“No! Nothing like that. I wasn’t intending to talk to him at all! I was already there. See . . . and here’s something else I need to tell you . . . I’m Jordan’s advisor. Was, actually. He fired me a couple hours ago. But this morning, I still was, and had to go to this meeting with him and the investigator. The guy decided to question me, too, and . . . I told him. About us. It just slipped out.”
Her mind whirls. She’s trying to remember what exactly she and Richard said about Jenny and Jordan. But she’s too tired and it’s elbowed out by the other, bigger thing: he’s Jordan’s advisor. Was. Whatever. It’s all bad.
“There’s more,” he continues. “I told the investigator I used to date Carrie. Which made him all suspicious that I’ve been talking to her about the case, which is pretty hilarous when you think about it, but since she answered the phone when Jenny called the hotline, naturally he’s going to question her, and it’s pretty likely I’ll get brought up in that conversation, so . . . it’s only a matter of a day or two until Carrie knows you and I have been seeing each other.”
“Seeing each other?” she remarks sarcastically. She can’t help it. “Oh, you mean sitting outside on the stairs in the cold? Actually, I can barely see you. It’s that dark.”
“How about we don’t start sniping at each other again?”
“And since when are you and Jordan such great friends?” she continues. “I thought you didn’t like the guy.”
“We’re not. I don’t.”
“Richard. You’re his advisor. Someone he trusts to help him through this totally awful, potentially life--wrecking . . . thing. I’d say you’re one of his best friends.”
“Haley, I can’t explain this to you without talking about the case, and we’re not supposed to be talking about the case—”
“But of course we’re talking about the case,” she can’t help saying.
“The advisor thing is complicated,” he says. “I pretty much got maneuvered into it. But it’s over now and I’m so done.”
“Done?” she says. “It’s barely started. And that’s just the case. Wait until Carrie, and Jenny, and . . . oh my god, Mona . . . hear about this.” She sees him flinch, as if she stuck him with a pin.
“Mona? You mean from Out House?”
Haley nods. “She helped us move Jenny.”
Richard puts his head in his hands and says something she can’t quite hear. Something about hippies?
“Can I ask you something?” she says. “Why even bother to tell me? I mean, if you wanted to screw me over by getting me charged with an honor code violation, you’ve succeeded. Why the secret meeting?”
“I’m not trying to screw you over! I’m trying to give you a heads--up.”
“Like that will help!” She doesn’t know what she dreads more: the investigator coming after her for discussing the case, or Carrie swooping down on her for tiptoeing around with her ex--boyfriend. Or Jenny, horrified that she’s been talking to Jordan’s “side.”
She feels Richard’s hand on hers. It’s surprisingly warm. She jerks away.
“I’m not the enemy,” he says.
“You are totally the enemy. You lied to me about being Jordan’s advisor.”
“No. I neglected to tell you I was Jordan’s advisor.”
“Same thing as a lie. Trust me; I know.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t speak to me.”
“You would have been right.”
They sit in silence. She considers marching off, but that hasn’t worked with him in the past.
And strangely enough, mad as she is, she doesn’t want to walk away. So they sit, in the cold, shivering.
“I feel like we keep breaking up,” he finally comments, ending the stalemate.
She snorts. “That assumes we have a relationship.”
“We do have a relationship.”
“What? Enemies with no benefits?”
He laughs.
“I was being serious,” she says.
“I know. So was I. Listen, Haley: we talk. We fight. We try to work it out. That’s a relationship. Benefits is easy. Talking is hard. And we’ve got that down.”
She decides not to share that she has no clue about benefits, easy or otherwise. Unless you count Seven Minutes of Heaven in the broom closet with Bill Brown back in seventh grade. Which was far from beneficial. His rotating tongue practically down her throat, all that saliva . . . she’d almost gagged.
Luckily, Richard interrupts her gross memories.
“On a scale of one to furious with me, where are you?” he asks quietly.
“Extremely furious,” she says.
He doesn’t respond.
“Really mad.”
Still no reaction from him.
“Okay: annoyed. Deeply, profoundly annoyed.”
“I’ll take it,” he says. She realizes he’s shifted closer to her. Their shoulders brush.
“Jenny meets with the investigator tomorrow,” she says. “Tomorrow! I’m supposed to be there. What do I do?”
“Go with her,” he says. “If the investigator keeps you after, like he did me, just answer his questions. Keep it simple. When you tell him the same story I did, he’ll know it’s the truth and move on. He’s investigating Jordan, not us.”
“So that’s the truth?” Haley wonders out loud. “The same story?” She doesn’t see, but can feel, Richard’s shrug.
“The story told the same way,” he amends.
She sighs. “I suck at stories.”
He laughs. “Something else we have in common.”
She doesn’t get why he thinks that’s funny.
It’s late. She should go. She moves as if to stand, but Richard speaks again.