yelled and I heard the wind, it distracted me.”
He seemed to be calming down. Not her. “Well, did anything happen with Venus that I should know about? You do have classes with her, so unless you completely ignored her, you had to have said something to her today.”
Adin took Legacy’s hand and walked her back to the couch. Once they were seated, he brushed his hand across her forehead and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I said very little, but there is something you should know.” He took a deep breath. “We’ve been assigned to the same study group.”
“Oh, of course you have,” Legacy mocked.
“Please don’t be upset about this.”
“Well, I guess we could use that to our advantage.” She shrugged, trying to look at the very dim bright side.
“I don’t like the sound of this.” Adin raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“We need to find out everything we can about her. Now you have an excuse to get to know her.”
“Absolutely not!”
She glared at him, shaking her head. Why was he being difficult about this? “You don’t want to help me?”
“I always want to help you. What does Venus have to do with that?”
“I think we need to find out everything we can about her, so we can be prepared for whatever she does. I don’t want any more surprises. If we can find out about her, then maybe we can avoid those surprises and keep her from doing any harm to us.”
“That’s absurd!”
“You’re the only one who thinks so. Calli and River both agree with me.” She knew mentioning River’s support was a low blow, but she really didn’t care.
Adin’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t look at her for long. He crossed his arms again and glanced around the room, avoiding eye contact. “Well, your best friends can help you with this crazy plan. I’m not.”
She felt tears forming in her eyes. The one person who meant everything to her in this world didn’t support her effort to keep them together. It started raining outside before her tears even had a chance to fall.
She saw Adin look out the window before turning toward her, but she didn’t look at him.
He sighed. “Legacy,” he started, and rubbed her cheek. “It’s not that I don’t want to help you with this. I just can’t.”
“Why?” she said as her tears fell.
Adin wiped her tears away and coaxed her face in his direction. “Because I don’t want to be around her. I don’t want to take any unnecessary chances. I know how much I hate River being in your life. Why would I invite Venus into mine? Even if I did it to get helpful information from her, we could still bond over that.”
“That might not happen.”
“But it happened with you and River. You started out by going to him for information and look where you’re at now. I know I told you I would be supportive of your relationship with him, but that I didn’t have to like it. And the truth is, I detest what’s happened between you two.”
She nodded. “I know, and you’re right. I don’t have any right to ask you to get to know Venus.”
“You have every right to ask me whatever you want. I’m not going to go along with this because I don’t want to take any chances that could hurt our relationship.”
“Which is what you think I’m doing with River,” she whispered.
Adin was quiet for several seconds before responding. Not that she needed him to. Deep down in her gut, she knew what he was going to say.
“Yes,” Adin finally said. “I don’t think you’d purposely do anything to hurt us, but River is an entirely different story.” Adin dropped his hand from her face and clasped his hands together. “I’m sure he just loved the news about Venus.”
“Actually, he got mad. He thinks his mother might be behind her showing up here.”
Adin’s gaze flashed to Legacy. “It definitely has the markings of a monster. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised by this.”
She took a deep breath and stared into
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