Page 116 of Unspoken Lies

“Is this one of those lavender marriages?” he asks.

“You have a lot of questions, all of which are none of your business,” I remind him. “One of these days, you’re going to run on the wrong side of someone. Be smarter.”

“You are a rich girl, though. My thoughts were exactly right,” Carmichael says.

God, who has a name like that and isn’t a pretentious rich kid himself?

“Meh, I changed my mind. I’ll let the librarian know that we’re keeping the room for the rest of the day,” Jared says with ashrug. At the kid’s outraged look, he smirks. “Being a dick to my wife is a very bad life choice. I’ll take your key now.”

Jared plucks the key card away from Carmichael as I stand with my bag, while I smirk at the kid and his annoyed face. There’s nothing else he can do but follow us out as we go.

“Hey are you looking for a study room?” my husband asks a group of students looking around for a spot to sit at the library.

Carmichael curses under his breath as Jared drops the keys into one of their eager palms.

“Have at it,” he says, taking my hand. “We don’t need it anymore.

Ignoring Carmichael’s furious face, he escorts me out of the library.

“You’re terrible,” I say with a grin. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did. No one is ever going to make you feel less than you are,” he says. “Not ever. Though, you were handling it pretty well for yourself, wife.”

Fuck, I really shouldn’t want to swoon for this man. I’ll just appreciate him for his efforts. I refuse to fall for his charm.

ELIJAH

I can’t stop staring at Rachelle. She’s laughing really hard at something that Theo said, her cheeks high with color. We can’t help but soften around her, though that doesn’t mean we won’t push her out of her comfort zone either.

She may have us wrapped around her pinky finger, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to allow her to languish and rot her life away in the shadows.

“Elijah, why don’t you take Rachel for a walk around campus?” Jared asks, his dark eyes calculating.

I don’t know how to act around her anymore, now that she’s out of the hospital. I know that’s not her anymore, she’s stronger, but after so many weeks of seeing her in such a deteriorated state, it’s messed with my mind. I want to be as nonchalant with Rachelle as Theo and Jared are, I just don’t know how to be.

“It’ll help her decide if she wants to attend UCSB,” Theo adds.

“Are you done eating?” I ask her, standing when she nods. Theo and Jared grab our garbage to throw out, while I walk her away from the courtyard.

We chose to eat outside since it’s nice out and not as loud. Now that she’s outside, Rachelle seems to be doing fine. I think her anxiety is sneaky.

“Are you my babysitter today?” Rachelle asks teasingly as we walk.

“Oh no,” I reply, smiling. “I have a feeling your husband and Theo are matchmaking.”

“This isn’t Pokémon,” she says. “I cannot collect men.”

“And women,” I add, enjoying the glance of an eavesdropping professor next to us. Maybe she shouldn’t be overhearing other people’s conversations. I hope we scandalize her. “I think that you have enough on your dance card.”

“I think my dance card is confused,” Rachelle sighs.

Grabbing her hand just so I can touch her, I begin walking toward the tower. I remember a similar tower where she’d hide away with Liliana, and it reminds me of that. I know the guys want me to talk to her more, but I have a lot of baggage and guilt that I unfortunately have earned.

“Let’s bring some clarity to it then, baby,” I murmur. “Why do you think that it’s confused?”

Instead of cursing me out, she takes a deep breath. I swear, sometimes I think she has the patience of a saint. A screaming, crying, lost Rachelle would break me. I have no doubt that it’s going to happen at some point with everything she’s endured.

I don’t want to stir up too many emotions without being able to give her a place to scream it out. It’s not fair to her to unload on her without a safety net, and so we walk slowly together on the path toward the tower.