Chapter Twenty-Nine

A smile creeps onto my lips. I can’t miss the chance to embarrass Adrian in front of someone willing to engage in a conversation with him. I flounce over to them and wrap myself around Adrian’s bicep, peeking around him to see who he’s talking to.

“Who’s this?” I ask, but my words die on my tongue as I peer over Adrian’s arm, immediately recognizing the curly hair and grey eyes. As soon as they meet mine, the same acknowledgment lights theirs up.

“Lydia?” The man interrupts the conversation he was having with Adrian, his eyes going wide.

My jaw drops as I squint at him, not believing my eyes. Though he’s matured considerably, it’s definitely him. The birthmark below his left eye confirms it. “Jasper?” I place the name to the face, still skeptical that he could even be here.

Jasper grins at my realization, opening his arms wide. “Come here! It’s been too long!” He exclaims.

I don’t waste a second and let go of Adrian’s arm to lunge forward into his embrace, unable to help my excitement at seeing my childhood friend. “How are you here?” I ask, voice muffled by his chest. I’m surprised to notice how solid it feels beneath my cheek, so I pull back to hold him at arm’s length to get a better look at him.

Jasper definitely isn’t the same person he was when we were preteens; he’s grown about a foot, his acne is gone, and his features have gotten noticeably more evolved with his age. Aside from all that, he used to be so skinny and lanky, but now he has the body of an Olympic swimmer.

Jasper’s eyes sparkle in the lighting as he gives me a once-over too, admiring how drastically I’ve changed since our last meeting. “God, I never thought I’d see you again,” He marvels, looking back to my face. “You’ve gotten so grown-up now.”

I can’t help returning his contagious grin. “I could say the same about you. Do you know each other?” I ask, turning to glance behind my shoulder towards Adrian, startled at what I see on his face.

Adrian’s look is filled with enough venom to kill an elephant as he glares at Jasper, his arms folding across his chest intimidatingly. Even with how much he’s grown, Adrian still makes Jasper seem like an elementary school kid, and he seems to know it. “We’re cousins,” His voice is just as threatening as his posture, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of Jasper’s hand that encircles my waist.

Jasper swallows and releases his grip on me, almost as if I suddenly burned him. “Uh, yeah,” He says quickly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his joggers. “We’re cousins.”

I take a step back and stare at each of them for a long moment, seeing absolutely no resemblance. “Oh, really?” I ask, not bothering to conceal my skepticism. “You don’t look related.” Jasper, as European as can be, and Adrian, with obviously Korean features. Between that and how badly it looks like Adrian wants to murder Jasper on the spot, I’m very unconvinced.

Adrian doesn’t break eye contact with Jasper but continues to glower at him intimidatingly as he reaches to grab me, pulling me back to him by the waist. “My father married into the family,” Adrian growls. It seems like he’s having a silent conversation with Jasper that makes him outwardly grimace.

Jasper smiles weakly and tears his gaze away from Adrian’s, breaking their intense eye contact. “That’s right,” Jasper agrees, taking a step back to gesture us past him. “Were you guys about to grab some lunch? I’m on a break too, I’d love to catch up,” He says, eyes turning to me again.

I stick my tongue against the inside of my cheek and turn to glare up at Adrian, annoyed that he made my friend feel so uncomfortable. I’m not about to let him run Jasper off after just being reunited with him. “Yeah, of course! Let’s go find a seat before it’s too late,” I say cheerfully, jabbing my elbow into Adrian’s ribs so hard that it hurts.

I reach for Jasper’s sleeve and pull him to my other side, making him walk beside me instead of Adrian. “Sorry that he’s being such a dick, just ignore him,” I apologize loudly, giving Adrian a pointed look. “I’m really glad to see you, though.”

Jasper casts a nervous look past me at Adrian but smiles genuinely. “Yeah, I’m glad to see you, too. I had no idea you guys were together. What a coincidence,” He says, glancing over me again.

Adrian remains silent as he walks, clenching his jaw tightly. He doesn’t loosen his grip on me as we walk into the cafeteria, chatter ceasing the moment that gazes fall on us. As usual, Adrian doesn’t seem to notice. Considering that he was in a relatively good mood this morning, Jasper’s sudden appearance changed that very quickly. I’ll have to ask him about what bad blood is between them later, but right now, I’m too happy to see Jasper to care about whatever chip is on his shoulder this time.

“Yeah, it’s pretty funny,” I chuckle, allowing Adrian to guide me towards the buffet line. It’s strange that he didn’t tell Jasper the truth behind our relationship, since he mentioned that they’re cousins. Maybe he’s keeping it a secret for some reason, though I don’t understand why Adrian would hide the fact that he’s my bodyguard from his family. Granted, it doesn’t seem like he gets along very well with Jasper, but since he knows me pretty well already, he knows that I’m no stranger to hired guards. Most of my childhood comprised of us being chauffered and followed around by a guy in a suit anyway since I could never go out in public without a bodyguard for most of my life.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Adrian wants Jasper to believe that we’re actually going out.

Jasper seems grateful that I don’t acknowledge their strained relationship further and falls into the lunch line behind me. “Don’t worry, that’s normal for him. Anyway, what are you doing in Whitefish?”

I point to an item in the line that I want Adrian to add to my plate. “My dad sent me here. Things didn’t work out in Florida. What about you? How did a flunky like you manage to get in here?”

Jasper winces playfully at the mention of his grades, reaching to rub the back of his head. “I’ve improved a lot since we were kids. My dad is an Alumni and he wanted me to come here. I wanted to go to Harvard, but you know,” He says with a shrug, likely insinuating that his grades wouldn’t have been high enough to be accepted there.

I pause, furrowing my brow. “How many people attend this place just because their parents did?”

Jasper tilts his head, trying to understand my question. “Probably alot. Why?”

I turn to look at him as we exit the line. “My dad went here too, though it was probably before your dad was a freshman.”

Jasper glances at Adrian, though I don’t understand why. “He was? I didn’t know that.”

Adrian bumps my shoulder to get my attention since he has both of his hands occupied by our trays. He nods in the direction of an empty table, signaling that I should follow him over so I follow him. Luckily, the majority of the students have begun their chatter back up while we were in line, so it doesn’t seem as awkward as we take our seats, with me squeezing in between Jasper and Adrian, trying to separate them to avoid a possible squabble.

I look up as Adrian slides my tray in front of me, noticing the same group of guys from yesterday’s lunch just walking in. Their entrance seems to attract the attention away from us again luckily, so I turn back to Jasper to continue our conversation.

I notice his gaze traveled over to the newcomers as well, but his smile returns as soon as I turn back to him. “So, how have you been?” I ask, unwrapping my fork to dig into my salad. I was hoping that I would get to see Serene today, but it seems like her classes on Tuesday conflict with my break period. I’ll try to remember that from now on.

Jasper follows suit and digs into his chili. “Good, for the most part. I hated it when we had to move for dad’s new job,” He confesses around his spoon.

I finish swallowing mine before continuing. “Me too. I cried for like, two weeks straight,” I say with a sad chuckle, remembering how distraught I was. I had other friends, but I wasn’t as close with any of them as I was with Jasper. They were all fake, even at a young age, and only befriended people in the same social class as them. I suppose that’s something they learned from their parents.

We were around ten or eleven when Jasper told me his dad got a new job as a contractor in Washington state, and he had to leave California. Before that, his dad worked as the landscaper for our old property before we moved to a different estate, so we used to play together almost every day after school when he would come to work with his old man. My dad didn’t like it at first, but once he realized that Jasper was a good kid, he decided that it would be good for me to get outside every day.