I wake Niles up. His hair flies every which way, dark pants slung low, ribbed shirt only half tucked in. It’s a Greg outfit. That Niles somehow makes it look sexy says something—and nothing good.
Though even at Greg’s spiffiest, he wouldn’t know sexy if it knocked him in the jaw. He tried to come on to me once, when he was way too blissed out to know better or even who I was. He didn’t remember when he sobered up. Wish I could likewise.
My nose scrunches, and I shake the memory away.
Niles straightens, tucks in his shirt, smooths his flyaway hairs, and suddenly he’s so far from Greg they might not exist in the same House—Greg a bug and Niles a lordling.
I stare. Or gape. Take your pick.
“I see you kept your promise,” he says.
“I tend to do that,” I say.
“Okay, let’s try another.” He holds out his hand. “Not today, or tonight, either.”
I close my eyes. Why did I come up here?
Why, why, why?
“This isn’t why I came,” I say.
“Then we’ll cover this, first.”
I blink my eyes open and he still stands, lordling-style, hand out. I stare from it to him, but he doesn’t back down and his fingers don’t drop.
“How about an exchange?” I ask.
He eases back a bit, head tilting. “Oh?”
“Can you forget Dad was here last night? No matter who asks?”
His expression rivals Mrs. Divs’s. “Like the Enactors?”
Yep. He’s a quick one.
“Yes.” Probably a good idea. I’m sure they all talk to each other. “But more like the Records Office. Any housing officials.”
His stare drills, and I’d offer a lung to be counting dust mites instead of staring back—especially as his face blanks out into nothing. But looking away means giving up.
“Do I get to know why?” he asks.
“Yonni’s will—she’s my grandmother. Was my—whatever, the will says I can’t have family stay overnight. If I do, then the suite’s forfeit and the Records Office can claim it.”
His blankness slides into confusion. “Why?”
“She hated her kids? And she thought . . .”
You always let those idiots tie you in knots, Yonni said, when her skin had turned to paste and her eyes to holes, and we both knew the new meds weren’t going to cut it. Now, I know you promised you’ll do better, but I also know what a little liar you are, so this will make sure. She tapped the digisheet of the will she just signed.
I’m not a liar, I’d said. A lie in itself.
“Thought what?” Niles asks.
I shake my head. “That I’d do exactly what I’m doing. You in or what?”
He considers me and then the paneling across the hall, as if working all the angles. Though at a guess, I’d bet money he’d made his choice the minute it was offered. Just a feeling.
“Not today and not tonight,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay.”
That was . . . easy. I slide back a step. “Thanks.”
His hands slide in his pockets and he rocks on his toes. “So . . . you hungry?” He doesn’t wink. He might as well.
“No,” I say.
“We could get breakfast.”
“I’m booked.”
“Really?” He leans in, voice dropping low. “Not with those idiots at the market. Because it seems to me the last time you met up with them, that one girl pulled a knife.”
He’s too close and familiar by half, and with apparently zero respect for my brain.
“Why absolutely,” I say. “We plan to dance naked on tables and recite the Archivist’s Oath backward.”
“In that case.” He slips into his suite, grabs what looks like a wallet from a side table, and rejoins me in the hall. “Let’s roll.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Why not?” He saunters past me toward the stairs. “I love getting naked on tables.”
Yeah, and if he’s not careful, I’ll stake him to one.
“Do you want to get decked?”
“Did I come knocking on your door? No?” He swings into the stairwell, and bows me inside. “After you.”
Well, hell.
“So, where are we going?” Niles jogs backward in front of me, unafraid of the cracked sidewalks or potential pedestrians.
“We are going nowhere.” I speed-walk past him. He turns midstride and matches pace. It’s not even noon yet and the walkway fizzes under our feet. My shoes want to melt. So does my scalp, damp and icky under the hat. It gets any hotter and the universe will just have to deal with my hair.
Niles nods at my hat. “Disaster?”
“How did you know?” I ask.
“Last night, you go home with a box of colorkits. This morning? Hat.” He salutes. “All hail my devastating powers of deduction.”
I roll my eyes.
He flicks the hat’s brim. “It’s cute, I like it.”
A streethover zooms by and I slip into the scattered traffic, crest the whoosh of speed and horns, and hit the other side.
Niles pulls out a traffic dance of his own and slides next to my elbow. “I thought we agreed, not today.”
“I wasn’t—you going to bring that up every five seconds?”
“Kind of hard to forget.” He shrugs, arms held close like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
Last night, he had them wrapped around me.