The Immortal Cure

19. Busted

Riley and I had spent half an hour scheming.
We both knew we were going to be in a lot of trouble, but we also knew that it would really get him annoyed.
During our chat, I told Riley what had happened the previous night. He was shocked, yet not as much as I had expected him to be.

Riley seemed to think that Duke was only pulling himself away from me because he was afraid of putting me in jeopardy during the fight. He also seemed to think that it - deep down - had something to do with the whole Anna situation.

The plan could have gone either way.
One. It could end in complete disaster and end up with Riley being hurt or kicked out, highly unlikely, but still a factor.
Two. It would work exactly to plan and I would find out the truth about how he really felt, either he wanted me or not.

As the day progressed, we'd somehow dragged Jaymi into our plan while we ate lunch.
She was more surprised than Riley, which surprised me.
Jaymi had attempted to talk us out of it, saying it was the wrong way to go about finding out his feelings for me, but half of me wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine as well as find out the truth.

In the end, she had agreed. She said she would keep her mouth shut, but wanted nothing to do with it, and if we were caught, we were not to tell she knew about it.
We agreed.

"I'm going out for awhile" Jaymi commented exasperated from the chatting and scheming of our plan.
It was simple, and in the end I wondered why it had taken us so long to come up with.

Jaymi gave me a weak smile before leaving.
I knew I still had her friendship, but I could completely see her point in not wanting to be involved. It was risky and could cause unnecessary drama.

"Want to get started?" Riley asked as I rinsed my plate of sandwich crumbs into the sink, placing it on top of the other one I had left this morning.
I had to admit what we were doing made me feel kind of excited, but kind of bad, I rarely did anything wrong. This was still new to me.

Riley and I made our way back up to my room where I sat infront of my bathroom mirror, Riley behind me.

"Here you are" He spoke, handing me a small tube of matte cream lipstick.
I took it from him and began neatly placing it on my lips, making sure it wasn't too thick, nor too thin. By the second application, it was perfect.

"I bet you a thousand dollars plan A will get him to confess everything" Riley guessed, causing me to smile "After his tantrum though"

We returned to my room where Riley sat on my bed.

"Now. What's the question you're asking when you go down there?" He quizzed me

"Where's Riley?" I guessed, narrowing my eyes

"Correct. Now of course Duke'll say 'I have no idea' which then you will come straight back up here" He made a gruff angry sounded voice when he spoke Duke's part, mocking him

"I have already blocked out Seth's thoughts, and I hope you have too" He continued as I nodded, eager to hurry and get it over and done with before I changed my mind "You just have to do the best you can when you act as though you've enjoyed it, Duke will pick up on those emotions, remember"
I nodded again, becoming nervous, knowing I had to hide the nerves from Duke's ability.

"Okay, get going then" He pushed, shooing me with his hands as I made my way out of the room.

Walking the corridors I thought about just how wrong it all was, but every time I thought about how wrong it was, I thought about how wrong Duke was to shut me out after stringing me along like he had.
I also remembered him calling me 'kid' again. Who did he think he was? Who did he think I was?
I picked up my strides with more confidence as I made my way down the stairs, careful not to overthink or let Seth in.
I continuously repeated, 'no, you do not have permission to be in my head' in my head.