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“I obviously spoke too soon.”
“About what?”
“You’re right. You’re not nice.”
His lip curls up in a smile. “So soon? What happened, good girl?”
“If Tyberius gets kicked out then so will I. Did you ever think of that? And that’s if the bare minimum happens. What if you guys kill each other.”
He scoffs. “He can’t kill me.”
My stomach lurches. Deep down, I know that. Deep down, I’m not scared for Roman. I’m scared that Roman really isn’t the nice guy I like to pretend he is. That, if Tyberius keeps provoking him, one of these days, Roman will kill my cousin.
I bit my lip. “If we get thrown out because of you, don’t think I won’t make sure you get kicked out with us.”
He cocks his head curiously. “You act like I give a shit about the Order. Getting kicked out is fine with me.”
I purse my lips. I’m sure it is fine for him. He’s already pledged. He can do magic if he wants to, and getting kicked out would only give him more freedom. Me, on the other hand? I haven’t pledged yet, and if my family is forced out I’ll never be able to do more than kitchen witchery and basic runology.
“Is it really though?” I snap. “If you didn’t care you could have left already. You could leave at any time.”
“But you’re here,” he says. “If you get kicked out too, why would I stay?”
My heart stutters and I look up too quickly. I can’t read his expression. Can’t tell if he’s joking, or worse, trying to goad me into leaving.
But what if he’s not joking.
My eyes dart to my cousin now getting out of his car, holding an umbrella high as he strides toward us. “Look, I’ll meet you in the library tomorrow with your phone. Please just leave, I don’t want there to be a fight.”
I gather my purse and my phone and fling my door open before Roman can say anything else. The rain pelts down on me as I dash toward the door, my hands shaking.
“Juliette,” Tyberius calls across the driveway.
Reaching the porch, I turn back and see my cousin looking from me to Roman’s car as he zips back up the driveway. I heave a sigh of relief that for once someone listened to me.
“Was that Dane?” Tyberius asks as he steps up onto the porch and shakes out his umbrella. “I thought his car was white?”
I shake my head, “I guess not.”
We step into the foyer and I close the door. Tyberius rounds on me, his eyes narrow with suspicion. “Why wouldn’t he come in to say hi?”
“I don’t know. The rain I guess.” I shrug. “What are you doing here?”
“Your dad and I have some business,” he says vaguely.
I would bet all the money I have that the “business,” has something to do with either the Montague family or Lawrence’s recent declaration. I shudder at what would have happened if Tyberius and Roman crossed paths.
And that’s just it, isn’t it? It doesn’t really matter who Roman is—if he’s a nice person under all his dark armor, or if he’s really the villain he seems to want to portray himself as. It doesn’t matter, because first, he’ll always be a Montague.
I stare at my cousin—my infuriating, brash, pompous cousin—who is still the closest thing to a sibling I have, and I can picture all too clearly how he’ll be the next victim of the feud. Probably by his own stupidity. “Right, well, I need to go change.”
Pushing the melancholy from my mind, I march toward my room. My gaze darts toward the closed door to the library as I pass, and I nearly stop.
No, not right now. I can look for the phone later. It’s not that important.
I make it two more steps before turning back. I don’t know who I think I’m kidding, trying to lie to myself. That phone is the single interesting thing in this house at the moment. The only thing distracting me from the doom-spiral in my mind.
“It’s just the phone,” I promise myself, as I swing open the door to the library. “That’s it.”
