Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(66)

It was a fair question. Most likely, if Hephaestus and I were actual members of the human race and documented citizens of this country, then yes, we could probably get arrested for what we were about to do. Suddenly my senses were heightened by an exhilarating sizzle of impending danger.

“Probably?” I ventured.

Wallace, to my surprise, smiled. “Cool.” And then he plugged the thing in.

A small camera-shaped icon appeared on his computer screen. Icon was a word Wallace had taught me that morning, when I’d kept referring to the buttons on my phone as illustrations. Wallace clicked it and typed something into a box, and then a spinning wheel appeared.

“This could take a minute. This was my laptop three laptops ago.”

“I really appreciate you lending it to me,” I told him. “I swear I’ll find a way to pay you back.”

“You got me Mia’s number,” he said, blushing slightly. “Now I just have to get the guts to use it.”

“I’m sure you will.” I smiled. “And if you don’t, I’ll figure out a way to get you guys in the same room.”

“Yeah?” he asked hopefully.

I tilted my head. “It’s what I do.”

A box opened up on the screen. “Here we go.”

Wallace clicked something and a new window opened—a pure color picture of Hephaestus’s room, angle on the mirror. My breath caught.

“It works!”

“Yep. You’ve just started recording,” Wallace said, leaning back in his chair. “Why are you spying on your own cousin again?”

I opened my mouth to reply, not knowing what I was going to say, but then two figures walked up behind us, their shadows reflected on the screen. I quickly reached up and slapped down the screen on the laptop.

“True,” Lauren said. “We need to talk.”

I turned around in my chair. Lauren stood with a handsome hulk of a guy in a varsity jacket. He had a low brow, deep-set eyes, and a broad, open face.

“This is Gavin Dunnellon,” Lauren said. “He’s Peter’s best friend.”

I stood up. “Oh. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah. You too,” he said. He nodded at Wallace. “What’s up, Wall-E?”

“Not much, Gap Denim,” Wallace replied.

“We need to talk about Claudia and Peter,” Lauren whispered, leaning toward me as the librarian walked by, pausing for a bit longer than necessary to eyeball us. “Everything’s going to crap.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that yesterday,” I said, recalling the vise grip she’d put on my arm at Goddess.

“Well, now it’s even deeper in the shitter,” Gavin said. “Peter’s gonna ask that Josie girl to homecoming unless we do something about it. And Lauren says that for some reason, you’re the person to talk to.”

At that moment, Orion and Darla walked in, their hands clutched between them as they whispered together. They glanced around furtively, then went directly into the back corner, where I could only imagine they were going to suck face some more. My heart shriveled at the edges, and I could see it in my mind’s eye, drying up and turning black inside my body cavity.

I took a deep breath and focused on Lauren and Gavin. I had allies here. I could either retreat inside and feel sorry for myself, or I could work with them to get their friends back together and get one step closer to my goal. Three couples and Orion would wake up and forget about Darla. Three couples and he’d be mine again.

“So you guys are certain—one hundred percent certain—that Peter and Claudia are meant for each other? That these people they’re currently with are wrong?”

“Totally,” Gavin said with a nod.

“Beyond totally,” Lauren added acidly.

I heard Darla giggle and the sound of something hitting the floor. My teeth clenched.

“Fine. Then what we need to do is show them how very wrong these people are for them,” I said. “Once we get them broken up with their respective mismatches, we can concentrate on getting them back together.”

“Okay,” Gavin said. “How do we do that?”

The sound of slurping, clear as day, sent a disgusted shiver down my spine. I pressed my fist into my palm and told myself to concentrate. Do your job and this will be over. Do your job and everything will be fine.

“Let’s sit.”

They both pulled chairs over to surround the small study carrel Wallace still occupied. We looked at him. He stared back.

“Should I go?” he asked.

It was clear from his hopeful expression that he didn’t want to. He was obviously intrigued, and for once the kid wasn’t playing games on his phone. He was engaging in life. I saw no reason not to let him stay.

“No,” I said. “Maybe you’ll have some ideas.”

Wallace beamed.

“Okay,” I said, looking at Gavin and Lauren and doing my best to ignore the sighs of pleasure coming from the far corner. Where the hell was that snooping, suspicious librarian when I needed him? “Tell me everything there is to know about Peter and Claudia. What do they do for fun? What do they want? What do they need? And most importantly, what was it about their relationship that worked, and what didn’t?”

Gavin and Lauren looked at each other cagily, as if they didn’t want to answer that last question.