I exhale. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who—” I gesture vaguely around his room, the space, him. “Does this.”
“Talks to you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He tilts his head slightly. “Then what did you mean?”
I look away, then back at him. “I don’t know.”
“You think I’m too rich to be friends with you or something?”
“I didn’t say that,” I say quickly.
“You didn’t have to.”
“That’s not—” I stop, frustrated. “You're impossible to talk to.”
He smiles a little at that. “And yet,” he says, “you’re still here.”
“I’m leaving.”
I move for the door, but he’s quicker. For a moment, I think he’s going to stop me. He doesn’t. He reaches past me and opens it, stepping back. “Still a gentleman,” he says, a hint of a smile there.
I brush past him stepping into the hallway. “Ass.”
“Careful. You might start liking me.”
* * *
“Where’s Ivan?” I ask Jax, scanning the platform for a nervous kid in a terrible band T-shirt.Not a kid. Ivan is my age—he just looks younger.I remind myself. Acts younger. Next to Jax, he might as well be a kid.
Jax shrugs, hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket. “He’s not coming.”
I glance down the length of the platform again, like he might appear last minute, half-running, already apologizing. Nothing.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Jax says.
I look back at him. “Did he tell you?”
“No.”
“Then how do you?—”
“Because he is probably freaking out,” Jax says, like it’s obvious. “We’re going to The Cut.”
I frown. “So?”
He gives me a look. “So Ivan’s not exactly built for dark alleys, ash dealers, and whatever the hell else crawls around down there.”
“Wow. You are a jackass.”
“I’m just stating facts,” he says. “I can’t even blame him. The Cut isn’t exactly where nervous little science nerds go for fun.”
I narrow my eyes. “You know, for someone who claims not to care, you talk about him a lot.”
“You always argue this much, or just with me?”
