Divine Milking System

Chapter 470: 470 | Where Else Would I Be?

I did, actually. I knew a concerning amount about her life. I knew her brothers were named Mikal and Devon and that Devon once tried to sail to China on a raft. I knew her mom made shell necklaces and her dad sang sea shanties when he thought nobody was listening. I knew she sent home two thousand dollars a month and lived on fifteen hundred and had eaten expensive steak exactly zero times because that was Belle, wait, no, that was also relevant, everyone in my life had a tragic relationship with premium meat.

The point was that Naomi Love was sitting across from me, executing the worst diversionary operation in recorded history, and I loved her enough to pretend it was working.

"Okay," I said. "Show me the mats."

Her eyes went wide. "Really?"

"Sure. I’m recovering. Mats are important. Your fake physical therapist would want this."

"He’s not fake."

"He’s extremely fake, Naomi. He’s the fakest man alive. But let’s go look at some mats."

She scrambled up so fast she nearly knocked her boba over, caught it, cradled it against her chest, and then remembered she was supposed to be casual and slowed herself down in a way that fooled absolutely no one. She grabbed her staff case off the back of the chair. She grabbed my tray, which she was not supposed to do, and stacked it on hers, and then had to figure out how to carry two trays and a boba and her staff at the same time, which she managed through what looked like genuine athletic effort.

"I can carry my own tray," I said.

"You’re injured."

"I ripped a monster’s heart out yesterday."

"And it clearly took a lot out of you."

She marched off toward the tray return with both trays balanced and her staff case swinging and her braid coming apart at the back, and I sat there for one more second and just watched her go.

Somewhere in Building D, or the rec center, or wherever they’d actually set it up, Belle Fox was arranging things with the intensity of a woman planning a heist, which for her was probably indistinguishable from planning a party. Aurora Fitzgerald had gotten back from her gate this morning, which meant she was somewhere in that room too, running the whole operation like a chess grandmaster who’d decided the endgame involved balloons. And Addison Baxter was in there being loud about cake versus pie and threatening violence over decorations and pretending, the way she pretended everything, that she didn’t care.

Four of them. Coordinating. For me.

Six weeks ago the only person who’d talk to me in a cafeteria was Belle, and that was because I represented a possible investment she hadn’t finished evaluating.

The graft pulsed. Warm. Full. Smug. The divine parasite in my chest that fed on connection, that Yumi said was building a resonance field out of every ring on her crystal plate, that some old man in a dream library had designed specifically so that the only way to win was to actually give a damn about people.

He’d built the whole thing so I couldn’t cheat my way out of caring.

And the worst part, the part I’d never admit to Vale or Yumi or the old man or any of the four women who’d apparently decided my continued existence was worth a party, was that I didn’t want to.

I stood up. My ribs told me about it. The scars across my chest pulled, four pale ridges that were going to be there forever, and the corruption underneath itched in that way that no painkiller reached.

I had seven days on the clock. A weapon three weeks out that ran on how many people loved me. A squad of eight who hated each other and a bet with an heiress whose devotion tracker read twenty-nine percent with three question marks the System couldn’t figure out. A Diamond-tier investigator somewhere in a shadow, a patron somewhere in a library, and something on the other side of reality that had built a Void Gate around a training exercise specifically to kill me before I got interesting.

And Naomi Love was waving at me from the tray return with two trays balanced on one arm, telling me to hurry up because the mats closed at some time she was clearly inventing on the spot.

I walked over.

"You’re doing the smirk again," she said, when I got close.

"Am I?"

"The first one, this time. The cocky one." She narrowed her eyes at me. "What are you smirking about?"

"Mats," I said. "I’m just really excited about the mats."

She scrutinized me for a second, that pink-eyed once-over she gave when she thought I was up to something and couldn’t figure out what. She was so close to it. So close to realizing I knew. If she’d asked me one direct question I’d have had to either lie to her, which I didn’t do anymore, not with her, or tell her the truth and ruin the thing she was so proud of pulling off.

She didn’t ask.

She just said, "Weirdo," with the softest possible affection, and bumped her shoulder into mine, and started toward the doors.

I fell into step beside her. Our arms brushed with every stride, the way they had since the first week, when neither of us had names for what we were doing. She smelled like my soap. She’d showered in my bathroom again and she thought I didn’t notice that either, and she was wrong about that too, and I was going to keep being wrong about noticing it for as long as she wanted.

"Naomi."

"Mm?"

"Thanks."

She glanced over, confused. "For what? We haven’t even seen the mats yet."

"For staying with me all afternoon."

Something flickered across her face. Guilt, maybe. A little bit of the strain of holding a secret from someone she’d rather tell everything to. She recovered fast, gave me a smile that was two-thirds genuine and one-third cover story.

"You’re my boyfriend," she said, like it explained everything, which around Naomi it kind of did. "Where else would I be?"

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