Chapter 111: Reveals And Shopping

Rose stood in the doorway with one hand on her collar, like she wasn’t sure the jacket was allowed in the building.

Pale green, cuffs rolled once. Black leggings, a cropped top underneath, and her red hair sitting against all that dark fabric like someone had turned the saturation up.

Adrian ran the inspection the only way he knew how, which was honestly. The jacket worked. The green made the hair look deliberate instead of loud.

The zipper, he noted, was the kind she’d have rejected on a rack for being cheap, and it wasn’t.

"It’s practical," he said.

"Practical."

"It looks like you’d survive weather in it."

"You looked at the jacket for nine seconds." She lifted one eyebrow. "You didn’t look at me until the end."

"I was inspecting the zipper."

"You were inspecting me and the zipper was your cover story." She didn’t sound angry. She sounded like someone watching a mouse that thought it was hiding. "Say it properly. Does it look good?"

"It looks good."

"There. That wasn’t hard."

It had been slightly hard. He decided not to mention that either.

The real problem was sitting in the back of his head with its arms folded: this was going to be another shopping trip.

He’d already spent half the afternoon at Maison Élan, and apparently the universe had considered that a warm-up. His feet had filed a complaint.

"You’re making a face," Rose said.

"I have a face."

"You’re making the face you made at the pasta." She crossed her arms. "Are you tired of shopping with me already?"

"Two trips in one day is testing me."

Her mouth fell open in offense so theatrical it had to be partly real. "Excuse me. I haven’t asked you to carry a single thing today."

"I’m not complaining. I’m reporting."

"You’re reporting like a hostage reading a statement." She breathed out, and the offense went out with it.

When she spoke again, it was quieter. "I’m not the kind of girl who expects it, you know. Because I look like someone who could."

He didn’t say anything. She seemed to need the room.

"I like nice things. I’m not going to lie about that. But my family was never extravagant, and I don’t measure anyone by what they spend on me." She tugged one rolled cuff straight.

"What I noticed was that you noticed. I put thought into looking right for what we’re building, and you looked at it like it counted."

Adrian opened his mouth. Nothing sensible was waiting there, so he let the silence do it. He’d been doing a version of this all night, he realized: reading her like a menu, the dress, the jacket, the way she carried herself into a room.

He’d been so busy grading the packaging that he’d skipped the part where somebody was inside it. She’d been putting up with that, and she’d decided to explain, kindly, in a doorway.

"You’re overthinking," Rose said.

"A little."

"Most of it." She stepped in and kissed him, brief and warm and completely unhurried. "Come on. Before you find another reason to analyze my jacket."

They went downstairs together. The stairwell smelled like someone’s fried onions again, which should have ruined the moment and somehow didn’t.

It was strange watching her take stairs in sneakers.

Every dress he’d seen on her lately had a sense of occasion to it, and here she was in leggings and a jacket, skipping the last two steps like she owned the building.

She looked comfortable, and it did something to his chest that he chose not to inspect.

"You’re staring again," she said, without turning around.

"I’m observing."

"Admit you like it, at least. If you’re going to stare, have the courage."

"The zipper is excellent."

She laughed, one short, startled laugh that echoed down the stairwell and made a man on the first floor open his door and close it again.

Adrian counted it as the best review he’d ever received.

She slid into the passenger seat while he got behind the wheel. His hand was on the key when his phone buzzed.

☎️ Calling => Drew.

He’d told Drew to call him later. He’d also forgotten that counted as a promise.

"Important?" Rose asked.

"He wanted to talk."

"Then talk." She waved a hand. "I’ll pretend to be furniture."

He answered and turned the key one click, enough to wake the dashboard, which felt like the responsible compromise.

"Dude!" Drew sounded bright, slightly too bright, like a lamp with a bad bulb. "Where are you? What are you doing?"

"In the car. With Rose." He kept his eyes on the windshield. "I’ve been helping Jenna with the money side of her stream."

"Stream? You’re doing a stream?"

"It’s busier than I expected. And I’m trying not to let it eat school."

"Huh." There was a pause on the line, then a low whistle. "You sound different. Organized. Serious. You used to forget what day it was."

"I still do."

"You say that, but you just answered in complete sentences." Drew laughed. "It’s weird, man. Good weird."

’Organized.’ Adrian turned the word over. A month ago he’d have taken it as an insult. Now he suspected it was just a description of someone who’d run out of room to be careless.

"I’ve been trying to take things more seriously."

"Yeah. I can tell." A longer pause. "How’s Rose?"

"She’s here."

"Cool. Cool, cool." Drew tapped something against something. "And she’s good?"

"She’s good."

Rose, without moving her head, raised one eyebrow at the building across the street.

It should have been the easy part: two friends, a short update, a check on the girlfriend.

But Drew kept leaving air between sentences, the specific air of a person standing at a pool and refusing to put in a foot. Adrian listened to it. Drew hadn’t called to chat.

"Drew."

"Yeah?"

"What do you actually want?"

"I’m getting there." A breath. "Is Jenna near you?"

Adrian glanced at the passenger seat. Rose was still studying the building across the street, chin on her hand. "Jenna’s not here. Rose is busy with scenery."

"Is it on speaker?"

"No."

"Promise me she won’t hear this."

"Why?"

"Just promise."

"Drew. Why are you being weird?"

"Because I need you to hear all of it before you judge me." His voice dropped. It didn’t sound like a joke. "All of it, Adrian. Then you can hate me."

The windshield suddenly seemed very clean. "Fine. Go."

"The Marianne thing," Drew said. "What I told you. It wasn’t true."

Adrian’s first thought was small: a detail, a time, maybe which apartment. "Which part?"

"No. I mean it wasn’t true." Drew stopped. "I lied. On purpose."

He thought of Jenna in the canteen, saying "before me" like a verdict. She’d been jealous of something that never happened, and he had laughed.

The car went quiet except for the dashboard’s faint hum. Adrian didn’t raise his voice. He felt it get lower instead, which was worse. "What did you lie about?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. What did you lie about, and why would you lie to me?"

"Because." Drew started, stopped, started again. "Because Marianne wasn’t, I mean we weren’t, it was never..."

"Drew."

"I didn’t want you to be mad."

"I’m not mad. I’m asking."

"Okay. Okay." Drew breathed. "It wasn’t about protecting her."

"Then what was it about?"

Nothing. A long, empty stretch of line, long enough for Adrian to watch the dashboard clock roll over a full minute.

He knew that silence. It was the sound of someone deciding whether to hand over something heavy, and the length of it told him the explanation was going to be worse than the confession.

"It’s bigger than Marianne," Drew said finally.

"How much bigger?"

"It’s about you."

Adrian’s attention left the road, which was ridiculous, because they weren’t moving. But the car felt like it had started anyway.

Beside him, Rose turned her head, barely, and her eyes found his face. She didn’t speak. She just watched, the way she watched a canvas change color.

"Why did you lie?" Adrian’s voice was very even. "One more time. Why?"

"Because somebody asked me to," Drew said. His words came out in pieces. "The whole story. Where I was, who I was with, what I’d say to you after."

A breath rattled down the line. "It wasn’t Marianne’s idea. And I didn’t know what it would mean for you. I swear I didn’t."

It wasn’t Marianne’s idea, which meant it was someone’s. He couldn’t tell which of the people he knew he’d rather it not be.

Adrian said nothing. He sat with the phone against his ear and the dashboard glowing at him, and for the first time since Drew had admitted it was on purpose, he couldn’t make himself ask the next question. Every version of it sounded like a door he’d regret opening.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rose was still watching him. She hadn’t spoken, and she wasn’t going to. That was its own kind of kindness.

The lie hadn’t been the worst part. He understood that now, sitting very still behind a wheel that wasn’t turning. The reason was.