Chapter 4 Who Do You Work for

• My thumb hovered over Damon’s name in my contacts for a full minute before I actually called him.
• He picked up on the second ring. “Miss me already?”
• “Who does your father work for?”
• Silence on the other end, just long enough to tell me the question landed somewhere it shouldn’t have.
• “What kind of question is that?” Damon said, and his voice had changed, careful now, testing the ground before he stepped on it.
• “Someone just texted me,” I said, pacing my bedroom floor, phone pressed hard against my ear. “A number I don’t know. They said they know what I am. They said I’m not the only one. And then they told me to ask you who your father really works for.”
• “Read me the exact words.”
• I read the messages back to him, both of them, my voice shaking on the second one even though I told myself it wouldn’t.
• Another silence. Longer this time.
• “Damon.”
• “I’m here,” he said. “I’m thinking.”
• “Think faster.”
• “My father runs Cross Industries,” Damon said slowly, like he was choosing each word off a shelf. “Real estate, construction, half the buildings downtown. That’s what he does. That’s what everyone knows he does.”
• “That’s not an answer, that’s a company name.”
• “It’s the only answer I’ve got right now,” Damon said, and something in his voice told me he wasn’t lying exactly, but he wasn’t telling me everything either. “Aria, I don’t know who sent you that text. I swear to you, I don’t.”
• “Someone out there knows what I am,” I said, sitting down hard on the edge of my bed. “Someone besides you. And they know enough to bring your family into it. That’s not nothing, Damon.”
• “I know.”
• “So what do we do?”
• “We don’t panic,” Damon said. “Whoever sent that wants a reaction. Don’t give them one. Block the number, don’t respond, and let me ask around.”
• “Ask around where? Who exactly do you know that could send a text like that?”
• “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “But I’ll find out.”
• I pressed my fingers against my eyes, trying to slow my own heartbeat down through sheer will. “This was supposed to be simple, Damon. Fake dating. In and out. You said a few months, tops.”
• “It still is simple,” he said. “Someone’s just trying to scare you. It’s probably some jealous ex of mine trying to mess with the new girlfriend.”
• “You don’t actually believe that.”
• “No,” Damon said quietly. “I don’t.”
• That honesty scared me more than any lie could have.~~~
• Monday morning, Wren showed up at my locker holding two coffees and wearing an expression like she’d been awake since four in the morning planning something.
• “Okay,” she said, shoving one coffee into my hand. “We need to talk about strategy.”
• “Strategy for what?”
• “For you and Damon Cross being a convincing couple,” Wren said, like this was obvious. “You two looked stiff as boards at lunch on Friday. People are going to start asking questions if you keep standing three feet apart like you’re at a job interview.”
• “We’re new,” I said. “New couples are awkward.”
• “New couples are gross and touchy and can’t keep their hands off each other,” Wren said. “You two look like coworkers who got assigned a group project.”
• I nearly choked on my coffee.
• “I’m serious,” Wren said. “You need help. Lucky for you, I have watched every rom-com ever made, and I am prepared to coach you through this.”
• “Wren, I don’t need…”
• “Rule one,” Wren said, holding up a finger like she hadn’t heard a word I said. “Eye contact. Real couples look at each other when they talk, not at their phones, not at the floor, not over each other’s shoulders like they’re checking for exits.”
• “Wren.”
• “Rule two, physical touch. Hand holding, at minimum. You don’t have to make out in the hallway, god, please don’t, I will actually die of secondhand embarrassment, but a hand on the arm, fingers laced together, something.”
• “Are you finished?”
• “Rule three,” Wren continued, completely unbothered, “you have to laugh at his jokes. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.”
• “His jokes aren’t that bad.”
• Wren’s eyebrows shot up so fast I thought they might disappear into her hairline. “Oh my god. You actually like him.”
• “I did not say that.”
• “You defended his jokes, Aria. Unprompted. That is a tell.”
• “It is not a tell, it’s a fact, some of his jokes are genuinely funny…”
• “Speak of the devil,” Wren said, grinning wide as she looked over my shoulder.
• I turned around and there he was, walking toward us like he owned the hallway, which, fine, in a way he kind of did. He had that easy smile on, the one that made half the girls at school forget how to form sentences, and for one horrible second I understood exactly why.
• “Ladies,” Damon said.
• “We were just discussing your comedic timing,” Wren said before I could stop her.
• Damon raised an eyebrow at me. “Were we now?”
• “Ignore her,” I said.
• “I would never,” Damon said, then reached out and took my hand, easy, natural, like he’d done it a hundred times, and I nearly dropped my coffee.
• That same jolt from Friday shot straight up my arm, sharp and strange, and I saw something flicker across Damon’s face too, quick, like he felt it and decided not to mention it.
• “There we go,” Wren whispered, way too pleased with herself. “See, Aria, that wasn’t so hard.”
• “I hate you,” I muttered.
• “You love me,” Wren said cheerfully, and walked off toward her first class, leaving Damon and me standing there, his hand still wrapped around mine, both of us pretending the static electricity excuse still made any sense at all.
• “You okay?” Damon asked, quiet now, the performance dropping the second Wren was out of earshot.
• “I didn’t sleep much,” I admitted. “Kept thinking about that text.”
• “I asked around,” Damon said. “Nobody knows anything about a strange number sending threats. I checked with a few guys from my father’s pack too, careful, so nobody got suspicious.”
• “And?”
• “Nothing,” Damon said, but his jaw was tight when he said it, and I was starting to learn that Damon Cross had a very specific face he made when he wasn’t telling me the whole truth.
• “Damon.”
• “There’s a name,” he said finally, voice dropping lower. “Something my father said on the phone once, months ago, before any of this started. A name I wasn’t supposed to hear.”
• My stomach turned cold. “What name?”
• The first bell rang, loud and sudden, cutting through the hallway like a blade.
• “Not here,” Damon said, glancing around at the crowd of students pushing past us toward their classrooms. “Meet me at lunch. I’ll tell you everything.”
• “Damon, you can’t just..”
• “Lunch,” he said again, squeezing my hand once before letting go and disappearing into the crowd, leaving me standing there with half a name I didn’t have and a whole day of classes I wasn’t going to be able to focus on.
• I made it through the first period on autopilot, staring at my textbook without reading a single word, my mind circling that name over and over like a dog chasing its own tail. Whatever Damon had heard, it scared him enough to want privacy before saying it out loud, and Damon Cross didn’t scare easy, I’d figured that much out already.
• When the lunch bell finally rang, I practically ran to the cafeteria.
• Damon wasn’t there.
• I checked our usual table, checked the courtyard, checked the hallway outside the gym where we’d had our first real conversation. Nothing. No Damon anywhere, and no text explaining why.
• My phone buzzed in my pocket.
• Not Damon’s name on the screen.
• The same unknown number from Friday night.
• Looking for your boyfriend? Check the east parking lot. He’s not alone.