Page 9 of The Villain's Beast

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Licked my lips. Tried again. “You’re welcome, Sin.”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“Sub rosa,” I reminded him.

“That’s…It’s…” He sucked in a breath and let it out, loud against the speaker. “Good night, Gideon.”

I loved the way he said my name like he hated me.

Chapter 7

Fletcher

“Have I told you how boring your room is?” Gideon asked me three days later. He sat on my bed with his legs half crossed, a Styrofoam container of chicken and rice from the cafeteria propped open on his lap.

I looked around from my desk chair, frowning at my room.

“It’s just a room?” I said, voice tipping up at the end. “How should it look?”

“It has no personality.”

Ihad no personality. At least, not unless my father told me to. But in these late night hours with Gideon, I started to wonder about who I could be without my father. What kind of person would I be on my own? If I could make my own choices? Set my own rules.

“I can’t imagine your room is much different,” I said, rolling my eyes and dumping my empty dinner box into the garbage.

Gideon had brought us food every night since curry, and I’d finally begun to eat it with him instead of after he left.

“My room is completely different,” he said.

Feeling bolder than I had any right to be, I stood up and shrugged at him.

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove it.” I reached toward the bed and smacked the top of his foot. “Let’s go work in your room tonight.”

“It’s messy,” he protested.

“Says the guy whose worn the same pair of pajamas every night for the last week.”

Gideon’s throat flushed a violent shade of pink, straight up to the apples of his cheeks. If he thought I hadn’t noticed the way he’d shown up in the same worn pair of pajama pants every night since our first study date, he had another thing coming. No matter how much I hated it, I was still my father’s son, and that meant being more observant than most.

I’d also noticed the spattering of freckles on Gideon’s collarbone, the cowlick on the back of his head that sent his messy golden waves askew, the way he never looked at his cell phone when we were together. I’d noticed everything about him.

That was what a good predator did. Tracked and observed.

How could I be better if I didn’t know who I was up against?

Biting the inside of my cheek until my eyes watered, I turned away from Gideon and headed for the door.

“Come on,” I called over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

It took Gideon time to get off my bed, get rid of his food, get on his shoes. The delay gave me time to get a breath of air that didn’t smell like him, gave me time to pretend I hadn’t started to doodle stars in the shape of his freckles on the corners of my notes when I got bored in class.

Gideon joined me in the hallway, my notebook held loosely in his hand. He didn’t offer it to me and I didn’t take it. I followed when he headed down to the quad, across the campus, to the Northern Annex. His room was on the fourth floor, facing west, and his space couldn’t have been more different than mine.

Our furniture was the same because Rose Hill was still a boarding school and even though he and I were far better thananyone else there, they didn’t want us to know that yet. The rest of the space, though? He was right in his assertion about the boredom of my room.