The Moon and His Night

15

Camille POV

"Sorry." I gave Brody a small, embarrassed smile as I slid back into my seat. "Ran into Mona in the hallway. Lost track of time."

"S'fine." Brody shrugged, a ghost of a grin hiding beneath the mask he was clearly trying to maintain.

I narrowed my eyes on him as he actively tried ignoring my gaze, pretending to read the textbook opened in front of him. His grin grew by the second, as he was terrible at biting it back, causing him to quickly grab his coffee and take a sip in hopes of recovering. But I was onto him.

"What's the grin for, hm?" I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head to the side in question.

"Nothing." Brody answered, a laugh lacing his tone as he put a hand up in defense.

"Well, it's clearly something." I retorted. "No one just cracks a grin while reading about the... history of slug mucus extraction." I read from his textbook, cringing my nose briefly in disgust. "Tell me. Why are you all tickled all of a sudden?" I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms, waiting for an answer.

He let out a short huff of a chuckle, shaking his head before he pulling his bag up into his lap and rummaging around, pulling something from it a few seconds later.

"Mona stopped by looking for you. Told me to give you the Arithmancy homework you let her copy this morning." Brody explained, dramatically rolling his wrist and handing me said homework. "She was in a rush to get to her dueling club meeting so she couldn't stick around long but she said she would see you back at your dorm."

The more he spoke, the more I wished I had a shell I could promptly crawl into.

His lips were slightly pursed and his eyebrows were raised as he waited for me to take the homework from him. The homework that now served as the evidence to disprove the blatant lie I had just told him.

Damn.

"Can't fool me, Kennedy. I'm a pro at putting the pieces together. It's a talent of mine." he tapped his finger to his temple, smirking proudly. 

I rolled my eyes with a joking scoff, snatching the parchment from him as he snickered quietly.

"Don't go getting a big head about that, Grimes. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have been able to debunk that lie. I'd be seriously concerned if you didn't put two and two together within a few seconds." I chuckled in an effort to try and brush off the topic, my cheeks slightly warm from the embarrassment of being caught out so blatantly.

"Yeah, yeah." He waved his hand at me, pulling his chair closer to the table and settling in to pick up our study session where we left off when we added, "You and Malfoy have a good study break, though?"

My eyes instantly blew wide and snapped over to meet his while my heart seemingly leapt up into my throat. My stomach dropped to the floor, doing a couple flips on the way down for good measure to emphasize my shock.

Say something, Camille. You look insane.

"Wha–uh–I don't..." I stuttered, trying to shrug casually as I ran a nervous hand through my hair. "What–what are you–uh–talking about? What are you even saying about?"

What are you even saying about? Really, Camille?

Brody slowly started cracking up with laughter and I knew any effort to convince him I wasn't guiltier than sin was dead and gone.

"Goddamnit..." I exhaled a long breath as I deflated in my chair, closing my eyes and cursing myself for my not-so-subtle reaction to his questioning.