Page 44 of The Secrets We Bury

“She won’t.”

Lifting my head and opening my eyes, I stare at him. “You can’t know that, Lex.”

He stares back unflinchingly. “I do.”

I grit my teeth, but talking to Lex is like talking to a brick wall sometimes. He has no give. He makes his stance and he cannot be changed. It’s how he came to fall for her. She was the one that saved him in his mind and because of that, she became his—whether she realized it or not.

My fingers curl into a fist, and I unbuckle my seat belt before reaching for the door. “We’ll talk about this later,” I throw over my shoulder as I hop out of the vehicle and lift my bag over my shoulder. “When we have G with us. He needs to be in this conversation before we make any decision.”

It’s not much of a buffer, but at least I have the excuse to put this off. Lex doesn’t say anything, but then, he doesn’t need to. We established our hierarchy long ago and like how he feels about Juliet, that’s another foundation he won’t change.

I trudge up to the front stoop of my house as the sound of his engine growls as he backs up and pulls away.

I don’t know how much longer we can keep going like this.

There are some people that strip you down to your base urges, the primal part of you that only cared about two things: surviving and fucking. Juliet is one of those people for me.

As I enter the house, I go in search of her and instead of finding her in the bedroom, I find her out on the back porch. Her long blue hair has been pulled up into a messy ponytail and she’s changed out of her day clothes and into a pair of leggings and a loose t-shirt that probably belongs to me or one of the other guys.

She stands against the sagging railing of the porch with her eyes tilted up to the sky. As the back screen door creaks shut, she lifts a hand and that’s when I realize she’s not out here for no reason. The scent of weed hits me. Fuck. My mom is going to be so pissed when she gets home. That smell takes forever to go away.

Still, I can’t find it in me to chastise Juliet about it. There’s something driving her tonight and I plan to delve into her head and figure it out.

I step up next to her and hold my hand out. “Share?” I ask.

Her fingers brush mine as she hands over the joint and I put my lips to the same place she had hers. I suck in a lungful and blow it out before handing it back. Seconds pass and the only sounds around us are the low hum of the heating unit kicking on when the house gets too cold and vehicles passing nearby streets. Someone’s dog barks and a car backfires.

“Wanna tell me where you went instead of going to Cory’s?” I ask.

Her answer is immediate. “Is it important?”

I watch her because I can’tnotwatch her. There’s so much about this girl that my eyes are drawn to her each and every time. I know staring at her won’t ever unlock all of her secrets, but I can’t help myself. She’s the sun and I’m just a planet drawn into her orbit. We all are.

“Depends.”

Her fingers tighten around the joint in her grip. “On?” She’s hedging, but she hasn’t told me to back off or go away. Whether she admits it or not, if she really didn’t want to be around me she would’ve gone back inside the second I stepped out here.

Juliet isn’t the type to suffer an unwanted presence in silence. When she’s calm like this, she is repressed chaos. Something happened today to upset her and just like if it’d been Gio or Lex, I want to fix it.

“It depends on if it’s the reason for your quiet,” I say.

She sighs. “Do I need to talk all the time for you to think I’m fine?”

“Fine is what people say they are to shut everyone else up.”

Juliet doesn’t respond to that and I reach up, sliding a hand over my cheek and turning away as I try to hide my smile. I usedto think she was so damn hard to understand. Now, I know she’s quiet because she agrees with me but doesn’t want to admit it.

After a few more seconds of peaceful silence, I drop my hand and try again. “Is it about your parents?”

A long stream of smoke and the strong scent of weed fills my nostrils. “No.”

“But it’s bugging you lately, isn’t it?”

“It’s been bugging me for months,” she snaps back. “Still doesn’t mean that’s what this is about.”

“But you admit it’s about something.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Juliet glares at me. “Can’t you just stand there and look pretty for a change? Do you have to try and psycho-analyze me?”