Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

October

The school cafeteria is never quiet. There are always people gossiping or catching up or jostling with each other at the lunch line or comparing notes during revision period. Even when half the school came down with strep throat that one time and could barely speak (before they were all promptly ordered home by the school nurse), there was always some chatter going around.

Until today.

Cardan walks in with his hand in Jude Duarte’s back pocket, and finally, finally, everyone goes blessedly silent.

*****

2 Days Ago

Cardan is scowling so hard he thinks his face might stay this way forever.

This is ridiculous, he thinks, not moving an inch from his hiding place behind a row of lockers. Nicasia and I have known each other for seven years. At some point, one of us is going to have to be an Adult about this.

He skirts around the edge of the lockers, hugging the wall. A peep around the corner finds the coast clear.

Another day since The Incident. Another day spent learning that no amount of world-class, stimulating lessons, manicured campus grounds, or popularity can make school bearable without his best friend.

Well, tough luck. If she hadn’t tried to kiss him, he wouldn’t need to go so far out of his way to avoid her. But she had, and now everything sucks—for him. She seems perfectly fine, while he’s skulking around campus trying to avoid the inevitable confrontation. And normally, Cardan loves confrontation. Still, it’s a good thing she’s got the entire cheer squad hanging off her—eleven stunning, talkative, hyper-popular girls are much easier to avoid than one.

But it’s been a week since The Incident, and there is only so much peering around corners and eating his lunch alone on the bleachers and ducking into the male restrooms that he can take.

At least P.E. is Nicasia-free. The thought makes his lap around the track feel marginally less debilitating. Cardan can do splits and tumbles and handstands, but running around a track like a caveman? Hard pass.

Until, behind him, a voice calls out: “Hey!” Cardan twists his body slightly, and from the periphery of his gaze, he catches sight of a blur of walnut-colored hair.

Jude Duarte catches up to him easily.

“Hey,” she says, barely even panting. She’s wearing a simple white cropped top and linen shorts the color of wood smoke. He can’t help noticing how the color sets off her summer tan, how fit and relaxed she looks.

“What.” Cardan flicks her a glance and then stares straight ahead. Seeing her once today had been bad enough. Locke had cornered him in the hallway before first period, backing him into the lockers. His face had been plastered with a wide, slick smile, asking how his summer had been, how well he looks, and did he know how Nicasia was doing these days?

And then Jude had walked by, freshly showered and rosy from her morning run, lacrosse stick in her grip. Cardan had to watch Locke yank her towards him and tuck her under his arm, smirking all the while. 

Seriously, what was that guy’s problem?

“I think you left something behind in AP Lit,” she says, and this time, Cardan does look properly—and immediately turns the color of his tennis whites.

Shit, he thinks, darting a quick look up at her face, but she just looks expectantly back at him.

Safe, then. Cardan does his best not snatch the notebook back. “Thanks,” he mutters, exhaling quietly.

She nods, no problem, and claps him on the arm, already turning to go. The contact sends a shock through him, and his arm spasms. He drops his notebook. It falls to the rust-red track, fluttering open to the very last page, where he likes to doodle during class.

“Shit!”

Cardan lunges for it. Distantly, he realizes he’s fallen to his knees, fingers scrabbling across the track. There is a loud, rushing noise in his head and dirt beneath his fingernails. His vision wavers. He slams the notebook shut, holding it so tightly he’s warping the cover. Jude has a stunned, bewildered expression on her face.

It doesn’t look good, he knows. A full page of someone’s name—anyone’s name—doesn’t look good, but especially not your best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend.

That’s really complicated. It’s a small town, okay?

“I know what it looks like,” Cardan finds himself saying. Who let him open his mouth? The world is narrowing, fading. “But, I swear, I’m not a serial killer or anything. It’s just—”

Words desert him. It’s just what? What even is there to say? But it’s not like he fancies Jude or anything, sometimes she just takes up space in his thoughts, which is perfectly normal, isn’t it, it’s just—and while casting around desperately for an excuse, Cardan’s eyes land on a figure, striding purposefully up the pebbled path leading to the school track.

Nicasia.

“Oh, shit,” he breathes.

“Cardan,” Jude says, the sound going off like a bad TV connection. She’s squatting down beside him. “What the h— “

“Shit!” he yells, and then he has his shaking hands on Jude’s shoulders and he’s pulling her towards him or pushing her to the ground, he won’t be able to remember later on, only that the rushing noise in his head has escalated to a whistling white blankness, he can’t see shit, and then a softness against his lips, and then—

“Thanks,” someone says (it sounds like him), and then he’s sprinting off in the opposite direction, his heart hammering fit to burst.

*

Cardan lies on his stomach on his bed, googling “sexual assault charges minor” on his iPhone. Irritation bubbles beneath his skin as he scrolls.

Ugh!

He doesn’t really think Jude will press charges, but, to be fair, he did force himself on her. He thinks. It’s all kind of blurry right now. He rolls over onto his back, and presses his fingers to his lips. 

He kind of wishes he could remember what had happened. He lowers his phone, overheated from his frantic energy, to his chest.

There is a knock on his door.

“Cardan?” The voice belongs to Rhyia, his big sister.

“Yeah?”

“Nicasia’s at the door… What should I tell her?”

Cardan groans. “Tell her I’m not in,” he begs.

“She can see your car parked outside.”

Cardan clambers out of bed, yanking on his trousers. He jams his ruby ring onto his finger. Rhyia’s eyes follow him, concerned.

“Still avoiding her, huh?”

That’s a rhetorical question, he thinks. He hauls his window open and hooks a leg over the sill, squeezing out onto the roof. Behind him, he hears his big sister sigh and shut the door behind her. With any luck, she’ll be able to stall Nicasia for some time.

The unfortunate thing about his house is how tall the first floor is, he thinks as he stands at the lip of the roof. The ground below is lush and verdant, and easily a ten-foot drop. Luckily, the architect who did the remodeling also thought to place a very convenient ivy lattice on the east-facing wall, so he just needs to stay low and keep out of sight as he crawls over to the adjacent wall and then slowly, carefully, swings himself down. He drops to the last four feet to the ground, landing cat-like on the grass. 

He doesn’t really cycle anymore, but he figures the car would be too noisy for a stealthy escape. Another bit of luck, then, that Rhyia has left her bike leaning against the side of the front porch. 

*

There are few places that Nicasia will never think to look for him. The library. The thrift store.

A small, out-of-the-way diner, just on the outskirts of town.

Cardan used to go there with his mother, before she—well. Disappeared.

What? He’s not ashamed of it. Everyone at school knows his mother left when he was little, and if they dare to give him shit for it, he’d ruin them.

Or Nicasia would, if they were still talking.  

Anyway, the diner makes a mean chunky monkey milkshake. Another reason why Nicasia would never set foot in here.

(Technically, Cardan shouldn’t be drinking it either, since competition season is looming in the horizon, but after the day he’s had, he thinks he’s allowed.)

And then Jude Duarte slides into the barstool next to him. “Cardan?”

Crap.

“Duarte,” he greets, weakly. Her hair is slightly damp, as if she’s just gotten out of the shower. She smells like fresh mint leaves.

Out of politeness (since when did he care about things like that?), he flags down a waitress for her. She orders a double chocolate shake, which arrives with his chunky monkey. Jude fishes a metal straw out of her bag (of course), and takes a noisy slurp.

She slides a glance at him from under long lashes. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Great, Cardan thinks. I molest someone I hate, and now she’s going to kick my ass.

“I just want to be clear: I’m flattered—I am!” she says, in response to his immediate wince of disbelief. She’s forcing a laugh, but it sounds more bewildered than anything. “But Locke and I are kind of in a weird place right now…”

“Are you trying to reject me?” Cardan asks flatly.

Jude lifts a shoulder—a shrug.

“Trust me, that was just—a weird, random thing. I don’t know. It can’t be explained, but whatever. I’m just telling you right now, with all the sincerity in my heart—” Jude makes a little scoffing noise— “It didn’t mean anything. Make of that what you will.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” She nods, and, oh thank God, she seems to be buying it.

“Jude Duarte, I’m not a creep,” he promises, his lips curving involuntarily in relief. “And I’m not trying to date you."

They sit in silence at they drain their smoothies. Jude’s hair falls to partially hide her face. She seems to be thinking. Cardan twists his ring on and off his pinkie, fidgets with the paper wrapper for his straw, winding it round and round his fingers.

“Funny how your mouth says that,” she murmurs into her emptying glass. He realizes that she’s watching him out of the corner of her eye. “But your mouth was also saying something completely different.” 

Cardan does his best to fight down the heat in his cheeks. Cardan Greenbriar does not blush. “Here’s the thing,” he says at last. “I don’t actually like you. I just had to make it look like I liked you, so somebody else would know that I didn’t like them.”

That’s certainly true enough.

Her mouth twitches upwards, but her gaze is suddenly faraway. “Yeah, I didn’t really think you did either.”

Suddenly something snaps to alertness in her gaze. “Who is it? No, wait, I can guess: Nicasia.”

Cardan blinks. “How did you know?”

Jude gives him a look. “Girls always know these things,” she says, cryptically. “But also, you just told me.”

And then, because the day cannot get any stranger, she offers him a lift home.

*

“I can’t believe that’s your bike,” she says, as he lifts it out of the back of her Jeep and wheels it up his graveled driveway.

He scowls. “If you must know, it’s my sister’s bike, but also, who said men can’t have eggshell blue bikes? Societal norms only exist to hold us back,” he says archly.

It’s barely there for a second, but a smile flits across her face. “I also can’t believe you live in this place.”

Cardan squints up at his house. He supposes that after you’ve lived somewhere all your life, you stop taking notice of it. But he tries to look at it through her eyes: the expansive, impeccable lawn, stretching up to the imposing stone and marble façade; the grey gabled roof; the portico with colonnades; the car turntable in the garage.

“It was once a convent owned by nuns,” he says helpfully.

Again, that quicksilver smile.

Cardan hesitates with his hand on the door handle.

“Sorry for the whole jumping you thing,” he says, quietly.

Jude lifts one shoulder in a small, lopsided shrug. “Hey, it could’ve been worse, right?” Her smile is small and rueful. Belatedly, he remembers something that she said.

“Did you and Locke break up?”

Her face goes stony, which is all the answer he needs. It must hurt like a sucking wound, if it was anything like Locke’s breakup with Nicasia. Even if Jude doesn’t look hurt. He wonders if the similarities in their circumstances will make Nicasia hate Jude less. Or more. It’s hard to tell with girls.

“What are you going to tell your friend?” she counters.

He sighs and glares at the clear autumn sky, watercolor blue. “The truth, I guess,” he mumbles distastefully. He leans his bike against a roman pillar and climbs up the stairs to the front door. 

“Hey, hold on.” Jude jogs up to him, clearing the distance in her quick, loping gait. This is possibly the longest interaction they’ve ever had, and Cardan kind of wants it to be over so he can hide in his room and seriously contemplate moving to the mountains and living as a goat-herder.

“What if you didn’t tell her?”

“What?” Cardan says, raising his brows.

“What if—” something flickers over Jude’s face for a split second, then it’s gone— “What if we let people think we are actually together?”

Cardan feels his brows try to climb all the way up to his hairline.

“Just for a little while!” she exclaims, her cheeks going a little pink, but she looks determined. “And not just Nicasia. I mean everybody.”

He narrows his eyes at her. There’s something bright and calculating about the way she’s looking at him. Maybe that’s why Locke liked her; there was something in her that reflected him, and there’s nothing Locke likes more than himself.

“What’s in it for you?” he asks, suspicious.

“Well, for starters, when Locke heard you kissed me, he went nuts.” Now that’s a tempting mental image. And she looks wonderfully sly, which Cardan does not find charming.

“And if he thinks that you and I are a thing, he’ll want to get back together!”

Cardan takes all of it back; that goat-herder dream is starting to look better and better.

“So you want to use me as your pawn?” he says, droll.

“Technically,” she says, primly, “You used me as your pawn first when you jumped me.”

It certainly takes one to know one, Cardan concedes. He takes that as his cue to leave.

“Look,” she calls after him. “You don’t have to give me an answer now, just think about it, okay?”

“Don’t hold your breath,” he retorts.

*

Cardan has a dream that night. In his dream, he’s running on the track again, and someone is gaining on him. He knows, in the peculiar way of dreams, that it’s Jude. She catches up to him, and smiles that small, private smile.

“Hey,” she says, and, because it’s a dream, he catches her wrist and pull her closer. He wants to tell her not to open that notebook. He wants to tell her she’s full of stupid ideas. He can feel her breath on his lips.

He backs away, he instinctively looks over to that little pebbled path just off the track, where Nicasia is standing. And as he looks as her, she seems to become vapor. Between one blink and the next, she vanishes.

Jude strokes his cheek, comforting, comfortable. “Don’t worry about her,” she says, inviting, murmuring it into his mouth.

And as she leans in close, Cardan jerks awake, and says, into the knowing darkness of his empty room, “Oh, my god." 

*

Cardan strides single-mindedly across the field where the lacrosse team is playing a warm-up game before practice. He barely registers the ripple of awareness passing through the bystanders as the rest of the team stops to stare at him.

He’s in his uniform; cheerleading tryouts for the year are beginning today. He hopes Jude hasn’t changed her mind.

“Hey, Duarte!”

The slender figure pushing the goal-post into place pauses, walks up to him. Her expression is almost languid, but her shoulders hold tension. She peers up at him, curious.

He makes himself unclench his hands.

“Let’s do this.”

Her face breaks into a grin, delightfully wicked.

It’s because of that grin that when she brings one hand up to his cheek in a movie identical to the one in his dream, he doesn’t protest. He doesn’t even think to protest. It’s a hazard, that grin. And then she rises to her tip-toes, her other arm wrapping around his shoulders. She tilts her head slightly, and presses their lips together in a long, sweet kiss.

Cardan’s mind goes blank. 

A second later, he realizes he’s kissing her back. His hand goes to her waist, pulling her close, and Jude’s lips part beneath his. He can feel her exhale against his mouth, shaky, and he presses in, suddenly dizzy. There’s a roaring between his ears, and Jude smells so good—like spearmint and French lavender. Her tongue touches his bottom lip, and he pulls away.

Their eyes meet.

“I’m going for cheer tryouts now,” he says, stiff. His breathing is a little ragged.  “Carry on,” he says to the rest of the team, trying to summon his usual tone. He steadfastly does not look at anyone as he walks away.

*

The next morning, sitting under the dappled shade of a tall beech tree, they come up with a list of rules, because Jude is That Sort of Person. Cardan commits the list to memory and rips up the piece of note-paper, because if there’s anything he’s learnt today, it’s the importance of getting rid of evidence.

Chapter Text

The thing is, Cardan is used to being noticed. In fact, he takes special care to give the people something to look at: his perfectly coiffed hair, his stylishly coordinated designer outfits. Being flanked by the cheerleaders, with their glossy hair and their swinging hips, with Nicasia by his side, a manicured hand tucked into his elbow. It’s all a carefully calculated part of his image.

It’s nothing compared to the sheer number of faces agog as the head cheerleader and the vice-captain of the lacrosse team walk in together. People fall silent in waves, as their friends elbow them or they notice the encroaching quiet, and then the murmurs begin, rippling across the rooms. Cardan can just hear the fingers twitching to text, tweet, Insta-story.

His hand tightens in Jude’s back pocket.

“Why are you squeezing my ass?” she hisses. In his peripheral vision, he can see her fighting a smile.

He gives a firm but gentle tug, the momentum reeling her in until he catches her. Their faces are bare inches apart. Jude tilts her chin up to look at him, challenging.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Locke with his mouth open, a forkful of spaghetti frozen in mid-air. His eyes are wide with disbelief. His expression is murderous.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” Cardan murmurs, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Uh,” Jude says intelligently. Her eyes dart down, once. “Yeah. Sure. Later.”

He wants to kiss her again, in front of the whole school this time, but that’s not in the contract.

She’s barely out the swinging doors before someone with hair the color of the deep ocean grabs ahold of him, manicured nails digging into his dove-gray cashmere jumper. He finds himself angrily yanked into an empty classroom.

“Nicasia, let go! You’re ruining the weave of my sweater.”

Nicasia locks the door and whirls around to face him. “What the fuck, Cardan?” she spits out. “You and Jude? Really?”

“Yes, me and Jude,” he says, affronted, bringing his arm up to inspect the fabric. There’s a notch in the material, and he frowns, trying to use his nail to smooth it out.

“Bullshit,” she insists, shaking her head. “You’ve always hated her.”

He scrutinizes her. Had he really always hated Jude? That can’t be true, but then he notices how Nicasia looks a little paler than normal. From a distance she had seemed flawless as usual, but up close, he can now see the tell-tale signs of under-eye concealer, the way her mascara is slightly smudged. He touches his thumb to his ring, a comforting habit. She hadn’t turned up for cheerleading tryouts yesterday, either.

Cardan thinks that it must be hard—first your boyfriend, then your best friend. He can tell that she's wondering what Jude Duarte has that she hasn't, tallying up Jude's qualities and finding her lacking. So maybe he's starting to understand how Nicasia feels—like the ground is shifting beneath her feet.

“No,” he replies at last. “You’ve always hated her. Since the day she transferred to our school, but especially after Locke broke up with you. I was just… going along with it.”

And as the words unwind from his mouth, Cardan realizes the half-truth of them. He doesn’t recall hating Jude before high school. When Madoc had showed up out of the blue with a wife and two adopted girls, their arrival was an instant sensation, a novelty in a town where everyone knew everyone. Talk about them had kept the gossip mill turning for months. Madoc had been a decorated general during his Army days, and then he was a powerful, well-to-do litigator. Vivienne easily the coolest kid on the block, with her dyed lavender hair and her septum piercings, which by association made Madoc cool too.

And then Jude, who was ambitious and a born athlete and quick on her feet (and quicker with her fists). She was cute, too, and good to have in your group if you were working on a project. When she started topping her classes, she should have ruffled some feathers, but by then she was on the lacrosse team and under the protection of Dale Greenbriar and the whole cult of sports hero-worshippers. So Cardan just stopped paying her any attention.

“I don’t buy this,” Nicasia snaps, bringing him back to earth. Her lipstick makes her mouth look like an open wound. There is a long moment of silence, broken only by their breathing.

Then, just when Cardan thinks they’re never going to resolve this and he’s going to be alone forever, with only his fake girlfriend for company, something in her expression gives. “But I want us to be okay again more, so if you say you like her, then so be it.”

Cardan blinks.

“Tu me manques, Cardan.”

Nicasia only switches to her native tongue when she’s feeling antsy or nervous or wants to say something private—so, in this case, all of the above. Suddenly, he feels awful and guilty for avoiding her. Why couldn’t they have talked it out and saved all this time? Clearly, he hadn’t been the only one hurting. “I miss you too,” he whispers, and it’s true, he has missed her, a constant ache like the afterimage of a bruise. He takes her hand, and Nicasia flings her arms around him.

They stand like that for a while, and he feels something loosen in his chest. Whatever happens with Jude, he has his best friend back, and life can return to some semblance of normalcy. When they detach, Cardan promises to call her tonight.

Nicasia leaves first, and for a few seconds he is alone in the empty classroom. He hugs his arms to his chest, breathing hard, trying to hold in a bark of laughter.

*

“I’m not going.”

“Yeah, you are,” Jude insists, tailing him around the kitchen island. “It’s in the contract.”

“I’m sorry, Jude, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I really don’t want to.”

“Cardan,” she says in a tone that is almost a whine. “You have to. Locke will be there.”

Cardan stops trying to play tag in his kitchen and relents. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” he demands.

*

Jude navigates them to a big house with extremely modern architecture, all glass and steel and right angles, and parks her Jeep in the spacious front yard. Cardan can tell she’s excited from the way she bounces on her balls of her feet when she thinks he isn’t looking, and the way she has to keep pressing her lips together.

Cardan steps out. He had decided on the Pucci jumper, midnight blue velvet with the stars and constellations embroidered on it in gold, and a simple pair of black trousers and classic white sneakers.

They enter a massive foyer, lit up warmly by one of those avant-garde chandeliers. He can hear music coming from the other room, a smooth, silky beat, and the sound of intermittent laughter. Cardan stares up at it and feels dread pool in his stomach. This is a world away from the quiet, glamorous gatherings of the cheer squad, where they get facials and manicures and trade nutritionist advice. “I don’t know, Jude.”

“Nope, we’re going,” she says, taking his hand. Her palm is warm and slightly calloused. Cardan has to stop himself from flinching away, which doesn’t make sense since he’s had his tongue in her mouth twice. “It’s in the contract.”

Cardan glowers darkly. Stupid contract. He should have let the family attorney look that over.

They stop before a set of double doors.

“You look good,” she says soothingly. She takes out her phone and Cardan can tell she’s opening the camera app when she swipes left. He’s no stranger to the camera, and if she expected him to flinch or make a stupid face, she’s sorely mistaken. He immediately angles for it, tilting his head so his cheekbones catch the light to greatest effect.

“I know.” His reply is tart.

“Give me your phone.”

“Why?” He gives her a suspicious look, which she returns with a guileless one.

“Just trust me.”

He hands his phone over, and she lowers her eyes and purses her lips (who even taught her that?), and snaps a quick selfie. “Alright,” she says, returning it. “You need to make this your new background.”

Cardan wants to tell her she looks like a total dork. Instead, he says, “What’s your phone background?”

“Come on,” she says, acting insulted. She rotates her phone so that he can see the picture of him, half-obscured by the time. 10:38pm. “You know I already got it.”

She favors him with one of her split-second smiles, bright and dazzling, grabs his hand (has she always been this tactile?), and says, “Let’s go.”

So they go.

*

The instant they’re inside, people are calling out Jude’s name. The house is heaving with bodies. Cardan had asked what the occasion was, and Jude had mumbled something vague about the beginning of a new school year and a pre-competition gathering and a housewarming party. From the looks of it, half the school has crammed themselves into the living room, the crowd spidering out into the kitchen and the hallways and the staircases. Cardan even spots a few cheerleaders, scattered here and there. They wave to him, inquisitive. Jude gets roped into a quick game of beer pong and performs ridiculously intricate handshakes with three separate people, all without letting go of Cardan’s hand. She somehow crosses all the boundaries of adolescent cliques, doling out innumerable hugs and high-fives to student council members and theatre kids alike. Everyone seems to know her. Everyone seems to have something to say.

Jude introduces Cardan to the host of the party, Roiben. He's a senior, and the current captain of the lacrosse team. He’s also dating Jude’s good friend, Kaye.

“Your place is lovely,” Cardan offers.

“Yeah, it’s gorgeous,” Jude chimes in.

“Thank you.” Roiben inclines his head. A wry smile touches his lips. “It’s my parents’, but I take full credit.”

Roiben is politely cordial to Cardan, but he doesn’t bother to hide the curiosity in his gaze. He tosses a ping pong ball to Cardan, who catches it in mid-air, and gestures to the rows of red solo cups lined up to form an upside-down pyramid.

Cardan sights it, and then flicks his wrist. The white ball sinks into the cup at the end. Roiben cracks a smile, and Jude looks reluctantly impressed.

“Lucky shot,” he says, embarrassed and pleased.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spies Locke, the center of attention in the living room. He’s watching them with a calculating glint in his eye.

Jude turns to Cardan, swinging their joined hands slightly. “Get me a drink, please?”

“’Kay,” he says, and Roiben points to the kitchen. Cardan starts in the direction, aware that he has to pass through the living room.
Sure enough, Valerian calls out to him. “Cardan, come sit with us.”

He stills, looking at them. Locke is smiling innocently at him. Cardan doesn’t want to begin the night by telling Locke to go fuck himself, so he goes and sits on the sofa adjacent to theirs, and crosses his arms expectantly.

“So,” Valerian simpers, leaning forward. “What’s with you and Duarte?”

“Oh, no,” Locke says, feigning reproach. He has a greedy look on his face, an oily, bugged out look. Like a tick fat with blood. “Don’t ask him that. Cardan’s shy.”

And by shy, he means inexperienced. Cardan seethes. “What do you want to know?” he asks, keeping his voice light.

“Everything,” Valerian says, with relish. “When? How? How far?”

How gauche. Cardan channels Orlagh, Nicasia’s haughty, imperious mother, drawing himself up and levelling him with his coldest, most unimpressed look. Finally, Locke breaks the silence with a sardonic laugh, showing all his teeth. Cardan doesn’t know how anyone can find Locke handsome—he doesn’t look anything but manic and vicious and sick. “Don’t bother. Clearly, they haven’t done anything.”

Cardan smiles, cool and sharp as a blade. “How would you know that?”

Locke returns his smile glibly, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Because I don’t believe this—thing—the two of you have going on for a second.”

*

Cardan finds Jude outside, by the pool, surrounded by a group of girls. It's unseasonably warm out, and she’s taken her sneakers off to dip her feet in the water. Some of the girls have already discarded most of their clothing, and are trying to cajole Jude into the pool with them, but she’s leaning back on her palms, her body a long elegant line. The hem of her navy blue jumpsuit is already wet, and when she sees Cardan, she waves.

“Excuse me.” Cardan nods to them. Kaye, Roiben’s green-haired girlfriend and the more attentive host of the party, looks delighted.

“So he does have manners,” Jude snarks, when they have all left.

Cardan rolls his eyes. He toes his shoes off and goes to sit beside her, their sides brushing. He hands her one of the two cups.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Jude murmurs, taking a sip. She gags. “Since when is beer so vinegary?”

“Oh, that’s mine,” he says, reaching over for his kombucha. “I’m driving.”

She stares at him. “Oh, usually we all just crash at Roiben’s place. He has plenty of guest rooms, and there’s always the couch.”

He wrinkles his nose. “No, thanks.”

“But you have to drink!” She sounds aghast.

“Jude. Getting me drunk is not going to make me like your friends more.”

*

An hour later, he and Roiben are leaning against each other like the two lines of an isosceles triangle. Both of them are flushed with good cheer.

“You know, Greenbriar, you’re not bad,” Roiben is saying. Kaye is wrapped around his shoulders like a heavy, intoxicated shawl.

Cardan laughs even as he loses his battle with gravity, sliding further down Roiben’s side. Soon, he will sink into this couch, which sounds very nice right now. He and Roiben are deep into a conversation about haircare, because Roiben’s hair is blond to the point of looking silver, which Cardan is intensely jealous of.

Jude giggles like she can hear this thoughts, from her horizontal position on the far end of the couch. That giggle is the strangest sound. Cardan looks over at the top of her head, pillowed on Kaye’s lap, and feels something in his chest twinge. She looks so happy and serene here. Away from the press of the crowd and among only her closest friends (and him, but he doesn’t count), he can see how she lets her guard down, how she allows her edges to soften. He feels fortunate to be invited here, to be one of the privileged few who get to see her like this, in her safest space.

She opens her eyes and look right at him, blinking slow and fawn-like. Suddenly, she sits up. “Cardan,” she whines, swaying only a little as she clambers messily over Kaye and Roiben’s thighs.

Kaye shrieks in mock outrage and gives her a little push, sending her tumbling into Cardan, who catches her. she winds her arms around his neck, folding herself easily into his embrace.

“Hello, boyfriend,” she whispers, the word melting into giggles as she mouths at the hollow of his cheek. Her eyes are starry and she’s smiling her sweet, secret smile. She ducks her head and noses at his collar.

“God, ugh, so pretty.”

“Y-yes, it’s Dolce and Gabbana,” he stammers. Kaye smothers her laugh in Roiben’s shoulder. Roiben looks amused.

“Silly,” Jude mutters, nipping at the line of his jaw. She nuzzles up the column of his throat, running her hands down his sides and laces their fingers together.

“Oh,” she says, leaning slightly away. “I like this.”

Her fingertips catch on the ruby, and she slides the ring off his pinkie. “May I?” she asks, a little belatedly, before slipping it onto her fourth finger. She admires it, turns her hand this way and that. She smiles, looking invitingly up at him through her lashes.

Please take good care of my ring, Cardan starts to warn, but then Roiben says, wry, “And now you’re married,” and Kaye yells, “You may now kiss the bride!” And Cardan loses his train of thought.

Jude laughs, flinging her arms dramatically around his neck and peppering his face with joyous kisses. When she drags her nails down his back, he shivers, bolts of pleasure racing up his spine. Concentration is a lost cause right now. She’s everywhere. He can hear how heavy and uneven her breathing is, how her breath catches when he grasps her waist. She’s far, far past drunk, and Cardan is none too sober himself, but he did not expect to learn that Jude Duarte is… kind of a lightweight.

“Get a room!” Kaye calls.

“Y-yes.” Cardan’s hands have somehow settled around the juncture where Jude’s thighs slope up to her hips. She fixes her mouth over Cardan’s pulse and gives it a firm suck.

His mind short-circuits.

When she looks at him, her eyes are lamp-like in the dimness. “Room sounds good,” Jude murmurs, rolling her hips slightly—does she even know what she’s doing? Her voice is only slightly slurred.

Cardan thinks, Absolutely not, not while we’re in this state, but Jude must sense how his body has gone limp with shock, because in the next moment she’s hauling herself out of the circle of his arms. Cardan feels strangely bereft, even though she’s right next to him, scrubbing her hands over her face and running fingers through her hair and letting out little mortified, apologetic huffs. He wants to say, hey, no, it’s okay, but he can’t find his tongue.

“Oh man, you guys, I’m so drunk,” she breathes, followed by a disorienting, high-pitched burst of laughter. It’s almost the same laugh she gave to all her non-friends when she had first arrived at the party, but this one has an edge of panic and desperation to it. Cardan, who knows a lot about projecting a perfectly curated image, knows a false laugh when he hears one.

He doesn’t know what it means that he’s hearing it now.

The laugh dissipates in the air between them. Something passes between Jude and Kaye, and suddenly Kaye is cackling with exaggerated glee, reaching across to shove at her friend and tease her mercilessly. Even Roiben is chuckling, barely attempting to hold his girlfriend back, but he reaches for one of the abandoned and clean-seeming glasses of water on the coffee table, and passes it to Jude.

Cardan wonders if they know how close he’d come to blowing his cover.

Kaye sprawls across her boyfriend’s thighs, laughing wildly. Jude sips her cold water and gives Roiben a grateful look. Another trill of laughter, and she accepts Kaye’s teasing with good-natured embarrassment.

She glances at Cardan then, and in that fraction of a second, Cardan sees something flash in her gaze: fear. Mortification. Regret. 

He takes her hand, for want of something to do, and Jude looks down at their interlocking fingers in confusion. She takes another deep breath.

“We should take a selfie!” Kaye shouts, breaking the moment. She fumbles for her phone.

“Whatever you want, Kaye, it’s your party.”

“Yes, Kaye, whatever you want,” Roiben repeats, dry as an autumn leaf.

Kaye angles the camera high, and Cardan leans in and impulsively kisses Jude on the cheek. It’s nothing, a dry press of lips, but later, Cardan will linger over how the flash captures her stunned expression, wipes away the lingering upset.

Kaye squeals, and she squeezes them all a little closer into the frame.

“Roiben, get your girlfriend under control.”

The corner of Roiben’s mouth lifts. He slings an arm around Cardan’s shoulders, and Jude presses herself closer into his side, flushed and eyes feverishly bright. Cardan squeezes her hand, and she plants a kiss on his cheek too, then pulls back too quick, like she can’t believe herself. Kaye just keeps snapping pictures.

Then Kaye shimmies down to Roiben’s side, so that all four of them are sitting in a giggling, breathless row, and without further ado suggests a terrible drinking game.

*

Another hour later, and Cardan finds himself learning the basics of pick-pocketing and lock-picking from another lacrosse player. Cardan has no idea how this conversation is going, because both of them are pretty uncoordinated at this point, and the pin tumbler lock that Van is trying to do a demonstration on is proving strangely stubborn.

Jude catches his eye from across the room and shakes her head in mock-disapproval. Something reminiscent of 80s synth-pop gives way to an electronic, throbbing Arabic song. Jude tosses her head to the music, and then she’s sucked back into the impromptu living room dance floor by a friend who had introduced herself as Lily. Soon, Cardan can’t see anything of her except for her slender hands twining over her head, occasionally surfacing above the crowd like fish leaping out of the ocean.

He’s starting to feel hungry, but before he can begin to make his way over to her, he sees her detach herself from the crowd with a quick apology, and then take the steps two at a time to the second floor. Her hand is clapped over her mouth and she looks a little green.

Ah, crap. Probably headed for the restroom, Cardan decides. He should go check on her.

He half-turns, when he sees a flash of russet hair whisk up the stairs too.

Locke.

“Shit,” he whispers, cutting Van off in the middle of his monologue about about driver pins versus key pins. “Sorry, I think I ought to find Jude.”

Van blinks slowly, affable. “No problem, man.”

Cardan squeezes through the crowd, which resists him, simultaneously trying to push him out and ensnare him in a dance. By the time he reaches the stairs, Jude has arrived at the landing above him, twisting her cardigan in a white-knuckled grip. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. 

Locke is nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks, feeling somehow wrong-footed in a way that has little to do with the alcohol. The music has changed again, becomes slow-stepping, thudding beats. A velvety voice kicks in, crooning something multi-layered and hauntingly French. The bodies on the dance floor are pulsing in time to it.

“Hey,” she replies, oddly subdued. Her hands are fisted in the pockets of her jumpsuit and she won’t look at him and she doesn’t answer his question. “Do you want to get out of here?”

Dread coils in his stomach. “Sure. I can call my driver now.”

She cracks a smile at the words ‘my driver’, but shakes her head. “I just want to go home.”

“There’s a diner not far from here,” he improvises. “How about we walk? I think we could both do with some sobering up.”

“Okay.”

The crowd has dispersed somewhat, but even so they spend a fair amount of time trying to locate all of Jude’s friends so that she can say a proper goodbye to them. The music morphs into something electronically gritty, a mercurial progression of synth clarions. Cardan nods goodbye to Roiben and Kaye and Van. There is another round of hugs and handshakes, underscored by the soundtrack of a train rattling out of the station, and then they’re back in that ostentatious foyer and out the front door.

*

What did Locke say to you? Cardan is dying to ask, but Jude has her arms around herself and her head down against the nip of the night air, and he doesn’t know where to begin. He’s not even sure if it’s any of his business.

Except that Jude had left shaken, her good mood evaporated like water off a hot pavement. She’s breathing quickly, her breath coming in little puffs of vapor.

Instead of talking, he takes his own coat off and wraps it around her. When she makes sounds of protests, he gives her thin cardigan a pointed look.

He wants to hold her hand again, but outside of that imposing glass house, he doesn’t know how to.

The diner door opens with a ding and envelops them in a warm blast of heated air. They slide into a booth. Menus are handed to them.

Jude visibly perks up at the sight of food. She keeps exclaiming over ordinary things, like “Ooh, cheese fries!” and “Ooh, onion rings!” They end up seriously over-ordering, adding on two cheeseburgers and curly fries and a double chocolate milkshake and a root beer float. The table groans with the sheer amount of calories. Jude tucks in with visible pleasure.

Cardan orders hot coffee to wash down all the grease and sugar. He can see Jude starting to sober up too, and, two rounds of coffee later, she finally speaks. “Hey, you did well tonight. Locke was pissed.”

Cardan can’t help his grin, but to be honest, Locke hadn’t sounded pissed. He’d sounded smug and superior and certain. Cardan doesn’t know if it was a bluff, but it had set his teeth on edge. “I just hope he doesn’t put glass in my smoothie on Monday.”

Jude chuckles. There’s still something not entirely happy about the set of her mouth, but Cardan thinks she’s brightened up considerably.

Must be the fries.

“I like how you don’t care about him at all,” she says, wistfully.

Cardan blinks at her. “You know Locke and I were childhood best friends, right?”

“Yeah, but—Locke has a way with people. He’s so charismatic and convincing. People fall all over themselves just to bend over backwards for him.” She’s mopping up the ketchup with the last French fry very intently. “But you see right through all that bullshit.”

Cardan sips his hot coffee and asks the question he's been dying to ask. “What did Locke say to you just now?”

Jude winces. Now she’s worrying at the paper at the bottom of the tray, tearing it into little strips.

Cardan waits.

“Nothing much.” She gives a half-hearted shrug, like she can't even be bothered to lie properly. “Just some stuff… he was surprised we’d end up dating. That’s not weird. I think it took Roiben and Kaye by surprise too. I guess… Remember how you used to bully me when we were kids?”

Cardan chokes on his coffee, swallows it, and feels it scald his throat all the way down.

“Why did you do it, Cardan?”

And then Cardan is ten years old again, glaring distrustfully at the new girl across the schoolyard. He is flanked by Locke, Nicasia and Valerian. The new girl is an orphan and a fresh target, except she’s also fierce around the eyes, easy to provoke and already a fully formed cynic. Even at that age, Jude had been more autonomous and self-possessed than most adults twice her age, and certainly more so than Cardan. At ten, Cardan had been a fully formed brat. He could get away with bullying one more outcast, especially if she was stubborn and combative and too proud to tell on them.

If Cardan was being honest, he had been terrified of her. Which he had loathed.

Not for the first time, he pictures how she must have felt, to be in a new place and all alone and treated so unkindly for no reason other than spite. Guilt gnaws at his insides. There's nothing to say, except—

“I’m sorry,” he answers, at the same time she says, “Never mind, it’s okay.”

They stare at each other for a while. Overhead, the fluorescent lights flicker. Finally, she tosses him a wry smile.

“It’s all in the past. And you’re helping me now, aren’t you? So we’re even.”

“Yeah,” he exhales. “Even.”

Jude’s phone buzzes, and Cardan watches her scroll through her notifications and then scowl.

“He makes me so angry sometimes,” she mutters, turning her phone face-down.

“We’re still talking about Locke?” he guesses, motioning for the check so that he has an excuse to look away.

“Like tonight,” she continues heatedly, “He barely speaks to me at the party, then we leave, and I have a thousand texts from him.”

“Okay, well, have you been responding?”

“No.” Her lips pull down. “I don’t know. I’ll probably call him when I get home.”

“You still call your ex-boyfriend?”

“Okay, Mr. Judgmental, would you mind turning it down a notch? You’re doing that thing with your face.”

Cardan doesn’t know what his face is doing, but he’s sure it’s not very pleasant.

“What?” she demands.

“It’s just,” Cardan tries to put it into words. “He’s probably messing with you, you know that right? It’s not healthy.”

“How would you know?” Her face is pulling into a sulk.

“We were literally just talking about how good he is at manipulating people!”

“Well…”

“And,” Cardan pulls out his trump card, “He doesn’t believe that we’re really together.”

Her mouth gratifyingly falls open. “He said that to you?”

He nods. “Earlier at Roiben’s house, when I went to get you a drink. I didn’t know how to tell you, but I think we need to step it up. Or change tactics.”

“Ugh!” She drops her head onto her folded arms, lifts it, drops it again, heavily. Cardan debates whether or not to tell her that these diner tables are usually not all that clean, but he restrains himself.

“What are we going to do?” she groans. “How do we even know what we’re going to do when we don’t know why he doesn’t believe us?”

Locke is nothing if not a master at reading people, and he had dated Jude for over a year. He's known Cardan since they were in diapers. If anyone could guess that they were only faking, he would.

“Well, for starters,” Cardan hazards, “You should probably stop calling him every night.”

She lifts her head up.

“I mean,” he continues, “It’s pretty weird to be dating someone new and still talk to your ex-boyfriend on the phone.”

She groans, muffled by the flesh of her arm. “You’re right.” This totally does not take him by surprise. She nods half-heartedly. “Ugh, why do you have to be right?”

Cardan shrugs sympathetically.

“Fine. I won’t text him back and I won’t call him tonight. Or any other night. I won’t call him, period.”

“Cool. Good. Great.”

She digs the heel of her hand into an eye as she taps on her phone. Cardan tucks his credit card back into his wallet.

“There. Blocked and muted.”

*

He can’t stop thinking about Friday night. When Jude had climbed into his lap and pressed their cheeks together and almost… propositioned him.

That’s what it was, wasn’t it? Room sounds good. It seems an awful lot like a proposition. Maybe she wanted to be in a room with him so they could drop the pretense and she could rest. That makes sense, because the alternative is impossible to fathom. Jude doesn’t even like him that much, because he used to bully her, for years, and Jude would never do anything that stupid.

Cardan has no idea what to think or to feel, but he knows that every time he dwells on it he feels his heart start to race and his palms start to sweat. And thinking about Monday only makes it worse. How will she behave around him? Will she want to talk about it? What if she touches him that way again? What if she doesn’t?

He’s so worried about damage control that he gets her address from Rhyia, wakes up early on Monday morning and decides to drive over to her house. That’s not weird, right? Guys pick up their girlfriends all the time.

As the Porsche glides up the road to her place, he suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know her schedule. Maybe she usually drives herself to school. Maybe she’s already left the house to grab coffee or have breakfast with her friends. Maybe she’s still asleep and he’ll have to text her and she’ll be annoyed at being woken up, or he’ll have to ring the doorbell and look Madoc in the face as he tries to explain that, yes, he knows Jude, and yes, would it be alright if he gave her a lift?

Her Jeep is in the driveway, thank God. Then, fortuitously, he sees Jude stride out the front door in a simple white tennis top and tennis skirt, swinging her racquet once before sliding it into its bag. She slings it over her body and picks up her book bag.

“Good game?” he calls out, rolling down the window. She waves to him, surprised, and yanks on her shoes.

“Hey,” she says, slightly breathy as she jogs up to where the car idles on the curb. She rests all ten fingers on the lip of the car window. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d pick you up, since this is along the way for me. And,” he scrambles around for a better reason, “Carpooling is good for the environment.”

“Hmm, that’s true. I didn’t play this morning, but I’ve got a tennis match right after school. How was your weekend?”

“Good. And yours?”

“Not bad. Was really tired on Saturday morning, though.”

“But not hungover?”

“Thankfully not. Hey,” she says abruptly, her gaze suddenly intense and a little wary, “I didn’t do anything weird on Friday, did I?”

“Weird like how?” he hedges.

Her brow pulls down as she appears to process her memories. She runs a hand through her hair. “I remember dancing. And playing Kaye’s game, and our selfie. Throwing up after, and then—ugh—Locke. But I didn’t…?”

Well, that answers that. Jude doesn’t remember. He feels his chest tighten.

“No, nothing weird.”

“Okay, cool. Don’t worry, I remember what we discussed about, cutting off contact with Locke.” She winks at him. Somehow, through all the scenarios he had imagined, ignoring it had not been one of them. “Nice ride.”

He decides to shove aside his emotions. “Thanks. It matches your outfit. You look good,” he observes.

She blushes. “Thanks.”

She does look good. To her credit, it’s nothing major. If he hadn’t met her every day for the past week, he probably wouldn’t be able to notice how her skin seems to glow from within, and her hair is glossier and subtly wavy, and her brows have been tweezed.

He can’t stop staring at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he mumbles. “Uh, did you do something to your…?” He gestures at her whole front.

Her smile is honeyed and slow. “Just some changes to my morning routine.”

Her lips are glossy. Has she always worn lip gloss? Is she wearing makeup right now? Her eyes are warm and brown.

“So… are we going to school today or are we going to just sit here twiddling our thumbs?” He hadn’t even noticed her getting into the car. She takes his hand off the gearshift, squeezing it gently before replacing it.

He looks down at their joined hands like it’s an alien. So we’re still doing this, he thinks.

“School,” he mumbles, tearing his eyes away and back to the road. He shifts the car into Drive.

Chapter Text

November

Almost-kiss aside, fake-dating Jude gets easier and easier.

Cardan comes upon this thought while he is sitting at the lunch table in the center of the cafeteria. He is surrounded by all her closest friends—observant, intelligent, effortlessly confident kids who are armed with years of knowledge about Jude, and they don’t suspect a thing.

And they seem to like him. Even in the light of day, in the absence of inebriating agents.

The whole time, Jude doesn’t stop touching him. Holding hands is de rigeur, but now those hands are everywhere. With this group, Cardan finds Jude utterly unself-conscious, slouching in her plastic cafeteria seat and snorting with laughter. Grabbing him to press her mouth against his shoulder, his ear, the part of his hair.

He figures this is just how Jude is. Her small circle of friends is perpetually draped over each other—Cardan thinks it has to do with them being athletes—always sitting in each other’s laps and reclining with their heads on each other’s stomachs and playing with each other’s hair. They even hold hands, but mostly Jude holds his now. But he figures that the way Jude behaves around him is entirely normal, given the context.

Sometimes he feels her keen eyes on him, but when he looks back she always looks away, expression inscrutable, or shrugs and shakes her head. It’s nothing. She might not remember the night of the party, but he does, and he senses that something between them has shifted irrevocably.

*

“Nicasia, please tell me i’m beautiful,” he says, flopping onto her coverlet, defeated. 

“You’re beautiful, Cardan,” she sings, because Nicasia loves Cardan a lot and she and Cardan are beautiful together a lot. He has been with Nicasia through all the good and awful things in life—like puberty, when Nicasia had broken out in cystic acne seemingly overnight and couldn’t stop crying and made him accompany her to her weekly dermatologist appointments, terrified that someone would see her. Cardan got really good at applying makeup that year. And then when Cardan went through the horrifying growth spurts that made his joints ache and his hands too big and all his clothes stop fitting and his coordination went to shit and he was nearly kicked off the cheer squad, which his father would no doubt have been pleased about. 

Cardan knows he is not exactly the pride and joy of his family, when the family is stuffed full star athletes and student council members who were offered full-ride scholarships that they turned down in order to become the nation’s most eminent politicians and doctors and lawyers. Cardan is the captain of the cheer-leading team and likes fashion but is, ultimately, a boy.  He is vain and materialistic and shallow and lazy and underachieving and will amount of nothing more than the black sheep of a very illustrious family. They’re probably right about him.

Nicasia flips through this season’s catalog of haute couture, and Cardan pauses at a page.

“This one,” he breathes. He knows he’s pushing it.

“This one,” she agrees.

*

Cardan doesn’t realise he’s been bracing himself until Jude doesn’t bat an eyelash when she enters the car, only admires his outfit faintly in the bemused way of one who wears very few colors. Today, she is wearing a crisp white button-up and a saddle-brown leather skirt that comes down to her knees. It is elegant in its simplicity.

His Erdem cape is lush and verdant, a riot of intricate metallic florals set against an inky black background. His broad shoulders are a stark counterpoint to the relaxed drape of the brocade fabric. It falls down to just past his knees, and when he moves, it moves with him, fiercely luxurious, the gold and silver shimmering softly. He pairs it with a white turtleneck and black tapered pants and black boots, keeping it simple.

Roiben immediately asks to try it on, and it sets off his silver hair wonderfully. Roiben saunters halfway across the cafeteria, turns around, and does his best impression of a runway walk. It’s not half bad. He tosses his shining hair, smouldering at them.

“This is extremely arousing to me,” Kaye mumbles, right before forcing Roiben to take it off and dragging him out of the cafeteria, to the sounds of wolf whistles and ringing laughter.

Later, there will be more praise and warm approval for his cape. Now, Cardan wraps his arms around Jude from the back, and when he glances at her, she’s smiling behind her hands, with a thoughtful cast to her gaze. He trails his hand down her side, latching their fingers together, and feels her takes a deep breath.

*

He falls into the habit of driving her to school every morning. Jude lives in one of the nice bungalows just a few streets from his house. It’s not terribly large, but there’s plenty of space in the front yard for her and her family to toss a ball around or practice their tennis serves or whatever they it is they like to do.

In the middle of their first month together, as he strolls up the house to get Jude, he sees a figure detach from a shadow behind the doorway. A willowy girl with purple-streaked blonde hair peers at him.

“Cardan, right?” Her voice is gravelly. “Tell Rhyia that Vivi says hi.”

Ah, Jude’s older sister. “Will do. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hm.”

And that’s that.

Jude starts bringing breakfast for him every day. It begins when she dashes out the house with a bran muffin and offers him a bite, and without thinking—he has to keep his eyes on the road, okay, and it was a really tasty bran muffin—he finishes all of it. Now she brings enough for both of them—cut fruit, a smoothie, home-made raw bars.

Cardan’s never been one to eat breakfast, but when Jude holds out a freshly made ham-and-cheese sandwich, he finds that he can’t refuse.

It turns out to be the best damn ham-and-cheese he’s had in his life. A first mouthful fills his mouth with the satisfying bite of a thick slice of ham and a dry, slightly chalky cheese. Smeared in the middle is some kind of grain mustard and beetroot mixture (he isn’t sure about this, but it's purple), layered on top of a mix of watercress and some other vegetable that makes it taste fresh and springy. It’s heavenly. When he first bites into it, he almost gets into a car accident.

She just laughs, and then her smile turns soft and syrupy sweet. It’s better than the public-ready smile she gives to teachers and lesser beings who happen to inhabit the same physical space as her. It is significantly better than the raucous cackle she unleashes when a deceptively mild Van tells a particularly filthy joke. It is better even than the lightning-quick smile she used to give him in the beginning, like she was reluctantly pleased but didn’t want him to know.

Cardan is suddenly ravenous.

He feels kind of bad about all the free food though, because it’s almost like he’s taking advantage of their pretense. Except that doesn’t make sense, because it’s not like anyone can see her treating him special right now.

*

He still doesn’t know what to do about Nicasia—specifically, Nicasia and Jude. Neither has expressed any inclination towards getting to know the other, and Cardan is perfectly content to keep them apart. He meets Nicasia for iced lattes before cheer practice and fruit smoothies after. They hang out on Saturdays and do their homework together on Sunday nights. They still keep up their regular pastime of driving to the city to shop and run errands and fulfil their standing reservations at their favorite tea salon.

But he thinks about Jude constantly. She seems to have bunkered down in all the corners of his thoughts, ruining wholesale all double chocolate milkshakes and ham-and-cheese sandwiches and ruby rings and little white tennis skirts. He thinks longingly of colder temperatures, which will force her to start wearing more practical clothing, which can only be for the greater good and overall betterment of the mental health of society. It’s almost a relief when Monday rolls around again.

*

Cardan kind of wishes they could have kept their families out of it. But since he studies at Jude’s place at least once a week, he supposes it’s inevitable.

Jude’s house is airy and spacious. The interior looks like a farmhouse, rustic-chic, if the farmers wore thousand-dollar dungarees and the chickens laid Fabergé eggs. With its clapboard cupboards, wooden stools, bulk dry goods in mason jars, Blanc Marble countertops, the house looks like a beautiful, dreamy utopia. And studying here is more convenient, because there are more options for snacking, and all of Jude’s notes are a few feet away. She gives really good tips for upcoming pop quizzes.

“Want some hummus?” They’re sitting in the sun-filled den, adjacent to the kitchen, with their books spread out around them. Jude has a cup of unsweetened green tea before her, still steaming gently. 

“Yes, please.”

Jude spoons the hummus into a wooden serving bowl and jabs little sticks of carrots and celery into the hummus, like pins in a pin-cushion. They sit without touching, heads bent in concentration, moving only to turn a page or write something down or grab a vegetable stick, laden with dip. The hummus is good, rich and creamy, with none of that bitter, store-bought aftertaste.

Being in Jude’s house is strange because they’re still pretending to be dating but also, if they are dating, they shouldn’t look too much like they’re dating, what with the constant threat of suspicious parents and cheeky younger brothers and nosy older sisters. In Jude’s house, they act the most like Normal People. Like friends.

In the beginning, Vivi had treated him with a benign suspicion. This eventually softened into a benign (dis)interest—Cardan suspects it is more because he is Rhyia’s younger brother than any virtue on his part.

He wonders if they talk about him behind his back. He imagines they do—older sisters can be such gossips. He wonders what they say. He wonders if Vivi likes him more than Locke.

But Oak attaches himself to Cardan like a limpet. The first time Cardan comes over, Oak comes barreling down the stairs in rumpled cotton and denim, barefoot, skidding on the lovely hardwood floors, and immediately decides to take a liking to Cardan. For some reason, he finds the older boy fun and interesting, but all Cardan does is teach him how to rule over his elementary school class while he kicks Cardan’s ass six ways to Sunday at Mario Kart. It’s an intensely humbling experience.

Jude adores her younger brother. She spoils him constantly, sneaking him gummy bears and Hershey’s kisses. When he clamors to be picked up, she carries him from room to room even though he’s nearly ten years old. When they do their notes together at the dining table, Oak crawls into Jude’s lap and sits there, tapping away at a game on his iPad and patiently waiting for them to be done. And when she thinks Cardan isn’t looking, she surreptitiously sniffs the crown of his head and presses her lips to his sweet little whorl of hair.

Today, Jude suddenly puts down her pen and stretches extensively. He can briefly see the outline of her racerback bra through her organic cotton top, which rides up above the leggings with bizarre mesh cutouts, revealing a strip of slightly tanned skin. Cardan looks away. “It’s 5pm, I think I’m done for the day.”

He sets down his pen too. “Same.”

“Want me to make you some hot chocolate?”

“I want hot chocolate!” Oak bellows.

“Okay,” she says. Cardan’s ears are still ringing.

“Jude makes the best hot chocolate,” Oak confides.

Cardan thinks hot chocolate is hot chocolate, but then Jude gets up and goes to the fridge, taking out a small tin and a carton of milk. When she places a saucepan on the stove, he raises an eyebrow. “This is pretty extreme for hot chocolate, don’t you think?”

It takes fifteen minutes to make, and, despite his best efforts, Cardan is distracted by Oak and doesn’t get to witness the recipe. But it is indeed the best hot chocolate. It’s rich and creamy and just a little bitter. Oak’s mug appears in front of him, topped with a mountain of whipped cream.

“What’s your secret?” Cardan can feel the hot chocolate warm him all the way to his toes. Perfect.

Jude smirks. “Yours has a shot of Baileys in it.”

*

One morning, Jude flings herself into the car, holding out his favorite coffee order, and says, distraught, “Cardan, Madoc knows about us.”

Cardan takes the iced latte from her. “Madoc as in your dad? So?”

“So, someone in my family spilled the beans.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but I will not stop until I find the traitor and eliminate them. But also, he wants to have you over for dinner.”

Cardan accidentally steps on the accelerator instead of the brake and takes the turn too fast. Jude smacks into the door, and grabs the door handle.

“Sorry! My bad. Shit, do I have to?”

“It would be really weird if you don’t. It’ll just be an hour though. And you know Vivi, and Oak already likes you. I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

She doesn’t sound so sure.

*

If pretending in front of Jude’s friends is easy, pretending in front of Jude’s parents is even easier. Madoc especially seems to want nothing more than to believe that Cardan is some young punk trying to steal his daughter’s virtue or distract her from her studies or compromise her position as a nationally ranked tennis player, or something of the sort, and would like nothing better than to crush him.

Madoc was a general in the Army before he quit to put his law degree to use and became one of the most highly paid litigators in the world. This is evident the way the dinner conversation is essentially a non-stop intellectual debate, skimming over geopolitics and game theory and physics. Cardan has never seen Jude talk so much. Even though she keeps trying not to exclude him, it's rather inadvertent when you’re on Day 4 of what appears to be a week-long discussion about the Iraq War.

Cardan didn’t even know there was anything to discuss about the Iraq War. War equals bad, right? Still, he manages to find some places to squeeze a point in, and Madoc gives him one brief smile before steamrolling on. Cardan counts that as a win and wisely decides to let Oak babble at him for the rest of the dinner.

(Later, when they’re doing the washing up, Jude will confide in him that Madoc charges people thousands of dollars an hour to fight him. But, because she’s his daughter, he fights her for free.

Cardan thinks it explains a lot about Jude as a person.)

Over tiramisu for dessert, Oriana makes the mistake of asking Cardan how his mother is, and Jude turns bright red.

“Mom,” she mutters, frowning at the hem of her dress. “I already told you that Cardan has not been in touch with his mother for many years.”

“What? Oh, silly me.” Oriana looks like a startled bird, cocking her head to one side as she lets out a nervous laugh. She darts a glance at Oak and her laugh turns colorless. “And how’s Locke, dear?”

Jude grits her teeth. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“So we’ll have him over for dinner soon?” Oriana gives him a bland smile. She swirls her white wine around in her glass.

Fortunately, Vivi rescues them both by loudly declaring that she’s going to get a new tattoo. It is to be a tribute to the love of her life, Heather.

Madoc immediately voices his vocal disapproval; Jude begs to see the design, and the entire table erupts into a fresh argument. Off to one side, Oriana hisses that tattoos are obvious and vulgar, anxiously looking over at Oak, who bangs his spoon against his plate, thrilled at all the ruckus.

Vivi winks at Cardan and says, “You’ll understand when you meet your one true love.” Cardan’s ears burn for long minutes afterwards, but the conversation thankfully moves on.

He should have known that Jude wouldn’t let it go though. When he’s elbow-deep in soapy water (and therefore trapped), she asks, “So, why haven’t you dated anyone yet? You’re,” she stumbles, “not bad-looking, Cardan.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I meant it!”

Cardan busies himself with squeezing out just the right amount of soap for the sponge so that he can stall for time. It’s not an unusual question, but it’s not something he’s really spoken about, not to Nicasia or even Locke. Although maybe Locke had already figured it out.

“I suppose,” he begins, addressing the soapy dishes, “The more people you let in, the more people there are that can walk right out.”

The shameful truth of it is that his closest friend is Nicasia, and mainly because Nicasia’s mother pushed them together when they were barely out of diapers. Since then, Nicasia has made every effort to be a good friend to him. It’s not that Cardan is lazy, but sometimes he thinks that he doesn’t know how to make friends at all.

For a while, Jude doesn’t move. Then a slender hand slips into the warm water and finds his, pressing their palms together. His heart leaps.

“Like your mom, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it weird not having her around?”

He shrugs. “My dad’s not really around either. It’s just me and Rhyia, usually, and my brothers whenever they can come back from… wherever. I used to really miss her, but now I think about everything she’s probably doing with her new family, or whatever, that she used to do with me, and I just—I get so mad that I’m glad she’s gone.”

“You don’t mean that.”

When he looks up, Jude’s mouth is slack with grief. “You can be mad at someone and still miss them.”

Silence, then: “I bet you really miss your mom, huh?”

She nods, blinking rapidly. He knows what it must cost her to tell him this. Jude has always held her secrets so close to her chest. 

She clears her throat. “D’you want to know the story of how Madoc found me and Vivi?”

Cardan perks up, glad for the change of topic. It’s definitely something that he’s wondered about, but since Jude and Vivi arrived in town, there have been nothing but rumors.

Quickly, he says, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine.” Jude takes a steadying breath. “Vivi and I are half-sisters.”

Cardan’s eyes widen.

“Madoc and our biological mother were actually together for a while. They had Vivi. Then our mother fell in love with someone else and she became pregnant, so she stole Vivi away to live with him. And then she gave birth to me, and the four of us lived together for, oh, six years?” A slow inhale. Her gaze is a million miles away. Cardan wishes he could follow her there. “We were happy, I think.”

“When she and my father passed away—car accident, don’t look like that—Madoc came to collect Vivi, as her closest living relative. He saw me and didn’t want to separate Vivi from her only sibling. I am very, very lucky that he took me too.”

Cardan dries off their hands carefully and doesn’t let go of hers. “I’m glad he took you too,” he says softly.

She looks over at him, mildly surprised, then gives a nonchalant shrug. “Don’t tell anybody about this, okay? Madoc says that I am his daughter as much as Vivienne is, but he thinks if people knew she’s biological and I’m adopted, it might not go over so well.”

“I won’t.”

“Then thanks for listening to me,” she says, sighing. She darts a quick look up at him, the corners of her mouth curling up. “You’re a good listener.”

Warmth suffuses his chest.

“Thank you,” he says, the word sounding strange in this mouth. “You are too.”

A luminous smile unfurls over her face. Up close, the smile is somehow both extremely real and extremely dazzling. She looks so pleased with herself and the warm feeling becomes searing, like staring directly into the sun.

*

The problem is that being with Jude Duarte is just too easy. She’s sharp and ambitious and funny in a weird way and unexpectedly kind. She loves her little brother and has a mean right hook and will let Cardan complain about the cheer squad for ages. Cardan sometimes thinks with distress that he is better when he’s with her. Happier, more relaxed, not so quick to judge and take offence.

It’s so easy that sometimes Cardan lets himself pretend that it isn’t fake.

Chapter Text

There is a day when Cardan’s cheer practice ends early, too early, and he takes the short stroll across campus to the lacrosse field. The trees are all but bare but the sprawling field still retains some hint of green, and the players are dashing about doing something vaguely sporty. Cardan takes a seat on the slightly damp grass, cross-legged.

Jude Duarte the lacrosse player is brutal and cunning and merciless. She cuts down her opponents like wheat before a blade, even though they’re playing an ostensibly friendly match against a neighboring school.

It’s some combination of a hard, gruelling practice and the late afternoon sun that has Cardan slowly listing sideways, his eyelids drooping. Later, he won’t remember falling asleep, only the gentle tug of gravity until eventually he stretches his legs out and lets himself go horizontal on the lawn.

When he wakes, it’s to the rustle of clothing and the low murmur of voices—“Carefully, don’t wake him up”—to a warm breath of laughter on his cheek. The patter of footsteps fades away, dampened by the grass, and he slits an eye open.

“Ready to go?” Jude murmurs, leading back on her elbows next to him.

He makes a muffled, half-hearted sound, and she smiles, leaping up deftly and grabbing his hands to yank him to his feet.

Immediately, pain explodes behind his eyes.  

“Stop!”

She releases him, and he crumples backwards, every muscle group protesting violently. He takes a moment to truly regret not cooling down properly after practice and foolishly allowing himself to fall asleep in a position that wound his spine tighter and tighter like a spring. He tries to cushion his landing, and it just makes the sharp aches and twinges more unbearable. He sucks a breath in through his teeth  

“What’s wrong?”

Reflexively, anger rises up, making him surly. He says, curt, “Didn’t know you cared.”

There’s a long silence, and finally Jude says, “I think you might’ve strained something.”

“No shit.” He grits his teeth, trying to sit upright without using his neck or his back or any of his core muscles.

And suddenly hands that had been so sure and unfailing gently push his hands away and push him flat on the ground. They run down his arms, feeling for any stiffness or misalignment, gently pressing and prodding at his joints.

“Where does it hurt?” she asks, placing one hand on his shoulder and the other flexing his arm. She crawls sideways on her knees, and flexes one of his legs, then the other.  

“Didn’t know you took chiropracty as an extracurricular,” he snipes, the discomfort making him mulish.

“Turn around,” she instructs, and then physically turns him over. He glares at the nearest blade of grass as she places a knee on either side of him, bracketing his hips, and then presses down the lower right hand corner of his back.

It cracks, and Cardan gasps, more out of surprise than pain. “Keep going,” he yelps unnecessarily, because Jude digs her toes into the soft ground for leverage and uses her left hand to press down on the opposite side,  kneading at the sore, tight spots, and then makes like a ladder up his back, which goes crack-crack-crack like one of those Japanese biscuit sticks. She pushes her hands in at the base of his spine, and then shoves down and out, and he groans.

She jabs an elbow into the meat of his shoulder and rubs first one side, then the other, experienced hands working at the knots, and then digs her palms into the diagonally opposite ends of his back and pushes. He moans again, embarrassingly loud, and tries to muffle himself on the grass while flicking a glance around them—thank god all the stragglers have left; the field is empty.

“You okay?” she asks, still looking distressed, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and Cardan feels all his misplaced irritation evaporate like steam in the early morning over the town.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. Please remember to stretch next time.”

He turns over on his front, and she hoists her leg over him and so that she can bring her knees together by his side, and then she turns over and lies down next to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last, feeling foolish.

“It’s alright.”

Later, when this is over, this is what Cardan will remember: the dying warmth of the sun, the grass tickling his sides, and her hand soft and forgiving in his. The hot flare in his chest, the way the thing sitting in his ribcage was beginning to hatch open and grow wings.

*

Seamlessly and without complaint, Nicasia cedes the territory of Cardan’s life to Jude and her friends. For two whole months she allows them to bogart her best friend’s time and attention before she puts her foot down. Cardan believes this says a lot about how much she has grown and matured as a person. When she grumbles, “I feel like I hardly ever see you when we’re at school,” Cardan knows with no small amount of chagrin that it’s true.

Today, she gets lunch delivered from their favorite French restaurant, the one where she is on first-name terms with all the staff. They don’t normally deliver, but they make an exception for their most loyal customer. Nicasia and Cardan lay out a picnic mat beneath the bleachers, where an adequate amount of winter sunlight streams in but they are afforded the illusion of privacy.

On these bleachers yesterday, before his cheer practice, Jude had brought him energy drinks and dabbed sunscreen on his nose, checking that he wasn’t sore and fussing over him like the perfect girlfriend. He retaliated by dragging her close and mashing his nose into her neck. She fought him off half-heartedly but didn't protest, not even when he discovered that he likes to nose at the juncture between her jaw and her throat. Not even when he pressed close and placed his lips just under her ear, still waiting for a rebuff that never came.

When she pecks him on the cheek and leaves him to the mercy of the cheer squad, Cardan wonders when she became so sure of her place with him. They pretend so well they make his teeth hurt.

“This French onion soup is divine,” Nicasia sighs with satisfaction, pulling him from his thoughts. She tosses navy blue hair over her shoulder to keep it out of her way; her diamond earrings tremble.

“I’ve missed good bread,” he says in return, and smiles. Nicasia is one of the few people who appreciates good food the way he does. Not for the first time, he thinks about how much simpler life would be if he could just like Nicasia that way. He tears off a chunk of bread—the crust crackles perfectly between his hands—and offers it to her, and their fingers brush.

It’s a pity Nicasia doesn’t make his heart race and his palms sweat. She doesn’t make him want to do stupid things. He thinks at this point he would probably commit arson for Jude, if she asked.

Good thing she would never ask, then.

“Cardan,” Nicasia begins, and then there is the sound of footsteps on the bleachers.

Two pairs of footsteps.

“You never have time for me anymore, Jude,” someone whines in a very familiar way.

Cardan feels his face reflexively contort, his lip curling. He stays as still as he can, shifting minutely so that he can—ah yes, that familiar shock of red hair.

“It’s like all you do is spend time with him,” Locke continues.

“Well, yeah, we’re dating.”

“We should go,” Cardan whispers, making to get up.

“Are you insane?” Nicasia hisses, digging her nails into his arm. “That’s your girlfriend! And my ex-boyfriend! And they’re talking about you.”

It’s a good point. Cardan sits back down.

“But baby—”

Cardan feels his jaw clench.

“Don’t call me that.”

“But Jude, I miss you.” Cardan pictures Locke giving his legendary pout, all wide-eyed earnestness, I could never hurt you, and if I did, you would never see it coming.

It's like they're fourteen years old and Locke and Nicasia have started dancing around each other, all blushing cheeks and brushing sides and shy touches of palms. Cardan supposes that’s how it goes when you suddenly start seeing someone you’ve known for the better part of your life in a whole new light. When they finally start dating, their entire friend circle reorients around this new relationship, adapting to make room for the shifting dynamic.

And then they’re sixteen years old and Locke and Nicasia break up. Locke starts dating Jude. Again, the lines are redrawn. Cardan takes Nicasia’s side because she’s better than Jude and Locke should know that, should know better, and anyway even if Cardan has left Jude alone for years, he still doesn’t care for her. Their friend circle cleaves evenly down the middle, but now Cardan has seen Locke’s true colors, how callous he can be.

“I’m so sorry for hurting you,” Locke is saying. “I was wrong. You mean the world to me, and I should have seen what I had before I let it go. I miss talking to you and I miss our late-night phone calls and I miss everyone knowing that you’re my girl.”

Jude can’t possibly—You fucking asshole, she’s my girl. Locke is saying all the right words, crafted with precision to melt even the hardest of hearts. From his vantage point, Cardan can see Jude’s discomfort in how she leans away, in the way her fingers worry at the hem of her woollen skirt and her long legs cross and recross. But he can also see how she softens minutely, the air becoming pregnant with expectation.

“You mean you miss having me at your beck and call.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Locke.” Jude holds up a hand, firm, but Cardan detects a wavering thread in her voice. “You can’t keep doing this to me.”

“I’m not doing anything! I just want you back.” And, to Cardan’s horror, he places a hand on Jude’s knee.

Even worse, she doesn’t remove it. Cardan can’t stop looking at that hand, at the easy confidence with which Locke had placed it there, the slow sweep of his thumb tracing circles in the fabric. He feels something in his ribcage creak dangerously. She hugs her arms to her chest, and slumps ever-so-slightly. Nicasia’s gaze flickers, almost sympathetic. She knows intimately what it’s like to feel that way: enervated, wrung out, always one step behind. “You don’t. Stop talking like that.”

“You’re going for the ski trip, right? I’ll show you—wait, he’s not coming, is he? That’s our thing.”

As if a school trip can belong to any two people. Cardan feels something sour in his mouth. He can’t bear to look at Nicasia, can’t bear to see the pity on her face.

“What does it matter?” Jude sounds exhausted, resigned. “Aren’t you dating someone else?”

“Yeah, well…” There’s something calculated about this pause; Locke seems to be weighing his options. Cardan feels a terrible swooping sensation, like he’s been dropped from a great height, seconds away from the sickening crunch.

“Maybe not for much longer.”

And there it is. Cardan meets Nicasia’s gaze, and her pale eyes are wide and appalled. There are a thousand things teeming in her expression, a thousand and one things on the tip of his tongue. Cardan swallows them all and looks away.

*

The truly terrible thing is that the more used to Jude he gets, the more he knows it will hurt when she inevitably gets back together with Locke. Because Locke knows all the things girls want to hear, that Jude has wanted to hear for months. He has said that exact, masterful combination of words. Maybe the only reason she was so uncomfortable on the bleachers is that she doesn’t want to cheat on him, even if there’s nothing to cheat on.

He can tell, because already there’s something sharp-toothed and aching in his chest. He can’t concentrate on the rest of his classes, digging his nails into his palms to keep his eyes ahead, but he can’t stop thinking about—

About the way she had looked when Locke had all but promised to get back together. That awful combination of hope and disgust. The way she sometimes turns to look at Locke when she thinks Cardan isn’t looking. The way she hadn’t removed his hand from her thigh.

And how Cardan had felt his heart sink, because Locke always gets what he wants.

*

He texts her:

Hey, busy this afternoon. Can’t hang, sorry

No problem! Can I still see you real quick after class?

He doesn’t know how to say no, so he doesn’t reply. She finds him regardless, because she knows his timetable as well as her own. She’s leaning against the stretch of wall adjacent to his last class, one foot propped up against it. He gets a split second to absorb the sight of her. She is the loveliest thing he has ever seen.

She pulls him into a quick hug. Her face presses into the space between his collarbones, and he thinks she’s smiling. None of the tension from earlier is present on her face.

Cardan’s mouth tightens.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, carding her fingers through his hair, all contrived concern. She automatically searches for his hand.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah? I wanted to ask you, have you started packing for the ski trip?”

That damn ski trip. Never mind that he’s already gotten Rhyia to forge his permission slip. He doesn’t want to go anymore, not if it’s their thing.

“Come on, Jude,” he says, casting around for an excuse. The crowd in the hallway is thinning, and he lowers his voice. “Neither of us thought this would last so long.”

She looks dismayed. “But it’s in our contract!”

Why do you care? He wants to say. You’ll get to be alone with Locke.

“Look.” He fists his hands in his pocket. Maybe if I just give her an out. “Nicasia and I are cool. Locke’s obviously jealous. I think we need to call it.”

Her hands grow still against his face. Bracketed by her palms, it’s almost like their having this conversation in private. Her eyes are wide and dark and they search his face. “Do you want to end this?” she asks, quietly.

“No!” he exclaims, too fast. Shit. “No, it’s just—”

It’s just that I might have feelings for you. Real feelings.

When Jude is curious, she leans into his body like an enormous pleading question mark. They are so close their eyelashes might touch. She must read something in his expression, because she interrupts. “It’s just that it’s in the contract.” She takes a deep breath. “I get it.”

“You do?”

She squares her shoulders. “Yeah. If you want to end this, we’ll end this. We’ll just do the ski trip and then break up afterwards, okay? We can discuss how we’ll break up and we’ll do it any way you like. I know you—I know you’re just doing me a favor. You shouldn’t have to carry on lying for me any longer. But just this one last thing. Please?”

If he had any sense at all, he would refuse. But she looks strangely subdued, and she keeps rolling her sneaker over on its side, like she’s anxious. So instead, he says, “Okay.”  

Chapter Text

In a rare moment where their schedules don’t sync up, Cardan and Jude go to school separately on the morning of the ski trip, which dawns bright and promisingly cold. Jude drives herself, and Rhyia drops Cardan off because she doesn’t want his lovely car languishing in the school parking lot overnight. She also shoves a stack of condoms into his hand, which he nearly drops out of sheer mortification.

When he enters the bus, the first thing he sees is Jude in a ski jacket the color of ripe peaches. It is shockingly bright. She’s looking out the window and her perfect chin is in her hand. She appears deep in thought.

He thinks she looks achingly beautiful.

It’s funny how now that he knows for sure this thing has an expiry date, he wants so desperately to reach out and smooth over the wrinkle between her brows. He wants to walk over and smile and see her eyes light up. He wants to sit with their sides flush against each other, and say, This ski trip is nothing, my family has a timeshare in the Swiss Alps, why don’t we go there instead, the powder is much better and I’ll introduce you to fondue. Trust me.

Her eyes land on him as if she’s heard his thoughts, and she does perk up. Her spine straightens and she gives him a little wave, looking at the empty seat next to her, and Cardan must have some sense of self-preservation or maybe some latent masochistic tendencies (he should get that checked out) because he mouths, “Sitting with Nicasia, sorry,” and pretends that the business of navigating the aisle is consummately tricky and he has to turn away immediately.

He’s thankful that Nicasia has somehow managed to get herself invited on the trip to, quote-unquote, “provide moral support”. Even though he suspects she’s here simply because she thrives on the drama.

Which is fine. They’ve had so little time together since the whole fake-dating thing started, so this will be a good opportunity to catch up and not spy on his fake-girlfriend. And it’s reassuring to have her there, especially when Locke saunters up the bus aisle and coos at Jude, “Is this seat taken?”

She gives Cardan one last lingering look, which he pretends he doesn’t see, and she moves in and lets Locke squeeze in next to her.

These bus seats have ample space and no squeezing is necessary, yet Cardan can clearly see the back of Locke’s head in the middle of both seats as he leans in to whisper something into Jude’s ear.

There is no way there is anything that secretive that needs to be said at seven in the morning, and yet. He’s obviously not keeping his hands entirely to himself, either. Cardan’s own hands fist in his lap.

He forces himself keep his eyes trained on the passing scenery for the next three hours.

*

Nobody bothers with their assigned rooms, which is a relief because Cardan wouldn’t be able to room with Nicasia otherwise.

He also wouldn’t be able to pay for a room upgrade.

“Not bad,” Nicasia sniffs.

Cardan grins for the first time all day. “Chairman suite not good enough for you, Madame President?”

She rolls her eyes at him, flipping her hair over her shoulder. The porter had brought their luggage up, and Nicasia is already rooting through her matching Louis Vuitton bags for something. She’s changed into a bathrobe and slippers and looks ready to launch herself into one of the beds and take a nice long nap, because her idea of a good time is sleeping all day and waking up for the nightlife.

“You should go ski.”

“Nah.”

“Why not? I know you know how to."

Cardan shrugs, trying not to think about how Locke had called from the second floor, his voice carrying enough that everyone heard him say, “See you on the Black Diamond, Jude? Last one down owes the other a hot toddy.” And then he had smiled his trademark roguish grin, the one that had gotten them in and out of so much trouble when they were young. Girls scrambled over themselves to win that smile. Worse still, the way Jude’s eyes had lit up at the challenge, before she looked over at Cardan, guilty.

Cardan had looked away, leaving her free to do what she wanted. She wasn’t his anyway.

*

Nicasia wakes just after the sun goes down, yawning mightily.

They go out for a quick dinner, and then Nicasia starts getting ready to hit up to the nearest bars. She’s wearing an elegant, one-shoulder lace-embroidered Oscar de la Renta top, and just putting on a pair of dangly diamond earrings when he wanders into her bathroom.

“You could still come with me, Cardan. I’m sure the bartenders are very cute.”

“Pass,” he says, listless. He’s already explored the hotel and all its facilities, using the gym and the steam bath and the massage parlor. Maybe he’ll turn in early tonight, and then come morning the whole damn trip will be over.

He’d spent the entire afternoon compulsively refreshing Instagram, checking and rechecking everyone's Instagram to try and find Jude. Here and there she’ll be, popping up in the background, speeding down the slopes, being dragged into a group photo. He finds himself searching for Locke, and every time he sees a flash of russet, his stomach turns.

“Come on, help me with my makeup,” she says, in a blatant attempt to distract him. He sighs and locates her foundation. Pat, pat, pat, goes the little sponge.

“You know,” Nicasia says, her voice sounding a little stiff because she’s trying very hard not to move her mouth as he draws on a perfect winged eyeliner in one stroke. “You’re kind of dumb, Cardan.”

“What?” he snaps, lifting the brush so that he doesn’t smudge his work.

“This is about Locke and his lame “Black Diamond” comment, isn’t it?”

He glares at her. Only a true friend could have seen right through him to the core of his bad mood, and then have the nerve to say something this cutting. But Locke is a touchy subject for both of them, and she should know better. Cardan has listened to enough of her emo breakup playlists to be entitled.

He jabs a brush laden with rosy pigment into her apple of her cheek with a little too much force. “It’s not,” he lies, surly.

“Stop being a loser, Cardan. You’re letting him get in the way of what you want!”

 “First of all, I don’t want Jude,” he growls. Blood-red lipstick, which happens to match his mood. “And second of all, Jude doesn’t even like me.”

“Are you blind?” A clatter as one of the many containers falls to the floor.

“It’s true,” he insists, glowering at the wall. “And she’s still so hung up on Locke.”

Now more than ever, he wishes he could tell Nicasia that’s it’s all fake, because if anyone could help him untangle this mess, it’s her. Nicasia would know what was going on, and she would know what to do. But he’s too afraid of hurting her feelings.

Nicasia rolls her eyes. “Putain, Cardan. I see the way Jude looks at you, and she doesn’t look at Locke like that at all. Maybe she used to, I don’t know, I usually don’t notice her, but not anymore.” 

Cardan stares at Nicasia for a long time, trying to understand what she’s saying. Finally, her expression softens. She takes the mascara from his hand and starts to apply it herself, with even, practiced strokes.

“You’re being ridiculous. Jude is probably waiting for you somewhere. Most likely a hot tub.”

Cardan has to laugh. “Why a hot tub?”

“Sometimes,” she says, cryptically, “Girls just know these things.”

Jude had said those exact same words to him, when she asked him who he was running from. It’s that coincidence that prompts him to ponder whether there is any truth to them. After he chooses what bag she should carry out—they settle on the Louis Vuitton trunk clutch—his feet take him to the sixth floor, where the hot tub squats on the balcony, ringed by the recent snowfall. It’s high enough for some semblance of privacy, and you can see the other mountains in the distance.

He pushes the glass door open.

Hot steam rushes forward and hits him in the face, engulfing him. He sucks in a surprisingly humid breath, and when the heat dissipates, the night chill digs into his skin. He’s glad he wore his robe out.

And, sitting amid unfurling wisps of steam, is Jude. Limned in blue, trailing her hands slowly through the hot water. From this angle, her bottom lip looks especially full.

“Hey,” he says, softly. Heavier than the steam, the air seems weighted with something. A culmination of these few months of dancing around each other.

She looks at him and then glances away. She sinks lower into the water.

“You’re ignoring me now?”

“Oh, I’m the one ignoring you. That’s funny.” He can only see her eyes, which are frowning at the water, the rest of her body submerged in the blue. She’s blows out a sulky stream of bubbles.

Seeing her so troubled makes it easier to say his next words. “I’m sorry I didn’t sit with you on the bus.”

She shrugs like she isn’t bothered. He takes a deep breath, and walks closer. She darts a quick glance up at him, and then back to the water.

“You should be thanking me, though,” he hears himself say, “Because you got to sit next to who you actually wanted.”

She fixes him with incredulous eyes. “Are you pretending to be stupid right now?” she demands. What is it with the women in his life and questioning his intellect? She splashes the water angrily. “I wanted to sit next to you! I packed the snacks. I even asked Oak if I could borrow his Thermos so that I could make that Bailey’s hot chocolate that you like. And then I couldn’t eat any of it because I didn’t want to share with Locke.”

She’s so mad that she’s probably not even aware that she’s subconsciously pouting, and Cardan has to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” she sulks. “I was very hungry.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t sit with you,” he repeats, “And wasted all that food.”

She sighs, still miffed, and hand-waves his apology away. “It’s alright.”

He stares at her, and she looks up at him then, shy and a little beseeching. She bites her lip, and it is the sight of those teeth sinking into that plush bottom lip that spurs him into action. He peels off his robe.

The water is perfectly scalding.

Her lips part as he wades the short distance across the water, tracking his movements with her bottomless gaze.

“Hi,” he says, standing just in front of her. Her eyes are wide and dark. She stands, emerging swiftly from the water, glistening and seal-sleek. Steam rises from her body such that she looks fierce and divine, like a naiad from the ancient Greek myths. Her expression is some combination of impatient and expectant and hopeful. Her hair clings to her scalp like seaweed, and finally, finally, he identifies the flash of emotion in her eyes.

His mouth is wet. Her mouth is wet.

“There’s no one like you, Cardan Greenbriar,” she murmurs.

For weeks after Roiben’s party, Cardan had managed to convince himself that his burgeoning feelings for Jude Duarte were entirely one-sided. But now she’s looking at him with hooded eyes, swaying towards him slightly then stopping, like every other time he has initiated contact. And he realizes what she’s been doing this whole time.

She’s been waiting for him.

How did he not notice this before? Or he did—but how did he not understand?

Idiot, he thinks to himself, in a voice that sounds remarkably like his best friend’s. Well, consider him schooled.

She's still watching him, her breath fogging in the air between them, and Cardan has never let himself want so much. 

And so he reaches across the breathing air, and lets his mouth find hers.

It just a press of lips at first, chaste and gently questioning. Her lips are so soft, and she smells like chlorine and snow and chocolate. Then she tilts her head, and all at once the angle is perfect. Their mouths slot together, brush, exhale, slide. A shudder runs through him. Or her. He can feel when she breathes out shakily, a gust of air panted into his mouth. Her lips part, and the slow slide of their tongues is slick and hot and amazing. She grabs him and draws him closer, and their bodies mold together like they were made to fit.  

It feels like falling. It feels like flying. It feels like being basket tossed, executing a flawless backflip and then landing perfectly. Ten out of ten points.

He finds himself pulled into the water for warmth, but barely notices because for a few seconds he’s too busy being distracted by the vast expense of skin he’s allowed to touch. He twists so that his back is against the wall, and in one smooth motion she has her legs wrapped around his waist. She melts into his arms, effortlessly erases the space between them. Through his slitted eyes, he can see how happy and wondering and fond she looks. Perfect, white teeth nip at his bottom lip, and then she soothes the pain with her tongue, licking into his mouth. She’s a very demanding kisser. He's having trouble drawing oxygen into his lungs, and he can't find it in himself to care. 

*

On the walk back to their rooms, they pass by the Chairman suite. Cardan jerks to a stop. “Uh,” he stammers, tugging her back. “Do you want to come in?”

Jude flushes a brilliant red, but her eyes dance. “How the tables have turned,” she murmurs. “But I think I’m going to have to be the one who declines this time.”

This time?

This time?

“Wait,” he says, reeling. “Do you mean you actually remember that Friday night?”

She blinks at him, bewildered. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He gapes at her. The ground beneath his feet has never felt so uncertain. “You asked me on Monday if you did anything weird!” He uses his spare hand to add air quotes to the last word. 

“Yeah, and you said no!”

“I said no because I didn’t want to make things weird between us!”

“Weird between us? I was trying to ask you if I had, you know, done something to make you uncomfortable. Ignored your boundaries.”

“The word ‘weird’ has nothing to do with boundaries!” He starts laughing helplessly. “I thought you didn’t remember. I didn’t know how to bring it up to you, like maybe you would be embarrassed or horrified. I thought maybe it would be better to just ignore my—to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Ignore your what?” Her voice drops to a hush.

He can tell from the look on her face that she’s not going to let this go. He swallows. “My feelings.”

She inhales sharply. “You’ve had feelings from me since that Friday?”

He looks away. “I think I’ve had feelings for you since I met you,” he mutters. “And you never—anything! After that night, you didn’t try anything with me anymore, so I thought it was a mistake, some kind of fluke..."

She pushes him against the door, tangling her hands in his hair. There is a fierce, determined set to her mouth, and Cardan thinks, danger. 

It's lovely.

“Cardan,” she purrs against his mouth, low and unbearably sexy. She nudges their hips together and starts to grin, and it pulls an answering tug at the corner of his mouth.

“You should be illegal,” he breathes, leaning into the kiss despite his fleeting mortification. Now he’s smiling so wide that he’s pretty sure at some points she’s just kissing teeth. She bites him to bring his focus back to her.

"Is this your A Game?" he wonders, feeling punch-drunk, dumbstruck. "Can you give me your C game instead?”

She chuckles. “I thought I didn’t matter to you,” she murmurs. Her eyes are full of stars. “You never brought that night up again, so I thought you didn’t care.”

This is so ridiculous. They’re so ridiculous, and there’s nothing Cardan can do except sigh explosively, even though his heart is trying to crash out of his chest, and bring their mouths together. 

Chapter Text

They sit together on the bus ride back. Jude's hair is silken against his cheek and she won't stop smiling. "Hi," she had said when she boarded, swaying towards him like she wasn't sure if she was allowed. And Cardan had shifted so that she could sit and curl comfortably against his chest, smelling minty and of fresh snow.

Cardan, too, can't stop replaying the way their eyes had unerringly found each other's across the bustling hotel restaurant, how she had grinned and waved over her continental breakfast. He must have done something ridiculous with his face because behind him Nicasia had rolled her eyes so hard he could feel it.

On hindsight, the biggest giveaway that their relationship was fake is how they always let themselves be surrounded by other people, because now all he wants is for them to be alone. He wants to fall off the map entirely so that he can kiss and cuddle and monopolize her attention, or worse, hold her hand. It's disgusting.

She noses into his throat, and then there's unmistakable press of lips against the warm skin there. Her hand slips into his. His heart is doing something melty in his chest.

He can't wait for them to get home.

"I'm sleepy," he says, piteous except for the way his pout keeps sliding off his face. "Can I sleep on your shoulder?"

She beams at him, a rich and pleasant warmth, and nods.

He wants to rent a coupé and take her on a drive around the mountains while the rest of the school packs up to leave. In the car he'd be able to see the lights of the distant cities splash across her fine features. They could visit the quaint local villages and pack picnics from one of the grocery stores and dine in a secluded, scenic spot. They could make out before all the wilderness they're currently speeding past. Relax, he tells himself. Plenty of time for that later.

On hindsight, he should've rented the car.

*

Cardan is standing alone with their bags as Jude goes to start up her car. She's stopped to chat with someone, see you next sem, goodbye for now. It's perfectly ordinary, and he lets himself be mesmerized by the glints of sunlight off her hair, turning into a halo around her head. She's laughing now, head thrown back, the curve of her neck perfect, a sound of pure mirth carrying across the busy parking lot.

He's still smiling absently when Locke steps in front of him and ruins the view.

"Cardan," he croons. 

"What?" he snaps, tearing his eyes away with some reluctance. Under the glaring sunlight, Locke's head looks like it's on fire.

"My, my, my," Locke says, brimful of good humor. "You're just the best boyfriend, aren't you?"

He narrows his eyes. "What are you talking about."

Locke looks so sincerely pleased, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, that Cardan's heart starts to pound in his ears. 

"Oh, don't you know?" he asks. Eyes flashing, he continues, triumphant, "Jude came to my room last night."

Cardan stares at him, uncomprehending, and Locke smooths his auburn hair back, the motion slow and deliberate. 

Something winks red on Locke's hand. Cardan fixates on his last finger.

It can't be.

"Oh, this?" Locke says, tilting his head. His smile widens, glib, all his teeth showing. He wiggles his fingers to better show off Cardan's mother's ring. The ruby glitters on his little finger, damning in the daylight. "Jude left it behind. Isn't it nice?"

She wouldn't.

"It is," Cardan says, forcing his eyes back to Locke's smirking face. He smiles blandly and turns away. His breath is whistling in his ears.

He looks over at Jude, who's now talking to a sandy-haired lacrosse player with hazel eyes. Jude is smiling at some joke he's made, eyes twinkling. With her arm propped up against her Jeep, her fingers rest perilously close his arm.

Jealousy fills him like hot tar.

Wouldn't she?

With a sensation rather like falling, he suddenly recalls the look on Jude's face when he had showed up on the balcony last night. That flicker of surprise, quickly wiped away. Almost as if she had been expecting someone else.

He wants to hit something.

The sunlight is searing his vision. The heat is becoming unbearable. He peels off his jacket, and the breath of cool air is a relief.

Jude gazes up at him expectantly. The car idles behind her, and the air is full of the gentle hum of the engine. The sun streams through her hair, haloes it in gold. She's achingly beautiful.

He squares his shoulders.

"You went to Locke's room last night?" His voice sounds like milk left to go off on the counter. 

She blinks at him, confused, and then—a flash of guilt. His chest clenches painfully.

Oh, hell.

"Yeah, but—"

"Am I a joke to you?" he interrupts, eyes flinty.

"Cardan?" She sounds uncertain now. She reaches out to him, and he steps away swiftly, his heart hammering. He feels air-borne, like the split-second before a bad fall, before the sickening crunch of bone on mat.

"Answer me."

"No, of course not, I just—"

"Did that kiss mean nothing to you?"

"What? Of course the—of course it did! How can you even say that?" Her eyes are wide with shock and a dawning hurt. Her mouth opens to stammer something out, some excuse, and it's all so typical it makes his head hurt. He doesn't know why he believed anything different. His chest is so tight he can barely breathe, all the air knocked out of him. There's a buzzing in his ears.

Cardan only hears a fraction of what Jude is saying, her mouth moving faster now, frantic, because he's too busy watching her face cycle through a series of emotions: disbelief, anger, regret, hurt. 

He swallows hard. In a sick way, it's a relief to see this crashing and burning before his eyes. "Then why can't I believe you?"

She flinches like he's struck her.

"We're done."

And he turns and flees.

*

He ends up getting a lift from another cheerleader. It's a quiet drive, because even an imbecile can tell Cardan is in a foul mood. He spends the entire ride worrying at his bare finger, where the ruby ring would normally sit.

It wasn't that he hadn't noticed its absence; he just expected it to be safely in Jude's possession, and she wasn't the sort of wear jewelry out. In fact, every time he did notice his bare finger he would remember Jude mashing her lips into his cheek and proceed to experience a strange swooping sensation in his stomach, like he was free-falling.

The car makes its way up the driveway, and then Cardan sees the sheer number of vehicles littering the front lawn.

He groans, bringing his forehead to the dashboard once, twice.

Fand looks at him with some concern, but doesn't say anything.

He lugs his bag behind him as he gingerly opens the front door, and for good reason. A football whizzes by, inches from his face, followed closely by very familiar hollering.

"Cardan!" Balekin yells. Hot on his heels is Dain, racing past with a clatter. He hasn't even changed out of his work clothes.

"What's up, Cardan?" he calls, and has disappeared around the corner before Cardan can even open his mouth to reply.

Cardan's mouth compresses into a thin line. He dumps his bag in the foyer and walks back out.

*

Nicasia graciously splits a bottle of 2004 Mouton-Rothschild with him over dinner. Tomorrow, the entire Greenbriar clan will descend upon the manor in a whirlwind of designer coats and elitism, and Cardan will be forced to make an appearance at dinner. But tonight is just the two of them, sitting kitty corner at her massive oak dining table, bathed in ambient lighting. Her chef has made an elaborate, delicious meal that he can barely taste.

They eat in silence, because Nicasia always knows what to say and when nothing can be said. He's sore from eating mat all afternoon, flubbing his aerials until Nicasia put her foot down. He's both thinking too much and not enough. Everything is crashing around his ears.

At least I'll always have good wine and good friends, he thinks. It's poor comfort. 

They adjourn to the sitting room, and Nicasia brings out a bottle of single-malt whisky, bought directly from the distilleries in Scotland. She pours them generous tumblers and they sit on the densely-furred rug, stretching absentmindedly in the way of all cheerleaders.

He feels himself relaxing minutely.

There's a knock at the door. He gets up to answer it. 

Jude stands at the doorway in a ridiculously thin coat, looking bewildered and out-of-place. She fidgets with the hem of her cardigan. Her face is pale and anxious, and when she sees him, she starts.

They stand in silence thick enough to cut.

"So... have a good dinner?"

"You've got to be kidding me." Cardan rolls his eyes, and starts to close the door. She throws her hand out.

"Look, Cardan," she says desperately, "It's really not what you think."

"What do you think I think?" he asks, curious and a little mean.

"That you think something happened between me and Locke...? I'm sorry if I ever made you feel there was anything, but—wait." Suddenly, she pauses. "This is Nicasia's house."

If Cardan rolled his eyes any harder, they would end up lodged in the back of his head.

"No shit. But what do you think you're apologizing for, actually? Just for my understanding."

Jude is staring up past him into the warmly-lit interior. Without turning, Cardan knows she's taking in the richly panelled walls, the marble bust in front of the staircase, the genuine Koons hanging nonchalantly above the bannister, the sparkly crystal chandelier in the foyer.

"I thought we just had a misunderstanding," she murmurs, soft with some dawning realization. "But this isn't about Locke at all, is it?"

He stares at her. "What the hell are you talking about, Duarte?"

A smile twists her lips but doesn't reach her eyes.

"Locke's a liar," she says quietly, heavy with truth. Her eyes are boring into him. "You know this. You know this better than I do. So why are you so quick to believe the worst of me? Unless you don't actually want to be with me."

He stares at her. "That's the worst explanation I've ever heard of." 

She doesn't seem to have heard him. If anything, her words pick up speed. "You've been pushing me away since the beginning. You're the one who doesn't want to commit to anyone. Because it's easier to sabotage something than fail, isn't it? You hate the thought of anyone leaving, so you're cutting me out first." Her eyes flicker away, then she fixes them back on him, and they're bright. "You're scared."

He rears back, disgusted. "I'm not fucking scared of you, Jude Duarte. You don't mean shit to me."

"Nice, very nice," she drawls, all biting sarcasm, except for the way she's shaking. God, but it's so much easier to talk to Jude when she's angry. "I don't mean shit to you, huh? You in the habit of kissing people who don't mean shit to you?"

"You kissed me first."

"I kissed you because I wanted to!"

"Bullshit. Then tell me this: when you were at the hot tub, were you or were you not waiting for Locke?"

That deer-in-the-headlights look. The sharp, vicious pleasure in catching her out. Of course it's about Locke. It's always been about him. It's about his mind games and how he says "jump" and Jude still says "how high?"

And she hasn't even brought up the fucking ring.

"You're a goddamned liar."

"I'm not—"

"Shut up," he snaps, vindictive. "I'm sick of being part of your schemes. I'm sick of being second-best. i hope you and Locke are happy together."

"Are you even listening—fuck, Cardan." All the heat deflates out of her, and she scrubs her face, hard. "You were never second-best." 

She shoves her hands into her pockets. "Christ, can't we just be friends?"

Demoted to friends now, are we? Cardan feels his lip curl with a hot anger he can't really feel.

And then a shadow darkens the doorway.

"I heard voices," Nicasia murmurs softly, darting a quick glance at him. She squeezes the crook of his elbow. It's an ordinary gesture, meant to be nothing more than supportive and comforting, and without thinking Cardan puts his hand on the small of her back.

Jude's eyes zero-in on that hand. Something clicks in her expression, and then her face abruptly goes inexplicably blank.

That's worse somehow, the blankness. Cardan can usually read Jude pretty well—or maybe she'd just stopped hiding her emotions in front of him. He hates not knowing what she's thinking.

She clenches her fist, and Cardan has a wild, delirious thought that she's really going to hit him. Cardan is intimately familiar with being on the receiving end of that fist, after the first (and not last) time he got sucker-punched.

But then the fist slackens.

"I see," she says. And then she looks directly at Nicasia like she's sizing her up. "I suppose that's fair."

Fair?

She looks back at Cardan, inscrutable as ever, as if they're strangers. "You can be so cruel," she sighs, and then she turns on her heel and slinks back to her Jeep.

Cruel? Cruelty was Cardan shoving a thirteen year-old Jude into the sandpit and stepping on her, grinding his heel into her back. Cruelty is not Cardan standing four feet away while his whole body yells at him to go to her even as she turns away from him—possibly for the last time.

He's shaking, and when Nicasia closes the door he leans against the adjacent wall and slides down, fingers digging into his hair.

Maybe self-preservation is cruel when you're only prolonging the inevitable.

Chapter Text

There is a sex tape. Someone made a sex tape of them, except that there wasn't—and likely will never be, not that Cardan's thinking about it—any sex.

Cardan stares at his screen with frozen fingers, his mouth comically open at the way two figures that are blurry but still undoubtedly him and Jude in the hot tub writhe and squirm against each other, over and over again, on a hellish loop. His phone has been pinging with notifications for the last five minutes.

He barely has time to think, This is vile, before the phone slips out of his nerveless fingers and hits the hardwood floor.

He's at home, so he's alone. Nicasia would know what to do; he could probably go over now, even though it's—he glances at the clock, shit—1:34am.

"Rhyia!" he calls, throwing his room door open.

"What!" Rhyia shouts back from her own room down the corridor.

When Cardan charges in, she gives him a once-over. "I heard something drop."

"That would be my phone. I need your help."

Two seconds into the video and Rhyia has snatched his phone clean out of his hands. Her lips are white with rage, and there are two spots of color high on her cheeks. He's never seen her so angry. She looks she wants to reach across the internet and wrap her hands around someone's neck, or snap his phone in half. She taps furiously at the screen, swears, and taps some more.

Within minutes, his feed is PG-13 again.

Later, lying in bed with his heart racing, he wonders if maybe he should have saved the video first. After all, he's one of the people in it. And it's the only piece of evidence he's got of that night.

*

It isn't.

Cardan arrives at school alone, stomach rumbling. Nicasia told him the night before that the debate team's nitrous oxide scandal has swept the hot tub incident under the rug, and he dares to feel something close to optimism.

At least, until he finds a dense pack of students standing around Jude's locker, cracking up over something out of sight. There's something mean and sharp-edged about the laughter. Without thinking, he starts pushing them aside, and for the first time in a month sees—

Jude, standing unnatural still, her face the color of a sheet. Her hands in fists, shaking. There are bruises beneath her eyes and she looks like she's lost weight.

The sight knocks the breath out of him.

At her back stand sentries: Roiben, Kaye and Lily.

Kaye looks almost as furious as Rhyia had been, as she rips the piece of paper from the locker door. Even blown up to fit the A4 sheet, the two vague forms are unmistakable. Kaye's mouth is a flat, ferocious line, and then she starts shoving people with all her might.

"Get lost," she yells. The crowd takes a step back, and suddenly Jude is looking right at him. For the first time in over a month, her eyes are on him, and it's a lightning bolt to the chest. She looks abruptly sick. She turns on her heel, dives between a gap in two people and forces herself out. 

The green-haired girl rounds on him, spitting mad. Close behind is Roiben, who has never looked so forbiddingly icy. Cardan has the feeling that only Roiben's hand on Kaye's shoulder is preventing her from doing anything that could get them all suspended.

"Do you have nothing to say?" she hisses, livid. Her eyes look like they could be sparking electricity. 

And finally, Cardan stops feeling like he's drifting away from his body. He rockets down to corporeality with a jolt and a shudder.

"Everyone!" he roars. The dispersing crowd pauses.

"Not that it's anyone's business, but nothing happened in the hot tub." A pair of brown eyes lock onto his. He takes a deep breath, locks his knees, locks his shoulders, tries to remember how to speak from his diaphragm. His chin lifts. "And if I hear anyone talking about Jude Duarte or that video, I will kick all of your asses. Try me."

There's a beat. People in the crowd trade glances. A number look properly chastised.

"Nice job," Kaye snarls, disgusted. She deliberately slams her shoulder into him as she chases after Jude.

Cardan looks at their retreating backs, and heads in the opposite direction.

*

Cardan corners him in the bathroom, mercifully empty after the spectacle in the hallway. 

"You did it, didn't you?"

Locke blinks, all innocence.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit," Cardan says hotly, smacking the wall. The crack rings out in the empty bathroom.

"You did—I know you did. You have the means, now I just need to figure out the motive."

Locke just smiles, especially toothy. "I didn't," he says, but with the intensity of someone twisting an arm. His eyes glint. "But it's ironic, isn't it? The two of you spend months trying to convince the whole world you're together, and now we have irrevocable proof. But you don't even seem to be talking."

He starts to walks out, and Cardan's hand shoots out and yanks him back. Locke stumbles, and Cardan shoves him against the wall next to the hand-dryer.

"You asshole," he seethes, "So this was all a game to you?"

Locke smiles, and it's not a nice smile, not at all, and suddenly the façade peels away to reveal a skeletal mask of rage and spite and jealousy.

"Maybe it is," he whispers, and his mouth is stretched wide to bare all his teeth. He looks unhinged. Cardan shoves him away in disgust. "You always were so easy to provoke."

"I could sue you," he says at last, icy with fury. He dusts off his jacket. "For distribution of child pornography. I've afforded you the courtesy of indifference for years, but you seem to have forgotten who I am, who my family is."

He straightens, pushes his shoulders back. He hates playing this card, but if there was ever a time... 

Flatly, he continues, "My name is the most powerful name in the country. My family has an army of attorneys on retainer, and there are private investigators who can't be bought off. I'm sure someone can find out who leaked that video."

"Your family." Locke sneers, dripping disdain. "You wouldn't. You hate them too much."

"You're right," Cardan agrees, and his hands are shaking with barely contained rage so he clasps them behind his back. "But I will make nice with all of them. Even Dain. Even Balekin. I'll give up cheerleading and apologize to Father and do everything that the family wants of me, if it means taking you down."

Locke stares, disbelief mingling with—ah, finally—a tinge of fear. 

"So think about that next time you try anything," he growls, bringing his face close, "because I will make you regret it."

And then he leaves.

*

Jude, he thinks.

Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude.

*

It's a Saturday, and Cardan and Nicasia are in town. The post-Christmas sales are still ongoing, well into January, and Cardan intends to console himself with some intensive retail therapy.

"God, you have that look on your face again," Nicasia says, as they walk up the street to the tailor's. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Cardan says, viciously willing it to be true.

"Let me rephrase: What are you thinking about Jude?"

What a question. Cardan closes his eyes, tries to breathe around the simmering ache in his chest. He couldn't have known how much her rejection would hurt him. It's stupid how much he misses her, but also he thinks—he knows, deep inside himself where he doesn't dare to look—that he would give anything, do anything to get her eyes back on him. He wants her to grace him with one of her smiles, the ones that are somehow both real and dazzling. He wants to drive into town and take her to all his favorite places, tell her all his secrets. He wants to kiss her on the school steps where everyone can see.

He thinks that none of it makes any sense. Why bother pretending to have liked him since the beginning? Why bother lying to him? She had looked so gutted and blindsided, standing outside Nicasia's door. He aches over the possibility of Locke and Jude getting back together, knows with the certainty of a cauterized wound that there's nothing he can do; she had made her thoughts clear when she gave away his ring, after he'd put it on her finger in a pathetic attempt to please her. Yet even as he stewed in his refusal to forgive her he wished that there was some perfect combination of words that would get her to apologise so that they could move on.

He can't imagine she would purposely break his heart, but that's still the outcome, isn't it?

The heels of his palms dig into his eyes, hard enough to see stars. He grits his teeth against the throbbing of his heart, and barely stops himself from crying out like a wounded animal. 

Nicasia hugs him, there and then on the busy high street, their bags squashed against their thighs and passersby bumping into them on all sides. When she speaks, her chin digs into the meat of his shoulder. 

"It'll be okay, Cardan."

He lets out a mirthless laugh that sounds both broken and embarrassed, and decides in that split second to tell her.

"Jude and I never dated."

Nicasia releases him and stares. He hangs his head, waiting for an exclamation or some shouting at least, but she just nods slowly, processing the weight of those five words, and waits for him to continue. She squeezes his hand reassuringly.

Cardan takes a deep breath. The worst part of all this is having all the certainty ripped away from him, hollowed out from his bones. He feels weightless without it, like he could just float away. Because even when Jude hadn't liked him she still wanted something from him, and now there's nothing left between them. He might as well be invisible. 

*

In cheer, the first thing you learn is how to fall. Bone-rattling, teeth-shaking falls. Cheerleaders concuss themselves with a smile, pick themselves up, and walk it off. 

It's how Cardan gets through the spring semester. Surrounded by the shining bravado of the cheer squad, head held high. He knows what it means to be briefly perfect, to be completely seen and adored.

He throws himself into the work. He practices back-tucks until his knees hurt, his hips hurt, but he can tell where he'll land within a square-inch. Nicasia is there with him the entire time, spotting him, hands a few inches from his body, arms out to catch him, silent through the relentless sound of his feet hitting the gym mats hours after the rest of the squad has gone home. They stay up too late planning and choreographing and getting the squad's routines down. She slogs it out beside him with, if not the same single-mindedness he possesses, grace and focus.

It's the loneliest and most productive Cardan has ever been.

*

Rhyia waltzes into his room and snatches the glass of wine out his hand.

"Hey, I was drinking that!" he protests. Nicasia and the other flyers are meeting today to spend some extra time getting their liberties together, which means he's got a rare afternoon to himself. He could spend more productively but his palms still sting from yesterday's motion drills. He decides to spend it getting sloshed.

Rhyia answers by tossing his coat at him. "Come on," she says, throwing his door open. "We're going out."

The rest of the Greenbriars have slowly cleared out after another hellish, painful Christmas, and the house is quiet once more. He and Rhyia mostly go about their separate lives without interrupting each other, so he's a little surprised when his coat hits him square in the face.

Rhyia walks out, clearly expecting his cooperation.

They end up at his diner, the one he used to go to with his mother, the one where Jude once sat down next to him and proposed a ridiculous plan. It smells comfortingly of coffee and fryer grease. Rhyia flips through the menu, even though they've been here a dozen times before and she always gets the exact same thing.

"Why won't you believe me when I say I'm fine?" he asks, sulking into his chunky monkey shake. He's developed a taste for the double chocolate shake, but it reminds him too much of Jude now.

"Because someone told me that Jude's not fine. And you've been avoiding her."

Pesky, meddling, know-it-all older sisters!

"What's going on, Cardan?"

He scowls into his milkshake, bristling at the tone. He's close to Rhyia, much closer than he is to anyone else in the family. She's pretty much the only person who's consistently in his corner, with no ulterior motives, but he hates it when his boundaries are pushed. He chews on the straw sullenly.

Nicasia already knows, and it's a relief to have it off his chest. After he spilled the beans they had gone to apply a bespoke Dior suit to his misery, but not before she made it clear she thinks Jude should've known better. But she also knows all too well how impossible, how manipulative Locke can be.

At least Rhyia might be able to offer an unbiased viewpoint. 

"Promise you won't tell Vivi?"

"I swear it."

He takes a deep breath to gather himself. He tells her about all of it—the pretending, the hand-holding, the dinners, the free food. As he talks, he feels a weight roll off his shoulders. It's one thing to tell Nicasia, who will always be on his side, through hail or hellfire. It's another to tell his big sister, who's seen him through all his life's mishaps, knows the tangled mess of contradictions at his core better than he does.

All the carbs and sugar flooding his system don't hurt either.

Rhyia sips her coffee pensively.

"Well? What do you think?"

Her coffee cup clinks on the saucer.

"Cardan," she says, very tender and very serious. "I know it was hard for you when your mom left. I know that you've had to fight tooth and nail for who you are, for what you want to do. And I know what it's like to distrust any good thing that you receive. It's easy to get caught up in waiting for the other shoe to drop."

She folds his hands into her slender ones, and then she adopts a different tone. "But listen to me. This girl asked you to go out with her, made you breakfast every day, introduced you to all her friends, got you to meet her family, told you her secrets, wouldn't stop touching you, kissed you, and you still don't think she has feelings for you?"

He blinks. 

Put that way, it does sound silly. 

"You don't have to say it like I'm an idiot," he complains, but there's something wriggling in his chest. That's the thing about big sisters; they never pass up a chance to smack some sense into you. Suddenly he feels very foolish.

She reaches over and ruffles his hair, which he hates and she knows he hates. He ducks out from under her hand, a lump forming in his throat.

"Do you think it's too late?" he asks, low and anxious. He can't meet her gaze, warm and fond though it no doubt is.

She shrugs, her eyes bottomless. "With these things, who knows?"

*

Cardan reaches the pitch just in time to see Jude absolutely demolish an obstacle course.

She's unstoppable like this, a hurricane, a lioness on the prowl. She tears through the defences like a force of nature, vaults over the teammate trying to block her, knocks another to the ground with the point of her shoulder, single-minded and deadly. The sight of it is doing something electric to his blood.

Not for the first time he thinks she would be fantastic as a cheerleader. The sheer physicality and control over her body would make her an excellent addition to the squad. But then again, Jude was never one for getting hurt and then pasting on a smile. Oh, she'd complete the routine, but she'd be swearing and glaring daggers at everyone the whole time.

He's missed her so much. 

And in that moment, he knows.

He knows that no matter the outcome of this conversation, he'll accept it. The last time they spoke Jude asked if they could be friends, and if that's what she wants, then that's what he'll give to her. He'd do anything, say anything for just a touch, a glance. As long as he got to be by her side again. 

Roiben calls a time-out, and Jude jogs off the pitch to grab her bottle. Sweat drips down her face, and she tugs her hair-tie out to retie her ponytail. 

She catches sight of him and goes completely still, squinting. When it's clear he's here for her, she starts walking over. The entire drive here he had felt nerves eating at him, but suddenly he can't stop smiling. It's an unfortunate side-effect of being too close to her. The distance between them lessens, step by step. He feels light and bright, as if he's swallowed sunshine. 

"Hey," he says. This close, he can see the gold flecks in her eyes, the way tendrils of hair have stuck to her forehead. 

"Hey." 

No time like the present, right? Except something is lodged in his throat, and it takes several tries for him to clear it. Her teammates must be staring, but Jude is looking at him with patience, more patience than he deserves, surely. His cheeks redden.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you. Whatever you were doing that night on the ski trip, that's your business. We weren't even official yet, and I should've at least heard you out." 

"Damn right you should've," Jude interrupts, hands on her hips, but there's no bite to her words. "Because nothing happened." 

He nods, acknowledging it, and moves on. "And I'm not scared of being with you, Jude Duarte, even if you could probably take me in a fight, so if you'll have me back... I'd like it if we could pick up where we left off." 

There's so long a pause that Cardan's half-convinced Jude won't say anything. Then, very carefully, she says, "So to be clear, you do like me?" 

He smiles. "I do like you, Jude Duarte." 

The way she looks at him is almost overwhelming. There's so much unsaid between them, so much left to unpack, but to have the weight of her attention on him feels enormous somehow. Staggering.

"What will we do with all our rules?" she muses, almost to herself, and Cardan chuckles and, thinking it's a done deal, leans down. 

"Wait!" she exclaims, clapping her hands over his mouth. She pushes his face away with her fingers; he blinks, pulling back. "Wait, wait, can you just—hold on—do me a favor and stay right there, I just gotta—"

"What." Cardan's arms are decidedly empty, which is not where he thought this was going, and he feels a split-second of exasperation before he catches sight of the expression on Jude's face.

The girl in the question is backing away, grinning like a loon.

"Just hold that thought!" she hollers, even further away now, and then she's breaking into a dead run across the field, heels flashing where they strike the ground.

"What," Cardan repeats. 

"Van, over here!" she shouts, and the boy Cardan met at the pre-season party breaks away from the huddle of lacrosse players, removing his helmet and looking baffled. Jude pauses in front of Roiben, who looks very confused, and they have a brief, heated discussion. Jude's hands jab the air. Then Roiben nods at Van and calls out to the rest of the team, "Alright, that's it for today, guys. We're rescheduling practice for the week. Jude, you owe me."

"Absolutely," Jude breathes, and then she waves at Cardan. She still looks a little nuts, eyes too wide and red-rimmed. "I'll find you later! Go home!"

"What the fuck," he mutters. And he should feel stupid, should feel abandoned and left in the dirt, but there's something uncertain unfurling in his chest, like a late bloom. He is so gone on her.

Roiben walks up to him, not quite friendly, but not as bitingly cold as he had been at the start of the week. "Come on," he sighs, and invites Cardan to his place for some scotch.

*

Cardan stumbles up to his front door, more than a little drunk. Roiben had to call him a cab home, even though their houses are barely a fifteen-minute walk apart.

He presses his thumb to the fingerprint scanner, and fails twice before he gets through the front door and toes off his loafers in the gracious entryway. He follows the seamless flow into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water and a glass of Gatorade.

The energy drink sobers him up somewhat, and he's just debating the feasibility of ordering takeout, when someone starts hammering at his front door.

He staggers through the living room, nearly tripping over the rug and braining himself, and opens the door to find Jude standing in the entryway.

"What the hell," he says.

"Can I just come in first?" she pleads. She's wearing some ridiculous clinging thing—athleisure, from the looks of it—black as pitch and apparently with no heat retention capabilities whatsoever, if the way she's shaking and rubbing her hands together is any indication.

He waves her in, and she rushes into the warmth of central heating gratefully. There's a cut above her eyebrow and she's sweating, like she's just run all the way here, from—

"Where did you go?" he asks, at the same time she blurts out, "I'm sorry it took so long." 

"What are you talking about?" 

"It's just—we had so little time to plan, and Van is great but this would be a challenge for anyone—"

"Van?" Cardan interrupts.

Impatiently, she shushes him and plows on, "So we had to wait until everyone was asleep and Van did the window lock and I disabled the alarm and we worked as quickly as we could, we really did, because I wanted to get it back for you."

"Get—" he starts, and then he almost swallows his tongue because there, in the dim light pouring in from the kitchen, a red gemstone winks at him.

Instantly, he remembers several things: Van teaching him lock-picking. Jude disappearing at the party, Locke hot on her heels. Jude promising afterwards not to speak to her ex. Jude trying to explain that she hadn't just given away—

"My mother's ring," he breathes, and she nods, her eyes searching and worried.

They're still standing in the hallway when she holds the ring out to him. Looking ashamed, she confesses, "I shouldn't have let him take it, and I should've gotten it back for you sooner. It was cowardly of me, and I'm sorry."

"You got my mother's ring back for me," he whispers, awed. It's the most remarkable thing, the accessory sitting in his palm. He thought it was gone forever, and he hadn't realized how much the loss had stung until now. They're standing so close that he realizes, belatedly, that Jude has finally stopped shivering.

His mouth twitches up, and she smiles back at him, shy and tentative, and it feels monumental, like Jude Duarte has somehow reached into his mind and cut through all the threads of anxiety and grief in one fell swoop. Something is ballooning in his chest, honeyed and golden.

"Hold on a minute," he says, putting the hand not holding his ring—his ring!—up. "Did you break into Locke's house?"

Jude freezes, looking hilariously shifty. "No comment?"

He huffs out a laugh, weak and tinged with hysteria, and so effervescent he could float away, except he feels grounded for the first time, sure of himself, wrapped up and weighted down with certainty. How lucky he is, to have his ring back and all it entails. He reaches out and reels her in. She's slightly damp, but her sweat smells clean, like she does after her morning runs, and she goes willingly enough.

And she gazes up at him, so hopeful and trusting, her hands sure and knowing as she reaches up to cup his face. The world tilts back on its axis.

"So we're good, right?" she asks, looking at him intently, and he laughs, weak in the knees. He wraps his arms more firmly around her. 

"Yes."

"And you want to be with me?"

"Yes."

"No more pretending, no more running away?"

"Yes, Jude. Yes." 

Later, after they have migrated from the kitchen to the bedroom (with a quick stop in the bathroom so that Jude can shower and change into an old shirt of his), and kissed some more, he will press his mouth to her capable hands and slide the ring back on to her finger. It was a gift, after all. In the morning there will be green tea and divine ham-and-cheese sandwiches and sleepy snuggling. Rhyia will look unsurprised when she finds them necking against the kitchen island, and Cardan will text Nicasia all the good news. And they'll go to school together, like they do every day.

But for now, he bends and brushes his forgiveness against her lips, and Jude just kisses him back, contented and proud and true.