Page 54 of Faultlines

What is wrong with me?

This is Claire’s fundraiser. She’s thirty feet away, thanking donors, and I just betrayed her in a storage room. The realization lands with a sickening weight, but instead of following it where it wants to take me, I shove it down, straighten my jacket, and force myself back toward the noise of the event.

I make my escape toward the bar, hoping a change of scenery will help me regain some perspective. Leaning against a cocktail table is Reid with a drink in hand and an expression that puts me on edge.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asks.

“Sure.”

“You seem distracted. What’s up with your hair?” he asks as he circles his hand gesturing toward my head.

I force a shrug and fight not to run my fingers through it. “What do you mean?”

“You look like you just tumbled out of bed,” he says with a strange look.

He sips his drink before speaking again. “You may want to run to the bathroom and splash some water on it. Also, you should work on your subtlety.”

The blood drains from my face. “What? No. I don’t—” I shake my head, eyes darting to the window. “That’s not even—why would you say that?”

“Really? You’ve spent most of the evening pretending not to look at a certain someone while looking at them constantly.”

I force a laugh, jamming my hands in my pockets. “It’s a party, Reid. People look at each other.”

“Maybe.”

His gaze is unwavering. “Or maybe I’ve known you too long.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

SURFACE RUPTURE

Ethan

I make the drive to the office on autopilot. No matter how hard I try to focus on the road, my thoughts keep circling back to the conversation I overheard yesterday while standing behind a stack of packed boxes as we cleaned up after the weekend's event.

“You are not going to believe what Arya Stevens told me. On her way to the bathroom last night, she heard… noises coming from the tack room. Sex noises, apparently. She said it sounded like they were right up against the door.” I hear Sloane say in a whisper.

She continues when neither Lucy nor Claire responds. “She said that when she came out of the bathroom, Brooke walked out of the tack room, tugging her dress back into place and smoothing her hair.”

“Gross, I’m going to have to sanitize that room,” Lucy says.

“I saw Reid watching her earlier,” Claire says slowly, like she’s working through it out loud. “At the bar. He kept looking over, you know? But he’s—” She makes a face when she glances around the room. “He’s probably close to her dad’s age, practically. That’d be gross.”

It’s a relief they suspect Reid, but the thought of them questioning him terrifies me. If Reid finds out—God, he’ll know. He’ll know it was me.

I force myself to focus on the road, rehearsing every possible explanation before reminding myself none of them matter unless someone starts asking questions. By the time I pull into the office parking lot, my shoulders ache from gripping the steering wheel.

The familiar smell of printer ink and basswood shavings does nothing to ground me. On my drafting table, a parking structure model sits half-finished, its precise angles and load-bearing walls a stark contrast to the chaos in my head.

Reid walks in balancing a set of drawing tubes tucked under one arm and two coffees in the other. “Morning.”

“You seem annoyingly cheerful for a Monday.”

“I have coffee.”

He hands a cup to me before dropping the plans onto my desk. “I also have something better.”

I glance down at the rolled drawings. “Please tell me that’s not another school renovation.”