I made a big show of tossing my phone in my backpack and heard his chuckle behind me. Willow and Sheldon looked at me curiously. I shrugged absently and focused on taking notes.

When class ended, I walked with Willow and Sheldon to the door, ready to go home. Just as I was walking out, I felt a tug on my bag. Keiran turned me around and immediately planted a deep kiss on my lips, shocking everyone around us. When he finally came up for air he glared down at me. “Where are you going?”

“I rode with Willow.”

“So?”

“So…I’m going home with her.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“I’m telling you.” The look that passed over his face would have scared me before but I held my ground. He jaw clenched and then he released me.

“I’ll be over later.” With that he walked off and left me standing there with Willow, whose bottom lip was touching the ground.

“Lake, what the hell just happened?” she shrieked. I looked around and noticed the many eyes that were still on me.

“Not here. I grabbed her and rushed for the exit, wanting away from the prying eyes. I saw Keiran in the parking lot next to his car, surrounded by a ton of people. He spotted me as soon as we cleared the door and watched as we headed for Willow’s car. Just as I opened her car door he mouthed ‘behave’ and turned back around.

* * *

Willow shot me accusing looks the entire ride home and continued to glare at me once we got to her house. I felt like a bad child that got caught stealing cookies out the jar. “So can I say my piece or are you going to continue accusing me?”

“I didn’t say anything,” she pouted. I rolled my eyes and started cleaning up her room, when I got tired of having a staring contest. I picked up a pair of her jeans and found Pepé sleeping under them.

“Willow why is Pepé out of his house?” We called it a house because she was convinced Pepé disliked the word cage. Yeah that was all Willow.

“I don’t know…he escaped?”

“Willow your mom will have a fit if she knew he was left out.”

“He has a soul! He doesn’t belong in a cage!” Here we go. I turned on her speakers to avoid another animal rights speech. “I’ve got a date with Derek Ryan tonight,” she blurted.

“Dash still not talking to you?”

“No. Who cares anyway?”

“Willow –”

“Nope. Not going there. He has a fiancée, remember?”

“Do you even know if that’s really true? You know how girls like that are. They’re self-serving. They think the world belongs to them.”

“He didn’t deny it either.”

“You asked him? When?”

“He snuck in Sunday night when my parents were sleep.”

“What did he say?”

“What do guys like that always say?” He told me his relationship with Rosalyn had nothing to do with our thing.” She let out a humorless laugh. “I asked him was I supposed to be his mistress or something and he just shrugged and said we were friends who fuck and there was nothing to talk about.”

“Oh Willow.” I sat down on the bed next to her and hugged her.

“You know what the worst part is about this fuckery?”

“What?”

“I let Dash throw away my favorite vibrator! It was special.”  I laughed at her silliness. I was happy that she didn’t let Dash break her because her spirit was amazing.  “So you still plan to go after Keiran and Dash, huh?”

The way she asked instantly had me turning around to face her. “I won’t go after Dash if you don’t want me to…” She shrugged and stared down at the floor.

“Willow?”

“I don’t want you to go after either of them.”

“Look, I don’t even know what I’m going to do. I just know I need to find out if he killed that girl.”

“Why?” She finally met my gaze again but she looked truly angry now. “You don’t even know her.”

“But she’s an innocent little girl.”

“How do you know that? Really, Lake. How? All you have is picture. So you found a locket in his closet that looks like hers. That doesn’t mean he did it.”

“Willow…”

“I know how it sounds, damn it! I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I promise, I’ll be careful,” I reassured her.

“Yeah well…promises are made to be broken.”

Sheldon came over an hour later with news that Anya had a bounty on my head. Apparently word spread that Keiran and I were a couple now and that I stole her man. “I wouldn’t worry about Anya, she is all talk. Keiran won’t let anyone touch you anyway.”

“I’m not worried about her. Keiran and I are just friends anyway.”

“Sure, babe.”

“Lake, I have to agree,” Willow chimed. “That kiss earlier didn’t look friendly. It was hot.”

“We just have an agreement. A truce of sorts.” A truce that was a half lie but would get me what I needed. There was no way Keiran was getting away with this.

“Uh huh and how did this agreement come about?” Sheldon asked.

“We played basketball.” They gave me a weird look and I ran down everything that happened starting with English. I didn’t however tell them about our impromptu shower.