Page 83 of Harnessed in Gold

“That’s not what I mean.”

He tries to touch me, just a gentle sweep of his fingers down my cheek, but it stings like alcohol on an open wound. I jerk back, and alarm flashes in his eyes.

“Is this about Rime?”

“No, it’s about me.” You and me. “We’ll talk about it later,” I lie as I reach for the door handle. “I can walk if you don’t want to take me home.”

The threat has the desired effect. He starts the car and pulls out of the lot. The two-minute drive feels like an eternity. More than once he tries to coax me to talk. More than once I deflect with a polite, “It’s fine.”

Because it will be fine.I’llbe fine.

Because I won’t let myself fall for a man I’ll never see again.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I trudgethrough the heavy doors to Newberry and down the hall to my room, every part of my body aching. My butt is sore from sitting on the cold ground, my thighs are twitchy from straddling Leo in the car, and my head throbs with all my suppressed emotions.

Liv is on her bed, lying on her back with her iPad propped on her bent knees.

I close the door and toss my keys onto my desk. “How did your exam go?” The exam she was so busy cramming for, she didn’t have time last night or this morning to give me the third degree.

“Nuh-uh.” She shuts off her iPad and tosses it aside. “You’re not going to distract me.”

I sigh and sink onto my bed.

“Betts, who on earth were those people you were with yesterday?”

“Well, you know Leo, and I’ve told you about Avery and Aaron?—”

“Notthem,” Liv huffs, sitting up. “That hot blond guy and that girl who looks like she hates the world.”

I stifle a snort. Topaz does hate the world. TheSubworld. And I’m not sure I really blame her.

“They’re friends of Leo’s,” I say, even though Liv won’t find that fact particularly reassuring.

“Okay, I don’t get it.” She throws up her hands in frustration. “You said Leo broke your heart, but now you’re not only hanging out with him, you’re hanging out with his friends, too?”

“Um, yeah?” I answer with a sheepish grimace. “But I told you Leo and I were still friends.”

So, so, so, so not friends.

I flop back onto my bed so I don’t have to look Liv in the eye.

But she persists. “What were y’all doing, anyway?”

“We were, uh, looking for something—” Crap, I should’ve prepared a story in advance. “Some sort of artifact… in the chapel… an, uh, art history thing… that’s Avery’s major.”

I prop up on an elbow and chance a peek at Liv. Her left eyebrow is arched so high, it’s practically a right angle.

“An artifact in the chapel? Seriously?”

“A candlestick, to be exact. From the sixteenth century.” Might as well run with it. The more details I give, the less she’ll suspect me of lying. Which, technically, I’m not.

She blinks at me, and for a moment, she’s at a loss for words. I slip off my shoes and dig my laptop out of my backpack.

“I thought you guys were into that witchy stuff. Tarot and all that.”

“Yeah.” I shrug, my back to her as I set my laptop on my desk and plug it in to charge. “We do that, too.”