IS HE JEALOUS?
1654 Words
🪝ADRIANA'S POV🪝
"Are you okay?" Molly asked for the tenth time.
"I'm fine," I said, giving her a smile that I already knew wasn't convincing anyone, least of all to her. She'd known my face since we were young. She could read it better than I could half the time.
Outside, through the glass, Sean was still crouched beside his car, working on the tyre with his back to us. He'd offered to take us home when we didn't see Klaus.
*Of course you saw him in the garden*
I watched him without really seeing him because my brain was somewhere else entirely, replaying a garden and a voice saying hope you're ready, doll like he already knew the answer and found the whole thing amusing.
I pressed my fingers to my forehead.
Stop thinking about him, Adriana.
"I should be the one apologising," I told Molly, turning to her. "I know tonight wasn't what you had in mind."
She laughed and wrapped her arm around my neck, pulling me sideways into her the way she always did. "I should've protected you from that sneaky witch. I dragged you there in the first place."
"I'm sorry, my dear Ana."
"It wasn't your fault," I said.
She disagreed with a sigh but let it go, which was Molly's version of we are good.
I looked back out through the glass and tried again not to think about Klaus. Which immediately made me think about the storage room. Madison's legs around his waist. His mouth on her neck. The sounds she was making before I interrupted them, which landed me with that stupid dare.
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
*Why are you mad about that, Ana? The voice in my head had absolutely no chill whatsoever. Thought you wanted nothing to do with him*
I exhaled.
"Shut up," I muttered.
Molly and Leticia both turned to look at me.
Leticia had appeared at some point and settled onto the seat to my right, coffee in her hands, wearing an expression that was equal parts concern and barely contained delight.
"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked.
"Completely fine," I said. "One hundred percent sure. Never been better."
She gave me a look. One that said she had a lot of questions and was keeping them in a very specific folder labelled to be discussed tomorrow at school.
"Ugh. I was genuinely exhausted at this rate."
Sean came through the door before I could spiral any further, brushing his hands on his jeans, his hair falling across his forehead. He was good-looking, objectively. Denim jacket, a charming smile, a face that made girls melt.
*He's still not even in the same category as Klaus, though.*
The thought waltzed in uninvited, and I immediately pressed my palm flat against my own face.
I was now comparing people to Klaus. This was a new low.
"Klaus called," Sean said, holding my phone out.
I took it a little too quickly. Beside me, I felt Molly go still.
"You have Klaus's number?" The way she said it wasn't quite an accusation, but it had the energy of one, and the back of my neck prickled.
"Yes, I—"
The door opened.
And I forgot what I was saying.
Klaus walked in, and the convenience store suddenly felt about half its actual size. His shoulders were set, and his eyes swept the room once and landed on Sean and stayed there just a second too long.
Sean looked back at him and smiled. Easy yet taunting, like he'd been expecting this.
There was something between these two. Something old and heavy that had nothing to do with tonight or whatever rivalry they had. I could feel it the way you feel a thunderstorm coming before a single drop falls.
"We need to leave," Klaus said, stopping in front of us. "It's late."
"Hi Klaus!" Leticia waved cheerfully.
He nodded at her and then his eyes came to me.
"Sean was about to drive us home since you disappeared from the party," Molly said, rolling her eyes at her brother.
"Did I?" Sean turned to me, a smirk on his face like he could see the punchline to something. "Adriana saw me in the garden. Didn't you, doll?"
My stomach dropped straight to the floor.
Seriously? Doll. In front of everyone.
I felt Molly's attention swing to me like a searchlight and I looked Klaus dead in the eye and said, "For about five minutes yeah, before you went off chatting up some girl. I left before it became a live show."
Molly screwed her face up at him while he let out a short laugh, the sound low and brief.
It didn’t last.
It faded just as quickly as it came, his expression settling back into something unreadable.
"Let's go," Klaus said.
He turned and walked toward the exit and Molly grabbed her things, muttering something about him being impossible, then stopped and pressed her warm palm against my cheek the way she always did. It was such a Molly thing.
"I need to sort him out," she said, her eyes soft. "Say goodnight to Ticia for me. Tell her she better show her face at school tomorrow."
"Go," I said, swatting her hand away, smiling.
She smiled, rushing off.
I said goodbyes to Leticia, who squeezed me tight and whispered we are talking about all of this tomorrow into my hair, and then I thanked Sean and apologised for the tyre situation while he asked for my number and a hug, which I gave him both because it seemed rude not to after he'd been crouching on cold pavement for twenty minutes.
Then I turned toward the exit.
And stopped.
Klaus was just outside the glass, not quite facing in, but I could see his jaw from where I stood, and it was doing that locked-tight thing. His eyes weren't on me.
They were on Sean.
And the look on his face disappeared the second he felt me looking, smoothed over into nothing, but I'd seen it.
I was pretty sure I'd seen it.
I pushed through the door and didn't say anything and neither did he and we walked to the Jeep.
🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷
Molly was out cold before we even turned off Madison's street.
She was leaning against the window with her arms folded, breathing slow, completely gone. I studied her for a moment and felt guilt settle fresh in my chest, thinking about the promise I'd made her on her bed and how much harder it was getting to keep it.
The streets outside were dark and eerily quiet.
Our ride was filled with silence. I looked at my phone expecting a call from Mom, and when there was one, I put it down, looked out the window.
We pulled up outside my house and I had my hand on the door before he'd fully turned off the ignition, which I always did when I needed a head start on my own feelings.
"I'll walk you up," he said.
"I'm literally fine—"
"Molly's asleep." He was already getting out.
I got out too and we walked up the path side by side in silence, the porch light exactly the way Mom always left it.
I got to the door and turned to say goodnight—only to find him right behind me.
I stepped back automatically until my back hit the wall, and suddenly he was in front of me, one arm braced against the doorframe beside my head, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him in the cool night air.
My lungs stopped cooperating.
"Klaus—"
"He put his arms around you," he said. Flat. Even. Not angry exactly, just stated, the way you state a fact you don't like.
I blinked. "Who?"
"Sean."
Oh.
Was Klaus Brennan actually jealous? The same boy who moved on and found the next girl and the one after that. He had Madison against a wall this morning. So what was his deal?
"It was a hug," I said carefully. "His car broke down while he was taking us home, leaving him stuck. He was being nice, and the hug was just me being nice too. That's it."
"I know what it was," he said, his eyes doing that thing that made my brain go offline. "I don't like it."
"You don't get a say in who hugs me, Klaus."
"I know that."
"Then what are you—" I shook my head, genuinely confused, my heart doing something completely unhinged behind my ribs. "You have a different girl every other weekend. I saw you with Madison this morning with my own two eyes. So why does Sean hugging me mean anything to you?"
He looked at me for a moment and said nothing, and somehow that silence held more meaning than any answer could have.
He smiled, leaned in and wrapped his arms around me slowly, pulling me into his chest, and it was nothing like the scene in the garden. Just him, warm and solid. His heart beating steadily, his chin resting on top of my head.
I stood there with my hands hanging at my sides, telling myself not to move them, not to wrap them around him, not to reach up and hold on, because if I held on I wasn't sure I'd be able to pretend anymore that this was nothing.
So I just stood there.
Breathing him in.
Hating myself a little for how easy it was.
Then he pressed his lips to my cheek, and warmth spread through me.
He pulled away and tapped my cheek lightly with two fingers and stepped back.
"The next time any man puts his hands on you," he said, "I genuinely don't know how calm I'll be about it."
Then he turned and walked back to his Jeep.
- Writer
