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“What’s going on?” the girl asks behind him, and Xavier glances over his shoulder.
He tells her to go in the room next door and he’ll be there in a second.
Weird that he’s taking her to a spare bedroom when he must have his own palatial bedroom somewhere in this place.
He turns back to me. “Did you need a ride home or anything?” he asks, his expression schooled and mostly hiding the fact that he’s trying to piece together the scene in front of him. The school nerd reading a Baroque Interior Design book beside his sleeping football jock best friend. On a bed in one of his spare rooms during a Titan's victory party.
“Oh, uh. No. Thanks. I’m leaving with Maggie in a few minutes.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “She’s still here?”
“Maggie? Yeah.”
“Huh.”
I have no idea what that reaction is.
“Alright.” He glances at Sebastian again, then back at me. “Well, you’re welcome to crash here if you want.”
Still with that slightly puzzled look. Not judgmental, though. Or mocking in any way. I thought Maggie said this guy was a jerk. So far, he has been nothing but nice to me. It throws me off guard every single time.
I decline his offer but ask him to direct me to the fountain with the golden eggs, and he tells me he’ll take me there. Sebastian doesn’t even stir when I slip off the bed. Then I follow Xavier out into the gleaming gold and marble hallway, so incongruous with his totally relaxed faded jeans and frayed blue T-shirt.
He leads me along a couple of hallways, down a different set of stairs than the one Sebastian and I came up earlier, and along that same hall with the tacky ceiling. I don’t say anything as we pass under the God-awful arched paintings, and neither does Xavier. He’s got his hands stuffed in his pockets and I think he might be a little drunk because he’s sort of swaying as he walks.
“Giant golden egg fountain,” he announces, with a lilt of humor as we approach the entrance.
Then Maggie appears just off to the side, closer to the double doors, scrolling through her phone as she waits for me. She lifts her head and her eyes narrow when they land on Xavier. She gives him a disapproving once-over. “Aww. Did you lose your cheerleader admirer down one of the hundred-and-one gilded hallways?”
Xavier just responds with a smirk, hands still tucked casually in his pockets. He looks back at me. “Alright. Well, I’ll see you later, then.”
I nod. “Yeah. I’ll see you later.”
He turns and heads around the fountain and down one of the “hundred-and-one gilded hallways”, toward the back of the house instead of the way we just came from. Definitely swaying.
I follow Maggie out to the circular cobblestone driveway into the cool night air, butterflies still dancing in my stomach and a smile warming my lips.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Caroline
My phone bings with the incoming text (a sound I am slowly becoming more familiar with) just as I’m helping Maggie drizzle cream cheese icing on a batch of cinnamon rolls before opening. I read the message from Seb, a grin splitting my face as I remember him sprawled out next to me last night. I type out a response.
“What are you smiling about over there?” Maggs asks, leaning over to peer at my phone.
I look up. “Uh… I think Sebastian Murdoch just invited me out on a date.”
Maggs drops the icing pouch. “What?” Icing splatters across the counter, but she doesn’t even glance down. Instead, she nudges closer to me as I tilt my phone so she can read Seb’s message. “Oh my God, Caro! He is totally asking you out on a date!” she practically screams.
“Do you think so?”
“Totally.” She takes the phone from me and reads the text exchange again. “Definitely. Dude is into you.” She breaks out in a smile and singsongs: “Caroline Heinz… dating the bigshot baller.” Only she singsongs it like “bigshot baaahh-lerrr.”
I lean against the counter. I feel like my legs are about to give out. “Ok. Wow.… I’ve never been on a date before.”
Maggs looks up. “You’ve never been on a date?”
And why why why did and I go and say that?
