Sapphire

Chapter 22

"You're back." Alec greeted as soon as Shay walked into her apartment. He had made himself at home by sitting on her air mattress with a microwave meal in his hand, eating the pasta with a fork. Shay hesitated in the entryway for a second, taken aback, before closing the door behind her.

"What are you doing?"

"You really need some furniture in this place. It is beyond sad." Alec informed her, as if she didn't already know.

"There's no point. I'm moving out."

Alec stood up and looked at her in disbelief. "They want you to move in already?"

Shay hesistated, again questioning where her loyalties were. "Yeah."

Alec finished his meal and walked past her to the kitchen, throwing out the container and tossing the fork in the sink. Standing in front of her, his eyes shone with pride.

"I can't believe it. That was so fast."

"Apparently they still consider me family." Shay muttered, more emotion in her voice than she was prepared for. Alec sensed it immediately and placed both of his hands on her arms, the touch reminding her of that time they were intimate. Most of the time, she forgot all about it but now, when he was close enough that she could smell the aftershave on his face, she was reminded of it.

"Look, I know you might still feel tied to them, like you owe them something, but believe me you don't." Alec told her. "They're bad people, Shay."

Are they really, though? It was a question she asked herself everyday, yet she couldn't find a concrete answer. She felt like an astronomer calculating when the sun will die, or an environmentalist predicting when climate change destroys the world forever. She could form an educated guess, sure, but she couldn't ever really know. Just like she didn't really know who was good and who was evil. Who was the devil, and who was an angel.

"Do you still feel loyal to them?" Alec asked her.

"No." Her answer was automatic. She didn't let herself doubt it for a second. If he saw how conflicted she was, she'd be in jail already, no question.

"I have another question for you. And I need you to be honest, cause it's something I have suspected since the very beginning." Alec began. "Do you have any romantic history with Noah Caputo?" 

Shay used the same tactic she used for the last question. A quick, confident no that held no trace of second thoughts.

Alec studied her face for sincerity and eventually decided to believe her. "I need you to tell me if anything changes. You need to keep your head in the game otherwise this will end really badly for you."

Shay knew that. He didn't need to remind her. No matter what she did, this was all going to end badly.

It wasn't until Alec left that Shay sat down on her bed and allowed herself to truly think about what he had asked. She wasn't lying when she said there was no history between her and Noah, but she wasn't exactly telling the truth either. The truth was way more complicated and couldn't be explained with just a simple yes or no.

Noah never saw her as more than a child. Shay knew that. After their moment in Cape Cod, nothing really changed except maybe Shay checked him out more. She had a crush, sure, but Noah certainly didn't. Not that she knew of anyway. Thinking about it now, Shay realized her cheeks were warm again so she went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

Soon, she would be moving into the same house as him.

Living across the hall, both of them full grown and her still attracted to him. As if her life wasn't already complicated, this made it ten times worse.