Page 29 of The Hate We Breathe
My eyes droop with exhaustion as I contemplate the four walls of Nolan’s bedroom. When the beam of a single headlight cuts across the room, my pulse spikes. I push up on my elbows and slip over to the window. Rising onto my knees, I lean over and tug one of the blinds down just enough to see into the yard.
The headlight dies a split second after the sound of the engine cuts out. Through the gloom, all I catch is the shadowed outline of him swinging off his bike, the night air swallowing him whole.
I let the blinds snap shut and turn towards the door. Footsteps creak on the porch. The lock clicks, the hinges groan.The sound of him shutting and relocking the front door seems louder than my own breathing.
One foot hits the floor, then the other. My nails curl into the sheet’s edge, grounding myself as his boots thud softly down the hallway. Every sound—each breath he takes, each step of worn wood under his weight—presses under my skin.
Each passing second is like a needle piercing my flesh. Sharp. Painful. Building to something else.
The doorknob turns. The hinges squeak.
Light floods the room, and I barely resist the urge to wince as it burns into my eyes after hours spent in the dark. Nolan halts in the doorway.
“Who the f— Juliet?” His voice is rough, low, as his gaze sweeps over me. Blinking back the black and white spots that have exploded in front of my vision, I look him over too. His hair is windblown and though his cheeks are flushed a bright pink, I’m guessing it’s more from the drive home than excitement. There are dark circles under his eyes and a droop to his shoulders that concern me.
Nolan’s eyes shift as I rake my hair away from my face. His attention dips, moving over the loose tank that hangs off one shoulder, then down to the pair of his boxers I stole from his drawers earlier. His gaze heats up for a moment before he seems to yank himself from the cusp of something violent. His expression goes from fiery to flat. I narrow my eyes.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demands. He must not have checked his phone because I know damn well that the guys texted him right after they dropped me off. There’s nothing I can do that they don’t inform their leader about.
“Waiting for you,” I state. “Why else would I be here?”
He releases a breath and steps inside the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. “I’ve been working,” he mutters, tossing his backpack onto the floor near the end ofthe bed. He looks… harder somehow. Tighter in the jaw. “You should call Lex to come get you. I’m in a shit mood, and you don’t want to be around me right now.”
I arch a brow. “Because of Darrio?”
His eyes flick to mine, sharp. “Yeah. Because of Darrio.”
“Too bad.” I cross my arms, letting the silence stretch. “I know about the funeral.”
That gets his attention. His mouth pulls into a scowl. “Yeah?” He turns away from me, moving to the open door of his closet, toeing off his shoes as he does and leaving them where they come off. “And?”
“Don’t you think you should have told me about it?” I bite out the words.
“Not particularly.” His casual reply rackets up my anger another few notches and I drop my arms to stand up and face him.
“Well, I do,” I snap. “And I’m going—the person who killed him might show up there and if they are, I want a chance to find out who it is.” If it’s Darrio Vargas, then I’ll definitely want to see if the man shows up.
“Yeah? Do you think you’re the only one that has thought of that?” His voice is a deep growl, clearly annoyed. “The police are probably going to be there for the same damn reason—to see who shows up. What do you think is going to happen if you’re there?”
“They already think I did it,” I reply. “It doesn’t matter what I do to convince them otherwise. If I show up, they’ll think I did it. If I don’t show up—despite the fact that he was my father’s best friend—then they’ll take that, too, as an admission of guilt.” I lift my arms in a useless shrug. “So, I’m just going to do whatever I want. Fuck them.”
Nolan doesn’t reply for a second, shifting around in the closet. When he returns, he’s got another shirt in his hand andhe tosses it at me. I catch it absently, holding on to the fabric as we glare at one another.
“Put that on,” he orders. “If you’re going to dress in my clothes, it might as well be all or nothing, Princess.”
“Someone came to me today and told me they saw Morpheus meeting with Darrio in the city a few months ago.”
Nolan’s expression hardens, his jaw clenching as a muscle begins to pulse beneath the skin. “All the more reason for you not to go,” he says.
The urge to smack him tingles down my arm. “Why didn’t you tell me about it, Nolan?”
He stares back at me, unyielding. “Morpheus was a piece of shit,” he says slowly. “The whole town practically worshiped that asshole after your dad was arrested. You don’t need to go to the fucker’s funeral. Everyone is going to be there and they’re all going to blame you.”
That had been exactly what I expected. Exactly what Lex and Gio had said too. I shake my head. “I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks,” I tell him, and it’s the truth.
I stopped caring a long damn time ago—right around the time when I realized that no one was going to save me from the rest of the world, so I had to do it myself.
“Yeah?” he snaps, stepping closer, expression turning thunderous. “Well,Ifucking do! They don’t know shit. Not about you. Not about him, and they have no damn right to talk. They’re nothing but vultures and?—”
