Page 67 of Your Fault

There wasn’t a trace of hesitation on his face. Maybe he was being sincere? Jenna could be wrong about all that. I smiled. I hated doubting Nick. He wouldn’t lie to me. He wouldn’t go to the races, not without telling me, especially after all that had happened.

“Cool, I’ll see you there, then,” I said, resting a hand on the door.

“Hey!” he said before I got out. “Thanks for being with me these days. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

I touched his cheek, leaned in, and kissed him. As his face pushed into mine, I prayed he wasn’t lying to me.

Jenna came by the next afternoon. I’d never seen her so depressed. She and Lion were going through hard times, and it didn’t help at all that she was absolutely convinced they’d be racing that night. When I told her Nick would be waiting for me at Cristal, a fancy restaurant downtown, she looked at me with disbelief.

“I know what I’m talking about, Noah. And there’s a hundred percent chance that our fucking boyfriends are going to get in trouble tonight.”

I sighed and tried to find a pretty dress to wear. I was tired of trying to convince Jenna that Nicholas wouldn’t lie to me, least of all make me go to a restaurant if he was planning to bail on me.

“How are you and Lion doing? Is he still mad at you?” I asked, more to change the subject than for any other reason.

Sitting on the sofa by my dressing table, Jenna went pale, making the blood red of her nail polish stand out more.

“If bymadyou mean our relationship now consists of screaming at each other and then fucking like crazy afterward, then yeah, I guess he’s still mad at me.”

“Well, that’s putting it delicately!” I replied, somewhat surprised by how blunt she was. Jenna wasn’t the naive little rich girl people thought. But even if she tried to make light of things, I could tell she was a wreck and much more nervous about that night than she let on. If her theory was correct, Lion would take part in any race he could get into, regardless of the law, regardless of the fact the people who showed up for those events had almost killed us the last time we’d been there, as long as he could make some cash. And we both knew that if Lion kept going down that road, it was likely he would end up in jail, just as his brother had.

“By the way, I saw Luca the other day,” she said, getting up from the couch and flipping through my hangers. I looked at her reflection in the mirror.

“What’s he like?” I asked warily.

“To be honest, he seemed really nice, but sort of…I don’t know, like I got goose bumps when I met him.” She stopped to look at a plain white shirt. Her mind was clearly elsewhere and had been for more than a month. “He’s handsome, not like Lion, but you can tell their parents must have been good-looking… He’s got the same green eyes, but they’re mysterious. He seems like he’s got secrets, and I guess Lion doesn’t want me to know them because when I went over there the other day, he did everything but kick me out.”

Her voice quivered as she said this. I hated seeing her sad. The old Jenna was nothing like the one I had in front of me now. Where was that eternal smile, that glimmer in her eyes, the nonsense she loved to spout at all hours of the day? I wanted to give that idiot Lion a piece of my mind.

“Why don’t you come to dinner with me and Nick tonight?” I proposed. I knew Nick would be fine with it. Jenna was his friend, and he’d probably help me get her in a better mood.

Jenna shook her head, exasperated. “You honestly still think he’s taking you to dinner?”

I took a deep breath. “Nicholas wouldn’t lie to me, Jenna, and he wouldn’t leave me hanging.”

She paused, reflecting on my words. “Fine…but I’m only doing it so you’re not by yourself when the idiot doesn’t show up the way he told you he would. That way we can go find them together.”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit of uncertainty as I heard her.

A few hours later, we were freshly showered and dressed for the night. Jenna had dragged her feet, and I’d had to convince her to find a nice outfit and throw on some makeup. We weren’t going to McDonald’s, after all. Finally she put on a pair of leather shorts and a white blouse with flats. I chose a snug black dress and a pair of white platform heels. I let my hair down and put on lipstick, too.

Jenna rolled her eyes at me, but she didn’t say anything. Just then, I got a message from Nick.

The reservation’s under my name. Grab a couple of drinks and wait for me inside.

I showed the message to Jenna, but she ignored me as we left my room.

It took us nearly an hour to get to the restaurant. There was a reservation for three under Nick’s name, just as he had promised. The place was pleasant, with little French-style tables and soft romantic lighting. It was funny, being there with Jenna, with all those candles around, but it was also hard to imagine being there with Nick. That place was too cheesy for him. Jenna started cracking jokes while the couples around us stared at us, clearly irritated.

“Noah, take my hand, maybe they’ll think it’s our anniversaryand they’ll rain confetti on us from those lamps overhead,” she said with a ridiculous flirty expression. I laughed, and we drank a glass of white wine—at these fancy places, they never asked for an ID—as we waited for Nick to appear.

Forty minutes in, the jokes weren’t funny anymore, and I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

The sound of my phone vibrating pulled me out of a trance, and I scowled as I read the message that had come through:

Hey Freckles, sorry, I can’t come tonight. We’re up to our ears in work, and if I don’t finish the reports I’ve been asked for, I can kiss my internship goodbye. Please don’t get mad, I’ll make it up to you… you and Jenna have dinner and enjoy yourselves.

I could feel a fire burning inside me, something I’d been trying to suppress the entire time we’d been waiting. I couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid to think this strategy would work.

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