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I widen my eyes and mouth “no” while making a cross with my arms. Hugo raises his brows but loyally says, “No, sorry,” to Lucas. “What do you need him for?”
“Nothing,” Lucas replies, voice straightforward, almost emotionless. “Just wondering where he is.”
“Oh. Maybe he’s with Gilly? Or…” Hugo hesitates. “Cleo?”
Lucas’s silence on the other end of the line is deafening enough to make Hugo cringe.
I mouth at Hugo, “What the hell?”
He mouths back, “Trying to act normal.” Then he returns his attention to the phone. “Or maybe he’s buying food or running errands. Have you tried calling him?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lucas says and hangs up.
Hugo pulls the phone from his ear and stares at the screen for a second. “That was kind of odd.”
“Yeah.”
He puts his phone away and we continue walking. “Does he know? About you and Cleo?”
“Um…”
What to say, what to say? I could tell Hugo the truth — that Cleo slept with Lucas, so yes, he knows. But what will happen then? Will our group of friends fight and break apart? I don’t want to turn this into a big drama. Then there’s also the fact that I slept with Lucas. I don’t want that to get out. Better to keep things under wraps for now.
Hugo is watching me, one brow raised. “You’ve been umming for a while.”
I settle for a half-truth. “I think Lucas has been distrustful of Cleo for a while. He was always saying he hated her, that kind of stuff. Anyway, I don’t know why he called you,” I say, changing the topic. “Why does he care where I am? And if he’s so curious, why didn’t he just call me?”
Then again, perhaps he doesn’t want to be the first to reach out after last night. I shiver. God, our next conversation is going to be awkward as hell. Maybe I can avoid him forever so that I never have to deal with it.
Hugo shrugs. “Weird, but not that weird. Lucas has always had that thing about you.”
“‘Thing’?” I echo. “What thing?” Contempt? Hatred? Irritation? Barely managed tolerance?
“A sort of…protectiveness. That’s the only way I can describe it,” Hugo says. “He never bad-mouths you when you’re not around. Which I’m aware is the bare minimum, but even if someone tries to joke about you — light-hearted, unserious stuff— he’ll shut it down. Kind of like you’re his baby brother.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m pretty sure Hugo is mistaken, but I can’t correct him without sounding rude.
“Even if he doesn’t know the details about what went down with Cleo, he’s probably sensed that you’re distraught and that’s why he’s worried about where you’ve gone,” Hugo continues. “For all that Lucas pretends to be an insufferable dick, he’s actually a caring guy deep down.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lucas
Age 16
Charlie rarely comes to parties. I won’t pretend I don’t know why — he’s almost never invited, not when he has barely any friends. It’s like he doesn’t even try.
No, I know that’s not it. The reason why I’m popular and Charlie isn’t has nothing to do with effort and everything to do with stupid stuff. It’s because I’m good at sport and I’m tall and I don’t care about anything. Not caring equals coolness in high school. Charlie cares too much. He’s too earnest, so sweet to people that it comes across as servile. He gets way too enthusiastic about the smallest things, like when the canteen restocks its flavoured milk, or when class ends five minutes early, or when the library orders in new books, or when people invite him to their party.
It’s Misa’s 17th, and she invited the whole year level, as well as the year level above and below. Her backyard was decorated with pink and gold crap. It must’ve cost a fortune.
Anyway, I was sitting on the grass, bored out of my mind, and that’s when I saw him, sitting with a group of randoms, and he looked relaxed for once. Maybe it had to do with the beer he was nursing, but he was flashing his smile everywhere, giving it away for free.
His legs were bent, and he was propping himself up with one hand behind him, the other hand holding the beer can in his lap. And then he laughed, and it wasn’t a small laugh, it was the way he would laugh when we were kids, with his eyes closed and his mouth open wide enough to catch flies.
I finished my drink and started another, and while everyone sitting with me continued talking about crap I didn’t care about, I continued to stare at Charlie like a creep.
I watched as more people talked to him, acting like they were friends when they’d never speak to him at school. I know that’s a thing that happens at parties. With music, a bit of alcohol and good vibes, people are friendlier than usual. Bolder. Like, for example, that party two months ago when that boy from Year 10 — someone I’d never spoken to before — came up to me and asked me in a way that was simultaneously shy and unflappable if I wanted to take a walk with him.
