“During first period, they were taking a test, and he farted. The entire class heard it and laughed at him. He still wasn’t over it.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “It would take a lot more than that to embarrass Sky.”
I shrugged and lowered my eyes. I pretended to read. Gavin didn’t move, and I could practically feel his eyes burning a hole in the top of my head. “Tell me the truth.”
“No,” I replied without looking up.
“Why not?”
“You can’t handle the truth,” I said with a smile. It was true, though. I didn’t think he could.
“Try me,” he challenged.
I swallowed. I wasn’t good with coming up with stories on the fly, and flat out lying wasn’t getting me anywhere.
“I’ll tell you if you tell me something in return.”
He considered it for a moment before nodding. “Fine.”
“You’re not even going to ask what I want to know?”
He shrugged. “I don’t keep things from you on purpose. If there’s something you want to know, you just have to ask.”
Stupid, perfect Gavin. Now I felt guilty.
“You can even go first,” he offered.
How perfect. Maybe that would be enough to distract him. “What exactly has been going on with Juliet? You’ve only given me vague updates in the past few weeks.”
“That’s because nothing interesting has happened. I’ve been recording her locations and mapping them out along with the frequencies and durations. This creates a baseline. I can’t figure out what’s out of the ordinary for her until I know what’s normal. So that’s why I’ve been vague. It’s not to keep you in the dark. There’s not much to tell. She hasn’t done anything explicitly incriminating. She goes to work, her apartment, your dad’s apartment, and a few other locations. I’m looking into those addresses, but it’s hard to pinpoint where she is since multiple businesses and residents are within the same building. It might be easier to go in person this weekend or something to check them out.”
That was it? “Nothing in her emails or texts?”
“I haven’t found anything strange. I’ve been looking for any signs of code, but so far, nothing sticks out.”
That was a good sign. It meant we could be wrong about her, and maybe she wasn’t a complete liar.
“I promise the second anything worth mentioning happens, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Okay.” I felt let down and didn’t want to have to answer his question now. How was that fair? He didn’t have anything to reveal, and I was about to admit something huge. At least, huge to me.
“So? What’s really going on?” he asked.
“It’s not really a big deal.” I tried to downplay it. “I had a weird dream last night, and I told Sky about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that from the beginning?” He eyed me. “Unless it’s embarrassing.”
“It definitely is,” I confirmed.
“Well, now you have to tell me.”
“Nope.” My body heated all over again. I could feel my cheeks burning and wanted this conversation to be over.
“Come on.” He lowered himself to the ground and scooted closer. “I promise not to laugh.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” I mumbled, staring at the carpet.
“I’m not going to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with, but I promise I won’t laugh at you or anything.”