"Is it good?" Lilith asked.
"Yeah," said Jason. "It's fine. I just worry about her, you know. I worry about her a lot. She's very important to me."
"You don't worry that she might explode?" Lilith asked.
"Explode?"
Explode?!
"That it might end up being too much. That she'll go overboard with the partying and drinking. She'll self-destruct," said Lilith.
I wasn't anywhere close to self-destructing.
"Why?" said Jason, sounding concerned. "Do you think she might?"
"I haven't really been able to talk to her," said Lilith. "But she is sneaking around a lot, isn't she? To the shooting range, and then to Mr. Sutherland's?"
"That's true," said Jason.
"She's lying. She's trying to hide her behavior, because she knows it's erratic," said Lilith.
Bull. Lilith was full of crap.
"Maybe you're right," said Jason.
God. I should get up right now and let them know that I was listening to their conversation. I wanted to shut Lilith up. But for some reason, I was driven to keep listening. Some kind of morbid curiosity, maybe.
"And have you noticed that both of those times, she ended up alone with Jude?" Lilith asked.
What was she doing? Was she trying to make Jason jealous of me? Was this why he was acting the way he was? Was Lilith poisoning him?
"You met him," Jason said. "Do you think he's gay?"
"No way," said Lilith. "That boy's eyes settled on my tits for like five whole seconds. He's not gay."
Jason laughed. "Well, I don't know if that's conclusive, Lil."
Lil?! He was calling her by a nickname?
"Gay guys don't like tits," she said.
"Maybe not," he said, "but I think it's tough for anyone not to . . . stare at you."
"Stare at me?" Lilith giggled.
"You're kind of . . . well-endowed," Jason said.
Oh. My. God. Jason was talking to Lilith about her breasts? Now I couldn't move. I was beginning to feel very, very sick.
"Maybe," said Lilith, "but the look that Jude gave me was a very ungay look."
"I know what you mean," said Jason. "I really don't like the way he looks at Azazel."
"Do you really think that Azazel would do that to you, though? Do you think she'd cheat on you and not break up with you?"
"Where would she go? If she didn't want to be with me, she'd probably feel trapped here. She has to live here."
I did not. Was everyone forgetting the fact that I had a very rich grandmother? I stayed with Jason by choice. And I couldn't believe that after last night, he could possibly still be questioning my fidelity. If I didn't want to be with him, he should realize that showing up covered in blood would have probably sealed the deal.
Besides, when we'd made love last night, it had felt, to me anyway, like something very, very real. Like Jason and I had connected on a level we'd never connected with. Like it wasn't just our bodies touching, but our souls . . .
Clearly, he hadn't felt that.
"Wow," said Lilith, "that's true."
"But," said Jason, "she cares about me. I just think she realizes that I'm holding her back. That being with me makes her life dangerous. I think she wishes she could have a boyfriend like Jude. Someone fun. Someone who she can just go crazy with."
Why was Jason so jealous of Jude?
"Someone normal," said Lilith.
"Yeah."
Augh. She couldn't have picked a worse word to say.
"So," said Lilith, "when you found them on her bed yesterday, you don't think anything was going on?"
Jason hesitated. "I don't think she thinks anything was going on. I think she thinks Jude is really gay. But I think Jude was loving every second of it. When he walked past me in the hall, he gave me this look." There was a long pause. "But, she couldn't be. Last night, when she took care of me when I came back, she was so . . . I can't believe that I could have been so close to her, that she could make me feel the way she made me feel, and be doing anything behind my back."
So, he had felt something then?
"Can't believe, or don't want to believe?"
"She couldn't have faked that," said Jason.
"Girls can fake all kinds of things, Jason." Lilith's voice dropped. It sounded sultry. Suggestive. "For instance, are you sure that she's completely, well, satisfied?"
She wasn't asking this, was she? She couldn't be.
"What do you mean?" Jason asked.
"You know what I mean."