“Charlotte,” I groan. “Why are you hiding in the dark?”
“I’m being covert.” She points a finger in my face. “Don’t change the subject.”
Reaching behind me, I flick on the light, and she blinks like some kind of cave dweller who’s never seen the light.
“I’ve been outside. With Grayson.” Judging by the way she’s jumped me in my room, I take it she’s already heard he’s here. I rub my hands together, trying to warm up.
“Yes, I know that. I’ve been watching out your window.”
The window beside my bed has a full view of the pool, the lawn, and the gardens that stretch to the brick wall on the back of the property. Walking toward it, I can see the place on the path, beneath the red oak trees just before the garden entrance, where Grayson and I spent the last few hours.
“Congrats,” I say. “Your status has just been upgraded to full creeper.”
“The Ginger Princess does not approve of your sarcasm,” she tells me. “Sam said Belk gave him the room next to Henry’s. I told them to lock their doors before they go to sleep tonight.”
“Take it down a notch, Ginger Princess. Grayson’s not a serial killer.”
“That you know of. Where is he anyway?”
I sigh, sitting on the edge of my bed. Charlotte, a bundle of energy, stands before me, arms crossed over her chest. She’s wearing her pajamas—a big pink sleep shirt over fleece pants. Her neon-green toenails peek out from beneath.
“Moore came outside to get him. I think they were going over the rules and everything.”
Her fingers tap against her biceps. “So this is real. He’s actually living here.”
“For a while.” I wiggle my toes inside my worn Chuck Taylor’s—it feels like they’re being jabbed with pins and needles. “Were you sleeping? It’s six o’clock.”
“Belk took everyone who wasn’t working to a movie. I only got out of it because I said I was sick. My performance was so convincing Ms. Maddox came in special to make me soup.”
My stomach grumbles. Dinner’s on your own on the weekends, but our housekeeper always leaves something to heat up in the fridge. I bypassed the kitchen after coming in, too distracted by the current situation.
“Did Caleb go?”
“Belk basically dragged him out the door.”
I gnaw the corner of my lip and kick off my shoes. I wish I knew what Dr. O said to Caleb after Grayson and I went outside—if it was the same decree that we keep a friendly distance or something more.
“Geri went, too, I take it.” I think of her open door, and the mess in her room.
“She didn’t even have a chance to do her makeup. You know how well that went over.”
I shiver. I know from personal experience not to get in the way when Geri wants something. Over the summer, when she was upset I’d taken over with Grayson, she planted enough narcotics on me to send me to jail for drug trafficking. Of course, that was on Dr. O’s orders, but I doubt he twisted her arm much.
“I guess the director wants the house quiet while our new guest settles in,” I mutter.
Charlotte’s bitterness warps into worry. “We’re on DEFCON 5. Dr. O told us we’re all steering clear of Gray-brynn, and operating on happy student mode until otherwise notified.”
“He said all that, huh?”
“I’m paraphrasing.”
My head falls into my hands. “This shouldn’t be weird at all.”
“Especially for me. It’s going to ruin my birthday, I hope you know that.”
Charlotte’s planning a big party for her eighteenth in a few weeks—I made her a puff-paint T-shirt that says Ginger Princess. It’s not exactly designer, but she’ll love it.
Everyone playing pretend for Grayson’s sake will definitely put a damper on things.
She sits beside me, one arm linking through mine. “So what did the son of Sterling say?”
“That he missed me.”
She raises a brow. “Hello. This just got interesting.”
With a shake of my head, I tell her the things he said outside, feeling lighter as she absorbs my words.
“So you’re playing BFF with your old mark. That’s not terrible.” She’s trying to sound hopeful, but all I can think about is my new job at The Loft, and Jimmy Balder, and if Matthew Sterling has covered up an intern’s disappearance.
And what he’ll do to me if he knows I’m onto him.
“That’s not all,” I say.
“Do tell.”
Charlotte’s twirling the ends of her orange curls around one finger. I can’t tell her about my new assignment, even if I want to. If I do, I could be done here, and having her around knowing half the truth is better than not having her around at all.
“Caleb and I are off until Grayson leaves.”
She cranks her head my direction. “You’re not seriously breaking up!”
“We aren’t officially together,” I say, but the look on Caleb’s face when I said I knew Grayson better returns to my mind and pinches something inside me. What we have is real, with or without the title.
“Of course you are,” she says, the pink pout of her lips contrasting the paleness of her cheeks. “Everyone else knows it even if you don’t.”
“What happened to watch out for Caleb?” When I started at Vale Hall, she’d warned me to be careful around him—that he’d gotten his last girlfriend, Margot, kicked out because he was jealous.
In reality, Margot had gotten herself kicked out by falling for her assignment and telling him all about the program. Caleb had tried to talk sense into her, but it was too late.
“Like you could even hear me through all the hormones.” She presses a hand on her throat, and I wonder if that sickness was feigned for my benefit. “Good luck hiding that from Grayson. Any cat in a twenty-mile radius spontaneously goes into heat whenever you two enter the same room.”
“Gross,” I say. But my cheeks are warm.
Chemistry is not a problem with Caleb.
Charlotte shrugs. “He left you a note.”
I throw my hands up. “Seriously. You couldn’t lead with that?”
“I was saving it in case I had to torture the truth out of you.” She pulls a folded piece of paper out of her fuzzy pocket and passes it my way. I practically snatch it out of her hand, hiding it against my body as I unfold the creased paper.
There are only two words, etched in his perfect penmanship.
Midnight. Roof.
“Trysts are so romantic,” Charlotte stage whispers in my ear.
I shove her off. “How am I supposed to get on the roof?”
“Go through the attic. Duh.”
I blink at her. “I’m sorry. Where’s the attic?”
She smirks. “It delights me that I can be the one to corrupt you. Henry will be so jealous.”
* * *
AT 11:55, I close the door to the supply closet behind me, guided only by the light on my cell phone. To reach the pull-down cord in the center of the ceiling, I have to climb on the bottom shelf, nudging aside the boxes of tampons with the toe of my shoe.
The higher I go, the more my nose crinkles at the smell of moth balls, but finally, after two attempts, my grip closes around the brass ring hanging from the cord. With a victorious smile, I give it a small tug, but the squeal of the falling attic ladder catches me by surprise, and I slip off the shelf. My feet hit the floor with a thump.