Infatuate by Aimee Agresti Read Free Book Online

smiles were exchanged and more hugs administered.
    “Have you met Max and Brody yet?” Sabine asked us.
    “No, I don’t think—”
    “You’ll love them.” She stood on her tiptoes glancing around the room. “I’m going to find them. Don’t you go anywhere!” And with that she wandered off.
    “So, you missed midnight. What gives?” Lance asked as soon as she left. “Happy New Year, belatedly.” He leaned in to quickly kiss me on the lips, and it made me wish I had never run outside. I wanted to rewind. I wanted midnight back and to spend the rest of the evening like this. But Dante was talking now.
    “And you missed a scintillating speech, too.”
    “Oh?”
    “Welcome to the city, go forth and conquer, blah blah. They introduced a bunch of people.”
    “You want a drink or something?” Lance asked, worry clouding his eyes.
    “Um.” I looked around to be sure no one could overhear but by now the crowd was relaxed enough that they were completely immersed in their own worlds—the adults all tipsy and our peers hyped up on plates of sugary confections that must’ve been unveiled in a neighboring room.
    “What he means is, were you, like, running laps or something?” Dante cut in. “You’re looking a little . . . rough. ”
    “No, I know, I know . . .” I smoothed my hair back behind my ears, patting it down, and wiped my moist brow with the back of my hand.
    Dante reached for my cheek. “What is this smudge on you? Is it lipstick?”
    It stung still. I held his wrist to stop him. “No, it’s just . . . he’s here,” I said, soft and serious, as though I had just placed a ticking bomb in their hands. I looked from one to the other, my eyes stabbing them with this news so there could be no mistake. “He’s here. The Prince.”
    Lance took a step closer to me, his hand on my upper arm. His steady gaze flickered immediately to the space above my head and behind me, searching, a secret service agent sussing out a threat. “What do you mean? How do you know? What happened?” he demanded, his voice firm.
    “Or he was here, but he’s not now. They’re here in the city, coming for us. I—we were going to get the drinks and then, you know, I thought I saw . . .” I was trying to find a way to make myself not sound like the complete fool I’d been.
    “Hav! C’mon, what’s the deal?” Dante whispered but the desperation in his voice poked through. He shook me to get me going.
    “I thought I saw . . . Lucian.” I didn’t want to tell them, Lance especially, and yet keeping it from him made it seem like it was something that needed to be hidden, which felt even more toxic.
    “Lucian.” Lance snarled the name.
    “Lucian? But you said—” Dante started.
    “No, I know. So I saw Lucian and then I sort of followed him, because, I don’t know. I thought I was going crazy. I just had to see what . . . I don’t know, I just followed him. Outside.”
    “Outside.” Lance didn’t like this either. “Of course,” he snapped. “Why would you follow him? What would ever possess—”
    “Lance.” Dante stopped him. “Not productive.” He turned to me. “Tell us everything, every single thing.”
    I told them what had happened, what the Prince had said, and they asked questions I had no answers to. But they didn’t have much time to absorb it all before Sabine found her way back to us, with two guys in tow. She introduced the guy who looked like a skateboarder—with a wide streak of electric blue running through his chin-length dark blond hair—as Brody and the one with the golden complexion and short black hair poking out from beneath a fedora as Max.
    “So you guys are from Boston?” Dante asked.
    “No, man, just her,” Brody jumped in. “I’m San Diego and he’s Phoenix.”
    “We just met, you know, today,” Max clarified. It occurred to me that Sabine was one of those people who somehow instantly become friends with everyone. She rummaged through her purse and