Because You Love to Hate Me(25)

Deer in headlights. All I could do was muster a nod.

“Good.” He pushed to his feet, swooped up his book, and headed for the tunnel of shelves. But at the edge, he glanced back. “See you tomorrow, Holmes.”

It was such a light tone. Playful. Flirty. And leaving me with no clue how to reply. See you tomorrow, Moriarty was a mouthful. And See you tomorrow, Jim was what everyone else in the world would say.

So I offered up a smirk and said, “See you tomorrow, James.”

As soon as the reply left my lips, I was cringing inside. No wonder no one ever invited me to the winter formal. I could not—and still cannot—flirt.

But Jim laughed. That same surprised burst of sound. Sure, it was now muffled by walls of foreign literature, but I, Shirley Holmes, had made him laugh.

Twice.





Jim and I played every day after that.

He got better. So did I, though.

Especially during the third week of October. Halloween was coming up, and Jim had commented on the heat wave right as we sat down to play.

“It’s weird,” he said, squinting through the dirty glass at a sunny afternoon. “Halloween should be cold and rattling with leaves. Or, at the very least, kind of cool outside.”

“Thanks, global climate change!” I moved my pawn to A4. “Seriously, though, James. Get used to it. It’s never cold here, so if you’re looking for a white Christmas, you’ll have to head up north. The only Decembers I’ve ever lived through hotter than these were when my family lived in Johannesburg.”

I was showing off a little. Hoping he’d ask about my South African mama.

He did (score!), so I relayed my go-to story about that time baboons broke into my grandmother’s kitchen and crapped everywhere.

“Your family sounds cool,” he offered at the end of the tale. His face, his tone . . . they were withdrawn. Sad, almost. And I hoped-hoped-hoped he would talk about his family. Or anything at all to do with his past or where he’d come from. I mean, had his parents died in a car crash? Had he been expelled for changing grades?

The latest rumor was that his uncle used to work for the CIA before leaking classified files and then vanishing off the grid, and while I did find a Gregory Moriarty who’d done all that (yeah, Jean, I Googled him), I couldn’t confirm he was Jim’s uncle.

And Jim certainly didn’t reveal anything about it. Instead, his head tipped back to watch me from the bottoms of his eyes, a hard gaze that set my hands to shaking again.

Were I someone else, I’d have offered up some kind of “sexy move.” I’d have flashed a coy smile or batted my lashes or . . . or giggled knowingly (that’s a thing, right?). Basically, I’d have done anything other than what I actually did, which was to turn red-faced and plop my knight to a stupid spot on the board.

“You want to be a lawyer,” he said eventually, attention still on me. It was his turn in the game, but he wouldn’t break that stare. “Your friend Jean Watson mentioned it.”

My lips puckered to one side. He had spoken to you about me. That had to be a good sign, right? Also, why did you never mention this to me, Jean?

“I mean,” I said with a shrug, “I’ve always planned on being a lawyer. You know. Go to Harvard, like my dad.”

“Why?” His eyes finally returned to the board. And I finally breathed again. “Are you just really passionate about heretofores and notwithstandings?”

“No.” I huffed a chuckle, heat rising up my neck. “I want to help people, actually.”

“You mean you want to help your wallet,” he countered. “Or maybe it’s your daddy’s wallet.”

“It’s not like that,” I insisted. Yet even as the argument flew out, I knew that it was like that. Still, I floundered on. “My dad uses the law to win justice. For victims. So I want to do the same.”

“But you do know that at least ten thousand convictions are wrong each year. Sounds to me like the ‘criminals’ ”—he air-quoted that—“are the bigger victims there.”

“Come on, now.” I leaned on my knees. “What about the convictions that are actually right? What about the people who really need help, and it’s up to the lawyer to make it happen?”

“Please, Holmes.” He made a face. A frowning, disappointed thing. “It’s never that simple, is it?”

Were he my father making that expression, I’d have instantly shriveled. Were he Ms. Adler or the headmistress or basically anyone in the world, I’d have rolled right on my back with my tail between my legs.

And honestly, if you’d asked me a few minutes before this happened How would you react to Jim Moriarty’s disappointment? I’d have expected to shrivel. I mean, I was crushing on him so hard. But instead, I found heat building in my belly. Found my fingers tightening around my bishop, my knuckles paling as I squeezed.

And as Jim continued: “Most people don’t steal or kill or sell drugs because they want to, Holmes, or because they love being ‘bad guys’ so much. They do it because they’re born to a life with no exits. No chances. Unlike you or me, they can’t just walk through walls.”

“Walk through walls?” Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re lucky to be where you are. Who you are.” Abruptly, he shot to his feet, the chair groaning back across the floor. “Wait here.” In three long steps, the towering bookcases swallowed him whole.