Stolen Crush

by Stunich, C. M.

  I put the Harry Potter books on the top shelf before grabbing another box labelled Books #2. As soon as I open it and grab a stack, I realize my mistake.

  It’s an entire stack of Tess Vanguard novels. Some of them are signed. Some of them I have in more than one cover, because I collect like that, and I couldn’t bear not to have all the editions. The blood drains from my face, and I feel suddenly like I’m naked in front of an entire stadium of people.

  I look up and our eyes meet. I haven’t told Tess that I used to like her books, that I read Abducted Under a Noonday Sun so many times that the binding fell apart on my first copy. It’s in a plastic bag at the bottom of this very box, waiting to be unpacked.

  “Did you know that this room has been empty since we moved in?” Tess asks softly, her eyes dropping to the books in my hands. My own are shaking, even though I try to tell them to stop, will them to, beg them to. They shake anyway. “We’ve lived here … gosh, almost a decade now.”

  It’s too late, now that Tess has seen the books, so I shelve them beside the Harry Potter set where they’ve always rested, right on the top shelf. Who cares if she knows I like her work? That doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t. Because she told me that her writing isn’t art, that it’s just about money, so who cares? I feel no connection to her, none. None at all.

  Lie.

  Maybe … maybe I did want to find a connection with Tess? Maybe, because Saffron was barely a mother to me at all, I thought I found one in Tess Vanguard? But she’s making it so hard, so fucking hard on me. We just don’t understand each other at all.

  I stay standing, one hand on the edge of a hardcover novel titled Fleeing Under a Summer Rain. Tess likes themes in her titles, obviously. This one she claims is a work of pure fiction, but it’s about an ex who mistreats his wife and daughter, so the wife flees with their kid in tow. She subsequently dies, but her daughter, despite being raised by her mother’s murderer, discovers the truth.

  The end is fucking tragic, the daughter stabbing her father and killing him.

  I shiver and bend back down to dig in the box. It’s mostly Tess novels in here, unfortunately, so I pretend to get fixated on an old game system that was packed beside the books. I won’t let her see the shredded copy of Abducted Under a Noonday Sun. It’s too personal, and she isn’t allowed to see it. She hasn’t earned it.

  Tess stands up, and I figure she’s going to leave without answering her own question.

  “It’s been empty, and it’s stayed empty,” she continues finally, and I focus really, really hard on that game system, pretending to clean dust from all the nooks and crannies with the end of my hoodie sleeve.

  “I left it empty for you.” I go completely still, but I don’t look up. I can’t. Tess’ voice is too soft, and I don’t think I can look at her right now. I’m so conflicted, hating her one minute, wishing I could love her the next. “Because I knew I would find you one day. I wanted you to have the nicest room in the house, with the best view. And I was willing to sacrifice everything to make sure that happened.”

  She leaves, but she doesn’t close the door. I sit there for a long time, too long maybe, but when I look up finally, I see that Parrish is watching from his own doorway.

  My blood chills slightly, and I wet my lips.

  “Did you hear that?” I ask, wishing that he didn’t, that he hadn’t.

  He just keeps staring at me. Everything about his face, about the way she’s slouching against the doorjamb says he doesn’t care. But his fists? They’re clenched tight by his sides.

  “I heard,” he says, and then he steps back and slams his bedroom door.

  When I hear him blasting Ashnikko’s Slumber Party, I know we’ve taken three steps forward … and about a hundred steps back.

  “Bridge of the gods,” I murmur, looking at my phone as Lumen guns her pretty pink sportscar and I end up plastered against the front passenger seat. Sounds like the title of a dope ass book, huh? But it’s not: it’s the name of the trailhead we’re looking for.

  “Can you slow down, please?” Danyella grinds out from the back, leaning forward to glare at her friend. “I know my car is stuck at thirty miles an hour, but I know for certain that yours isn’t glued to ninety.”

  Lumen rolls her eyes, but she slows down thankfully.

  “This is our exit,” I say, just before the GPS chimes in. “Apparently, it’s easy to overshoot the parking lot for the trailhead and end up on the bridge.” I lean forward, so eager to see Maxine now that my grounding is over that I could spit. I’ve tried to sneak out a few times in the last four weeks, but to no avail. Tess has been all freaking over me, and Parrish hasn’t been of any help.

  He’s been even more pouty, even more annoying than usual. And Chasm? Well, Chasm seems just fine, back to normal, like nothing at all ever happened between us. I can’t decide which one of them I hate more right now—the one who’s acting like a spoiled brat or the one that’s acting like nothing matters. Both are equally infuriating.

  “Who drives three hours to hike a trail anyway?” Lumen murmurs, just as we zoom past the parking lot, and I sigh.

  “You just passed it,” I say as Danyella lets out an exaggerated sigh from the back seat. The more I get to know the girls, the more obvious it is that their constant back and forth is part of their charm. They love to hate each other, and it shows. Kind of like you and Parrish? I think, but then … he won’t let there be anything else between us.

  “We’ll have to turn around then, won’t we?” Lumen quips, dressed head to toe in some fancy Kardashian-brand outfit. Frankly, I can’t tell any of the Jenners or Kardashians apart, nor do I care to. But Lumen loves them. Danyella says they taint popular culture with unrealistic body standards, and are so greedy that the next Christmas Carol remake that comes out should feature a Kardashian-Jenner instead of Ebenezer Scrooge.

  “We now have to cross the entire bridge,” Danyella murmurs, sighing as we pull up to the toll booth and Lumen pulls forward enough that it’s Danyella that has to hand her debit card out to pay the toll. Both Lumen and I have super strict parents: we’re supposed to be playing tennis at the country club then spending the night with Danyella. Anyway, she’s the only who can use her debit card without a parent scrutinizing the charge and asking where she’s been.

  After we’ve paid our two dollars, we continue on past the booth and start across a metal bridge. On either side of us, Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge stretches as far as the eye can see. I find myself plastered to the window with my mouth hanging open. I’m not an outdoorsy type of person, but I can appreciate a view.

  Danyella and Lumen meanwhile grew up in the Pac Northwest so they just sort of accept this as normal.

  “Let me pick a song for once,” Danyella complains, trying to reach past Lumen to grab her phone. We’ve spent the last three hours listening to Yung Baby Tate. Mostly, we’ve spent the last three hours listening to the same song on repeat—“Eenie Meenie”—to the point that it feels like my head’s about to explode.

  “So we can listen to Italian opera?” Lumen spits out, pretending to gag. “No thank you. I’m driving, so I get to decide on the music.”

  “This is hardly music,” Danyella mumbles, sighing as she leans back and gives up the fight. We’ve been over this argument already, about twenty times.

  “Thank you both for bringing me here,” I say, turning the volume down carefully and doing my best to break the tension. Lumen whips a sharp U-turn at the end of the bridge, and I swear to god, my life flashes before my eyes.

  “You’re welcome,” she says, giving me a cheerful, sparkly smile. It took me through most of last week to realize that she actually is into me, and is actively courting me. I’m flattered and confused, but I’m rolling with it. Chasm refuses to admit he’s into me; Parrish adamantly denies. So fuck both of them anyway. “Anything for you, of course.”

  “Mostly, thank you for not asking us to go on the hike with you,” Danyella adds, and
I laugh.

  “I’m not much of a hiker either, but my sister’s practically frothing at the mouth to get me on a trail with her. She thinks a good hike can cure any ailment: mental, physical, or spiritual.” I shrug my shoulders, but in reality, I’m excited. My stomach hurts with happy nerves at the thought of seeing my sister again. It feels like it’s been forever. With Tess hovering over my shoulder all the time, I’ve barely even been able to talk to her since the stupid talk show. Speaking of … “Did you guys see that one of the Cortez sisters is missing?” I ask, but Lumen gives me a look that says duh, I’m up on all the goss, girl, I know.

  “Her grandmother thinks she ran away; she pleaded with her to come home on yesterday’s episode.” Lumen jerks the wheel and sends us flying partially over the curb into the parking lot for the trailhead; I can already see Maxx’s Jeep Gladiator waiting and my heart lurches strangely in my chest.

  Gamer Girl crushing on sister’s boyfriend. Not a promising tagline. I shut that thought down quick.

  “That’s terrible; I hope nothing’s happened to her,” Danyella muses, but mostly it’s just celebrity gossip that nobody cares about.

  “Holy shit, is that really Maxx Wright?” Lumen breathes as we fly into a pair of parking spaces (Lumen couldn’t park in a single space if her life depended on it) and poor Maxx is forced to hop out of the way to avoid being run over. “I mean, he was hot in high school, but now? Damn.”

  “Girl, you’re so thirsty you’re about to die from dehydration.” Danyella rolls down her window to wave at Maxx. Sometimes I forget that they know him, that until this year, he went to school with basically everyone I know. “Hey Maxx, how are you?” she asks as Lumen checks her lip gloss in the mirror on the back of her visor.

  “I’m great,” he says with a big grin, folding his arms on the edge of the window and leaning in. “Hey Lumen.”

  “Hey cutie,” she says, and then flips the visor back up. “Take care of my girlfriend while you’re on the trails today, okay? I don’t want her eaten by a cougar or kidnapped by the Seattle Slayer or anything.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. The Slayer only chooses victims from the Seattle metro area.” Maxx says nothing about cougars, standing up and then opening my door for me. Shit. But not shit on the cougars part, shit on how freaking cute he is.

  “We’re going to hit Portland while you guys are walking in the heat for no reason whatsoever,” Lumen continues, and I can’t help but laugh. Maxx raises a brow, tucking his hands into the back pockets of his fancy hiking pants. Maxine told me that he bought her a pair, and that they cost almost two hundred freaking dollars. For pants. He might not be ‘rich’ like the other Whitehall Prep students, but the Wrights are loaded when compared to the Banks. “Give us a warning when you’re about an hour out from the lot.”

  “Will do,” Maxx says, offering up a little salute. My heart flutters, so I give it a little slap to keep it quiet. So cringe, Dakota, so freaking cringe.

  “Where’s Maxine?” I ask as I climb out, standing on my toes and trying to peep in the windows of the Gladiator. Maxx waves bye to Lumen and Danyella as they screech out of the parking lot and then turns to me with a smile crafted of gold and self-assured confidence. This bastard, I think, trying and failing to catch my breath.

  “She couldn’t make it today,” he says, and my heart crashes into my belly, shattering to pieces. Maxx—or X, as he wants me to call him—raises both hands like he’s trying to ward off a storm. “Nothing serious, I promise. Just a bad case of mono.” He pauses, like he’s just realized that my sister has what’s commonly known as ‘the kissing disease’. “Not from me, obviously. Her entire study group has it; they always share drinks.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?” I pout, wishing I had a phone that wasn’t being tracked by Tess; I left mine back at Danyella’s place. She has Lumen’s number, but that girl’s phone is an explosion on the best of days; she gets like a hundred notifications an hour. Even if Maxine did message us, Lumen wouldn’t have seen it.

  “She didn’t tell you on purpose,” Maxx says, still smiling. He reaches out, like he’s going to tousle my hair or something but then seems to think better of it. Part of me wishes he would’ve done it while the rest of me figures it was for the best. If he’s thinking about tousling my hair, then clearly I fall into the Little Sister category again. Which is fine. Which, really if you think about it, is good. Great, actually. “She knew if she told you she wasn’t coming, you’d bail. And she thinks you really need this.”

  “So she sent you?” I ask, quirking a brow and trying not to notice how pretty Maxx’s dark hair looks in the sunlight. It isn’t mine to stare at.

  “She sent me,” he confirms, opening the back door of the Jeep and yanking out a small backpack. “Here.” He hands it to me and then nods his head in the direction of the restrooms. “I got you some basic gear. Maxine helped me out with the sizing. You should go change and then we can hit the trail.”

  I swallow back a half-dozen different replies that just don’t seem to cut it, settle for nodding, and then follow his instructions. Once I’m inside the women’s restroom area, I set the bag on the sink and rummage through the contents.

  Apparently, Maxx’s idea of ‘basic gear’ and my idea of basic gear are entirely different entities. There’s a pair of those expensive hiking pants with the tag still attached but the price scratched off, a metal water bottle that’s cool with condensation, a freaking Fitbit, and some hiking boots with thick socks. On top of all that, there’s a jacket, a sports bra (this better have been Maxine’s idea), and a note.

  Maxx is a good guy; he’ll keep you safe and on the right trails! I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. I love you fierce, and I’ll see you soon. Love, Maxie

  I smile at the note before folding it up and tucking it into the pocket of the fancy hiking pants.

  Once I’m dressed in my new gear, I meet X outside on the trail. He’s waiting on a bench, typing something out on his phone.

  “Is that my sister?” I ask, and he pauses, lifting his head up to look at me. Our eyes meet and something weird happens in my belly, just like it did that night at the party. See, that’s my problem as of late. Lots of people seem to be able to make something weird happen in my belly. So how do I know if any of them are worth pursuing? Or maybe, as Delphine suggested, none are. Having a lover around is hardly a requirement for a happy or fulfilled life. It could, on the other hand, be fun though.

  “No, it’s Parrish actually,” he admits which makes that weirdness in my stomach clench a little tighter. I can only imagine the things he says to Chasm and Maxx about me when I’m not around. When X stands up from the bench, I’m hyperaware of the way he moves, like he’s in control of every muscle, every movement. Nothing Maxx ‘X’ Wright does is an accident. That, and he doesn’t apologize for anything either. He grins at me as he tucks his phone away and then looks me over. “I hear from Maxine that you’re not much of a hiker?”

  I reach up to tug on my black and lime green pigtails, as if that’s an indication of my gamer girl status.

  “I prefer curb stomping trolls online,” I admit as Maxx lifts a single brow in response. “Also, what am I supposed to do with this?” I jiggle the Fitbit—it’s basically a simple smartwatch for tracking steps, calories burned, and heart rate—around in my hand. “I couldn’t bring my phone or else Tess would know that I’ve left not only Medina, but Washington altogether.”

  “Here.” Maxx reaches out without hesitation, taking the Fitbit and hooking it around my wrist. I wish I could pretend that I don’t feel the warmth of his fingertips tingling against the sensitive flesh, but that would be a lie. Control your actions, even if you can’t control your thoughts. I exhale sharply as he hooks the clasp and then releases me. “Your sister set it up with your height and weight already.”

  And then Maxx hands me something miraculous: a phone.

  A phone that isn’t attached to Tess’ account, that isn’t subject to Tess’ rules or the w
eird parenting apps she’s installed to monitor me. My mouth drops open as I take the phone in my hand and turn the screen on, only to find a picture of me and Maxine set as the background.

  “It’s a gift from your grandparents,” he says, offering up a tight smile. “After Maxine told them what happened to your phone, they got this for you. It’s your old number, too.”

  Tears prick my eyes as I swipe my arm across my face, blinking rapidly to keep the droplets from falling. I haven’t spoken to the Banks since that disaster of a talk show, and even though I’m mad at them, even though I want to spend at least a few minutes yelling at them … I miss them. I miss my old life. I miss Maxine.

  “Chin up,” X says, reaching out to sweep a stray tear from my cheek with his knuckles. “Exercise helps release endorphins.” He pauses briefly and lets his grin morph into something wildly sexy and brimming with self-confidence. No wonder my sister’s in love with him. “Either that or you’ll be panting and sweating so hard that you’ll forget to be sad.”

  “Oh, fantastic,” I drawl, just before Maxx reaches out and grabs my hand.

  “Let’s do this,” he says, and even though I shouldn’t be gaping at him the way I am, it happens. And I feel so guilty. And yet, before we even hit the actual trail, I’m smiling.

  The curving road that leads toward the toll booth separates us from the woods, so Maxx and I pause there for a moment as we wait for a couple of cars and an RV to pass. He keeps hold of my hand until we’re across, releasing it to reach up and run his palm over his hair.

  “I have a tendency to set a quick pace, so if it’s too much for you, just let me know.”

  I nod and fall into step beside him, climbing a slight incline before the path curves to the right. We end up coming out at another road and going underneath a bridge. I’m just glad that Maxx knows where he’s going because I’d be lost as hell out here.

  “The trail starts just ahead,” he says, pointing up a gravel road toward a sign that leads into the woods. “It’s a part of the Pacific Crest Trail, but we’re only going to hike a small portion of it.”