often can’t walk down a hallway together without some girl or guy sending me a death look, thinking I’ve stolen you away from them.”
Beside him, Cinn stared into his water cup.
“You were just disgusting to poor Eric. It’s ironic that you were the one who was a complete twat to him, during your shortrelationshipor whatever it was, and yet he was simply delightful towards you, and you were downright rude!”
Julien teetered on the edge of two choices: shutting down the conversation, which was his preference, as he never discussed his sex life with even his best friends, or defending himself. In the end, the latter won—he couldn’t handle the idea of Cinn thinking he was some sort of narcissistic playboy who used and discarded others for fun.
He leaned back in his chair. Folded his arms. “Thanks for presuming it was entirely my fault that things ended badly, Darcy. It was actually slightly more nuanced than that, you’ll be shocked to hear. If you want the full story, he started sleeping with his ex again, and only told me about it weeks later. Then I got… rather cross with him.” Okay, that part was a slight understatement.
Darcy’s mouth twisted slightly. “I didn’t realise you weretogether, together with Eric, though.”
“I wasn’t.” Julien never was, with anyone. “But I thought I’d made it exceedingly clear that while we were casually fucking”—Darcy cringed at the harsh language—“we wereexclusivelycasually fucking.” His voice rose near the end, and Darcy glared at him.
In order to further paint himself as the mature, mentally sane guy he would never really be, Julien said, “Anyway, you should call him, Cinn. It would be good for you to make more connections here,” in his smoothest possible voice, fighting back roiling acid in his gut.
“What did I miss?” Elliot pulled out the empty chair with a scrape, throwing himself into it. “Have we ordered?”
Darcy’s gaze pierced Julien’s, a silent communication that the Eric conversation was over, lest they drag Elliot into it. Which certainly wasn’t agood idea.
“I was just asking them what’s good here,” Cinn said, picking up a paper menu.
Elliot narrowed his eyes.
Julien pretended to also look at the menu, while side-eyeing Cinn. What on earth had he made of all that? Even without the Eric situation, Darcy’s ridiculous exaggeration about how many people he’d slept with wouldn’t be something he’d forget.Why do you care so much about his opinion?He clenched his jaw.It’s not like you want to date him or anything. Because you don’t do that, do you?
Although, when Cinn ordered the rösti upon his recommendation, and then proceeded to witter on about how much the head chef at his old workplace would have loved it, which somehow launched him into speaking about different types of English potato and their different uses for a full five minutes, Julien couldn’t help but openly stare at him, his icy heart thawing ever so slightly.
When Cinn had finished every last scrap of his dish, Julien placed his own plate in front of him, offering him the last few bites, pretending he was done. He’d skipped breakfast earlier, so wasn’t exactly full, but watching Cinn’s face light up was worth it.
It had him calculating other ways to get that smile back. The smile that showed the slightest hint of teeth and crinkled the corner of his eyes. The smile that made something swell in Julien’s chest at the sight of it, especially when Julien had been the cause of it.
Of course, the more Cinn liked him, the more assistance he’d be in contacting Béatrice.
Yes, solving his sister’s murder was his only agenda here.
Well, and having alittlefun. But one could certainly kill two birds with one stone, as the ridiculous English idiom went.
Which reminded him…
“The weekend after next is my father’s birthday,” Julien announced. “You know, that ridiculously over-the-top affair that is my annualtorture. Darcy, you’re actually invited to the party because my father thinks you’rela crème de la crème.”
Darcy smirked. “Well, I am, to be fair.”
“Elliot, you’re definitelynotinvited after last time, but you’ll be gatecrashing.”
With a laugh, Elliot ran his hand through his outrageously plush hair that Julien was frequently jealous of; it looked like a portable pillow. “Are you sure I won’t be evicted from the premises the second he lays eyes on me?”
“And Cinn, you’re my guest of honour,” Julien said, trying to keep the twinkle out of his eye, and avoiding thinking too hard about the hint of displeasure that flashed across Elliot’s face.
“Oh. I-I’m fine staying here,” Cinn rushed to say. “Really, I’m sure he doesn’t want me there. I don’t even know him.”
“He doesn’t know half the people he invites to his birthday each year,” said Darcy. “It’s all a big facade to show off how important he is.”
“You’re coming,” Julien said, nudging his leg into Cinn’s. “It’s decided.”
Cinn bit his lip again. He bit it so frequently, Julien was already starting to predict the moments where his teeth would scrape across the plump flesh.
