Chapter
Forty
A knock sounds on my partially closed door and then Mom pushes it open, Cass standing behind her. “Your friend is here,” she says cheerily, sending me a pointed smile.
She shifts out of the way and Cass moves past her, nodding in her direction. “Thanks, Mrs. Malone.”
“Keep the door open,” she warns us before she leaves my room.
Leaving us alone.
Cass stands by the foot of my bed, watching me with a faint smile curling his lips. “You look good.”
I haven’t taken a real shower, my hair is greasy, I’m wearing raggedy old sweats and a beat-up T-shirt. Oh, and I was just stabbed. I know for a fact I look like hell. “You look good, too.”
He does. He’s wearing a blue plaid button-down shirt and jeans, his dark hair a little wild about his head. His gaze is soft as he studies me, his full mouth curved in that smug smile I used to despise but now adore. “Can I sit with you?” he asks tentatively. “On your bed?”
I scoot over as best I can, wincing with the movement. Cass rushes to my side, trying to help me, and I let him. Then he kicks off his shoes—the beat-up Converse—and climbs into bed with me, him on top of the covers while I’m beneath them. He’s solid and warm and when he curves his arm around me so I can rest my head on his shoulder, for the first time since this wild situation started, I actually feel safe.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” he murmurs against my hair, his voice shaky.
“I’m too tough.” I poke him in the ribs with my index finger, making him laugh.
“Seriously, I should be mad at you for not telling me what you were doing last night.” He hesitates, then gives me a squeeze. “I would’ve helped you.”
“I know. But I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, I guess. I kept thinking I was wrong, though my gut told me it was her.”
“Why Maggie, though? Why was she targeting the Larks? I thought she was a Lark,” he says.
I explain what she told me. How she went to middle school with us, how Gretchen and Lex made fun of her, and how Maggie could never let it go. That she was seeking her revenge and she almost got away with it. She was never a real suspect. At least, not in my eyes.
I don’t know what all of this is going to do to the Larks. Or to my relationship with Courtney. I know Maggie is in jail. The media is losing its mind over the story. An eighteen-year-old girl is a criminal mastermind on the verge of becoming a serial killer. It’s straight out of a teen slasher movie.
“I wondered at one point if it was a Lark. Remember?” Cass muses as he twirls a thick strand of my hair around his finger. “I know you believed it was Courtney, but I never really thought so.”
I’m so relieved it wasn’t Courtney after all. “I don’t remember you telling me that you suspected a Lark, so your suspicion is void,” I tease, though the more I think about it, the more I kind of do remember him mentioning his suspicions.
“The cops were shocked, too. Spalding told me straight up Hughes thought it was Courtney.”
I glance at him. “Are you serious? Hughes and I were thinking the same thing? I hate that guy!”
Cass chuckles. “He’s not that bad. Neither of them are. They were just doing their job.”
“Says the former suspect and reformed drug dealer.”
“Hey, don’t be mean.” Now he pokes me in the side, but gently. Not anywhere close to my wound.
“I’m sorry. I was just teasing.” I tilt my head back to meet his gaze, and he bends down, dropping a soft kiss on my lips. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
His answer is a kiss. A long, sweet, warm, tongue-filled kiss that leaves me wanting more when he finally breaks away. I don’t even care if Mom or Dad finds us making out on my bed. I missed Cass that much.
“I can’t blame you,” he murmurs against my lips. “I’m sorry we fought.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
“No problem,” he says jokingly, making us both laugh softly.
“Seriously, Cass. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up,” I tell him.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” Cass says as he runs his fingers over my hair.
I close my eyes. That feels so good. I could fall asleep if he keeps this up. “We have.”
“I’m really sorry you had to experience that. And that you lost your friends.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I murmur.
“But at least you’re safe.”
I snuggle closer to him. “At least you are, too.”
“I think we make a good pair.”
“I do, too.”
“Are you willing to give this a shot? Even though there isn’t a murder mystery to solve anymore? Now you might find me kind of boring.” I hear the amusement in his voice, and it makes me smile.
I open my eyes to find him watching me with a faint smirk. “Trust me, I could never consider you boring, Cass Vincenti.”
“Right back at ya, Pen,” he whispers.
Just before he kisses me.