Chapter 575 | A Sweater of Indeterminate Origin

Chapter 575: 575 | A Sweater of Indeterminate Origin

"Clause Eleven is the cave clause." A keyboard clicked on the other end, fast and loud. "Subsection B is the amendment where you added ferries and sprinkler systems in what I can only assume was a blind panic."

"It was a routine update to reflect current circumstances."

"You had a notary drive out at midnight to add the word sprinkler to a legal document." Belle’s voice wobbled, and it took Blair a moment to recognize the sound as suppressed laughter. "Sorry, I’m sorry. I just need a second to put that on a poster."

Heat crawled up Blair’s throat. The phone case creaked in her grip and she loosened her fingers before the plastic warped.

"If you intend to mock me, I will end this call."

"You won’t, though." The typing stopped. "You called me. You’ve got Ayame, who’d hold your hair back during a hangover and then make you run laps about it, and you called me instead. So either you’ve lost your mind, or you want to talk about something nobody else can hear."

Blair opened her mouth to deny both possibilities. Nothing came out.

She looked at the folded duvet, the thrown book, the grey sleeve sliding down over her wrist. The burn scar on her left side pulled when she shifted her weight, a tight pink stripe from her ribs to her hip that she had stopped covering in the shower because nobody was there to see it.

"Did he read it?"

The question came out smaller than she wanted it to. Belle went quiet on the line for a long moment.

"He read it." Belle’s voice had lost its edge. "He laughed for a solid minute at Clause Nine. He’s still upset about his clone, by the way. Then he got to Fourteen, and then Fifteen, and he stopped laughing completely."

Blair pressed her free hand flat against the rug.

"Is that a positive outcome or a negative one?"

"Davenport, you wrote an exit clause into the first page so you’d have a way out before you even agreed to anything." Belle exhaled hard into the speaker. "Then you spent eight pages removing every single reason you had to stay out. You waived your claim on Ayame. You put your own trust fund in front of Ayame’s mom, against your own father. I’ve watched people negotiate for money my whole life, and nobody does that unless they’ve already decided to stay at the table."

"I am staying because the squad requires a competent offensive lead." Blair heard her own voice go formal and stiff, the voice she used on guild recruiters. "Ayame cannot cover target priority and movement simultaneously, and Love overextends without supervision, and Wayne is asleep forty percent of the time."

"Forty-three percent. I measured it." The keyboard started again. "Also, you’re wearing his sweater right now."

Blair froze on the rug.

"I am wearing a sweater of indeterminate origin."

"I saw you take it off Monroe’s couch on Monday. I wrote it down." A pause, then a sound that might have been chips crunching. "It’s grey and too big, and the left sleeve has a bleach spot near the cuff from when Naomi tried to get boba out of it."

Blair turned her wrist over. The bleach spot sat right there, pale and accusing, under her thumb.

"I am going to burn Mendoza’s notebooks."

"You’re going to burn nothing, because Sentinel Vanguard just tried to recruit him tonight in the library and he’d cry." Belle crunched again. "Davenport, I’m going to ask you something, and you’re allowed to lie, but I’ll know."

Blair said nothing. Silence was a Davenport skill, and she had been trained in it since childhood.

"Do you like him?"

The air in the penthouse went warm, then hot. A curl of steam lifted off the rug beside Blair’s knee where her hand pressed into the wool. She jerked her palm up and stared at the singed fibers.

"I find him tolerable in combat situations."

"Okay, so that’s a yes."

"That is categorically not a yes."

"Your voice went up an octave, and I heard the rug." Belle sounded unbearably pleased. "I’m putting it in the tab. Column F, admissions under duress."

"You are an awful woman, Fox."

"I’m a woman who grew up counting coins for the electric bill, and I can spot a bad poker face from a mile out." The crunching stopped. When Belle spoke again, the teasing had drained out of it. "Can I tell you something you won’t put in a contract?"

Blair pulled her knees up and tugged the sweater down over them. The lavender smell rose off the wool, and under it, fainter, something warmer that was just him.

"You may proceed."

"He’s going to be kind to you on Thursday, and that’s going to be the worst part."

Blair frowned at the ceiling. A strip of moonlight lay across it, pale as skim milk, and she traced its edge with her eyes while she waited for the punchline. None arrived.

"Kindness is not a threat, Fox."

"It is when you don’t know what it costs." Belle’s voice dropped lower, and the chip bag went silent. "When I met him, I ran the math on him in the dining hall over a fruit cup. Fat lottery kid, no money, no guild, no friends, eight percent interest on my side of the table. Bad investment. I gave him the app link because it was free, and I figured that was the end of the account."

"I fail to see the relevance."

"Let me finish, princess."

Blair sat up so fast the sweater slid off one shoulder. The cool air of the penthouse hit her bare skin above the lace strap, and goosebumps rose down her arm.

"You do not get to call me that."

"Oh, so only he does." Belle made a small satisfied sound. "Noted. Column G."

Blair dragged the collar back up to her neck and held it there in a fist. She hated that her lungs kept going back for more of him.

"Finish your story before I hang up on you."