“Sage?” I flinch and drop the stone.
Lucas watches me from the office porch, his brown eyes squinting as they pass from me to Brianna’s car. He leans forward and flexes his hands along the chipped painted railing between the grizzly bear statue and an empty flower pot. “You don’t work today, do you?”
Eight months ago, I would have laughed and said something sarcastic like ‘Somebody needs to work since you suck at this job.’ But, that was eight months ago. That was before Brianna took my only friend besides Adam away from me.
Today I say, “Hey.” It comes out awkwardly with too big of a smile and too squeaky of a voice. I lift my hands in a semi-circle wave and drop them, hooking my thumbs into my jean pockets and rocking on my feet. “No, but I’m not working at the diner tonight, so I thought I’d see if Stella needed any help.”
“Stella ran into town, so it’s just me here right now.” His gaze shifts from me to Brianna’s car to me again. His face is tight, and he blinks several times, looking down at the railing, at his hands, at the car. And I know. I know what he’s going to ask.
“Brianna’s here,” I say. “And you want me to help her.” Pink stains his face from neck to forehead. He brushes his fingers through his hair and squeezes his eyes into slits. God, I know him well.
“I’m sorry. She’s here to rent a cabin. And I don’t know how to do that.” His gaze shifts to the ground, and he rubs a finger along the railing. Lucas has worked for Stella as long as I have, but he usually helps with the upkeep of the cabins and the grounds. I’m the one that deals with the reservations.
I sigh. I don’t have to do this. It’s my day off, and I should turn around and let him deal with what’s inside.
“Lucas, I—” He looks up and my heart squeezes. He’s Lucas. The boy who used to share his lunches because my mom forgot to buy groceries. The boy who baked my fourteenth birthday cake because my mom was drunk. The boy who threatened to beat up Jack Hanlen last year after he wrote Sage Cassidy is a slut all over the boy’s bathroom.
This is Lucas.
“I’ll help her,” I say, and he grins. The grin. Flashy, big teeth, I’m-the-confident-smart-ass Lucas grin. The grin he wore in all the homecoming pictures of him and Brianna. The grin he wore when he passed me in the hall with Brianna on his arm without a glance in my direction. I don’t smile back as I climb the steps, stumbling underneath the dangling wood “Stella’s Star Harbor Cabin Rentals” sign.
“Careful.” He takes my arm and steadies me. I shake off his grip and narrow my eyes, and he steps back. “Thanks. I owe you big for this.”
A snarky comeback teases my tongue, but never reaches my lips. He bounds down the steps and jogs across the parking lot, disappearing between two cabins. I shiver and cross my arms, shoving my hands up opposite coat sleeves until I touch my elbows. Why did I agree to this?
“You.” A head peers out from behind the front door. Dark hair, black eyes, thick eyeliner. One of Brianna’s friends. “Where’s Lucas?”
“Uh—he had to go.”
She frowns and snaps her gum. “Well, then are you coming in? Is somebody going to help us?”
“Um, yeah,” I say. “I’ll be right there.”
“Okay then. We don’t have all day.” She slams the door. I lean against the wall and close my eyes. There’s time to run. To disappear back into the woods. To pretend I was never here.
The setting sun reflects in the green paint spelling out ‘Office’ on the door. It will be dark soon, and I should go home. But Mark will return soon, either with drunk apologies or threats to leave, and my mom will still be a blubbering sobbing mess begging for his forgiveness. I sigh and step inside.
“Oh goodie, you’re here.” Brianna’s face explodes into her perfect smile of white teeth and berry lipstick. She’s draped across the front counter like she’s a supermodel and the desk is a sports car. My hand shakes as I hang my coat on a strip of painted pegs in the shapes of lighthouses and glance across the lobby of overstuffed plaid couches and chairs. Brianna’s friends whisper and giggle in the corner beneath the stuffed deer head. Slipping behind the desk, I focus on straightening several scattered papers and notebooks while Brianna hovers over me, drumming her fingernails against the wood.
“Hello?” she says. “I need to rent some cabins. Can you help me with that?”
“Uh…yeah. When?” I dig for a pencil and paper. Brianna’s coconut-scented perfume stings my nose, and her breath heats my skin.
“I’m thinking the end of this month maybe,” she says. “Do you know if Adam will be here by then?”
Time stops.
Adam, did she say Adam?
“Uh—what?” I ask with a shaking voice.
“Do you know if Adam will be here by the end of the month?”
Adam? How does she know about Adam?
“Um—I—” I stumble for words. My brain is like a giant cotton ball. Nothing makes sense.
“Stella’s son, Adam. You know him, right? You’ve worked here forever, so you must. I want to know the date he’s coming before I rent the cabins. We’re planning this party, not that you care since you’re not invited, but I’m hoping Adam will.” Her words drown beneath the thunder in my ears. Adam and Brianna know each other. This can’t be happening. Not Stella’s Adam. Not my Adam. Brianna can’t know him.
She can’t. She can’t. She can’t.
“Hello, are you still with us?” Brianna taps the counter. “Do you know when Stella’s son, Adam, will be here?”
“Adam?” She’s wrong. This has to be all wrong. It has to be some other Adam.
“Yeah, Adam. You know him, right?”
“Um—.” But, if it is him, how? Through Lucas? But, that can’t be. Adam’s been gone since August, two months before Lucas and Brianna hooked up.
“Yeah, Adam Knight. He comes here every summer. I know this for a fact—my dad found out from his dad.” She emphasizes each word as if I’m a deaf two-year-old. She snorts, and her carbon copies in the corner giggle.
“Yeah, yeah, he does.”
“Good, we’re getting somewhere.” She tosses her blond-streaked hair over her shoulder and smiles at her friends. “Now, can you tell me when he’ll be here?”
“Um?”
Brianna rolls her eyes and rounds her lips, enunciating each syllable. “God, how slow are you? Now, when will Adam be here?” The door behind Brianna opens and Stella appears, her cheeks pink and her blond hair windblown. The evening air blows in with her, bringing shivers to my skin.
“Hi girls,” she says as she slips off her gloves and sets them on the counter. Her blue eyes are as big as her smile. “What can I help you with today?”
Brianna leaps from the counter extending a hand out to Stella. “Mrs. Knight,” she says in a voice as sweet as artificial sugar. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m a friend of your son’s. Maybe he’s mentioned me, Brianna Woods?”
“Sorry, I can’t say he has.” Stella shakes Brianna’s hand and glances at me. “Funny, I thought Adam’s only friends in this town were Lucas and Sage.” Everybody’s eyes turn my way. I look down at the pencil still gripped between my fingers and squeeze. The pink drains from my knuckles.
“Oh, we didn’t meet here. We met in California over Christmas break at a party. I never realized you were once married to the Laris Knight or that Adam comes here every summer. To discover the cute boy who kissed me under the mistletoe has been this close to me all these years…it’s like fate—kismet.”
Crack. The pencil breaks in my hand. Four pairs of eyes glance in my direction.
“Sage, why don’t you go back to my office and check on the e-mail for me? I think there may be a few rental questions I haven’t gotten to. I can handle this,” Stella says. My face heats up as I stand and walk around the desk, the remains of the pencil wrapped in my fist. Although Stella’s eyes glow warmly, it’s as if I’m an unruly child being sent to her room. Silent laughter rolls off Brianna as I pass her, and I want to
pound the pencil shards into her skin.
“Can I pick him up from the airport when he comes in a few weeks? I was thinking I could totally surprise him.” Brianna’s voice echoes after me. Stella will say no. She has to say no. I stop in the narrow hallway in front of Stella’s office and hold my breath.
“That’s kind of our mother-son time, I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you once he’s settled in.”
The breath escapes. Thank you, Stella. I step into the office and close the door behind me, sinking into the swivel chair behind the desk.
Pictures of Adam, Stella, Lucas and even me smile from their metal frames lining shelves along the desk. Adam and I splashing in the lake, roasting marshmallows over an August fire, swirling sparklers through a July night. I pick up one from four summers ago. Stella had taken us to Mackinac Island for the day and while on the ferry across Lake Huron, she snapped a picture of Adam and me on the top deck with the Mackinac Bridge in the background. We’re smiling, our heads together, his eyes brighter than the water behind him. I rub my finger across the glass and trace his lips. Brianna and Adam. This can’t be real.
On Stella’s computer, I check my e-mail, scanning through the messages from Adam last December. On Christmas Eve, he sent me a message every hour to tell me where Santa was last spotted. Then, there is the haiku he wrote about reindeer, three messages begging for me to send snow, and his New Year’s resolutions, which listed everything he wanted us to do this summer.
No mention of a Christmas party or a girl or mistletoe.
Brianna’s voice beats in my head. She says he kissed her. He kissed her. But, he would have told me, wouldn’t he? I scan the messages again and press fingers to my temples. I need to stop this. Get over it. It’s not like I have any official claim on him. It’s not like I’m his girlfriend or anything. I mean, all we’ve ever been to each other is friends.
Well, except for that one moment at the end of last summer. A large family from Barron, Wisconsin, filled most of the cabins for the second half of last August. There were twin girls our age with long hair and even longer legs. They pranced around in yoga pants and halter tops and tiny jean shorts that barely covered their butts.
“Oooh, which one should I go for?” Lucas said the day they showed up. “Candace? Christina? Candace? Ahhh, screw it. I want them both.”
Adam and I laughed and shook our heads as we watched Lucas chase them down the beach. Over the next two weeks we saw little of Lucas. He was with the twins, hiking in the Porkies and kayaking on the lake. On a few occasions, they invited Adam, but he always chose to stay with me. There was something different growing between us, his gaze seemed to linger on me, and his hand constantly reached for mine. It was as if we were building our own world, one without Lucas.
On the last night of the summer, Lucas, flanked by the twins, stood on the beach with a pile of blankets in their hands. “We’re going further down the shore to watch the northern lights,” he said, winking. I tried to recall the latest prediction on the northern lights. Hadn’t the paper said the auroral activity would be low?
“Why don’t you join us, Adam?” One of the twins asked, giggling.
“No thanks.” Adam smiled at Lucas. “I think Lucas’ has you covered.”
“That he does,” said the other twin as she wrapped her arm around Lucas’. A slight flush crept into his cheeks.
“Ladies?” asked Lucas. “Are you ready to see the most gorgeous sight in the U.P.?”
“Ooooh,” one of the twins squealed. “Wait, what’s the U.P.?”
I glanced at Adam and rolled my eyes as the girls linked their arms through Lucas’. “The Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” Lucas told them as they turned towards the far end of the beach, to where the rocks jutted out creating secluded pockets of shoreline. “That’s where you’re at right now.”
“Lucky guy,” Adam watched the trio grow smaller. The expression on his face pinched my heart. Did he wish he was with them?
“If you want to go—”
“No.” Adam turned to me, taking my hands and staring into my eyes. I shivered under the intensity of his gaze, feeling as if he could see everything in me. Every secret, every fear, every desire. “I don’t want to go.”
“You don’t?”
“Not a chance. I am jealous of Lucas,” he said. “But I’m jealous of what he gets tomorrow, not tonight. I have to leave in the morning, but not Lucas. He gets to be here…with you. At school and on your birthday.” He stroked his hand slowly across my forehead, smoothing back strands of my hair. “He gets to see you with snowflakes in your hair.”
His eyes glowed in the dusky light like the lake in the moonlight as he traced my chin with his thumb. Goosebumps raced across my skin, and my heart pounded, and then our lips met.
Oh, his lips.
I press a finger to them now as if I can still taste that kiss. We haven’t talked about that night. Not in any of the eight months of phone calls, text messages and e-mails we’ve exchanged since.
“Sage.” I jump at Stella’s voice. She studies me for a moment, her left eye scrunching more than the right, before her lips split into a kind smile. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”
My mom’s sad eyes float through my head. “I should probably get home.”
“Okay, but I want Lucas to give you a ride,” she says. “It’s getting dark.”
“That won’t be—.” The word necessary gets lost in my throat. Stella doesn’t know that Lucas took Brianna to the homecoming dance last October. She doesn’t know that he no longer sits with me at lunch or talks to me in the halls. She doesn’t know that we’re no longer friends. And, I don’t know how to tell her. So, I nod and say, “thanks.”
She pauses in the doorway, her mouth open as if she’s about to say more, but after a silent minute she presses her lip back together, smiles, and walks out the door.
Chapter Three
Lucas wanders into Stella’s office, presses his palms against the edge of the desk, and leans forward. “So, have you heard from Adam lately?” His eyes drift over my shoulder to the computer screen.
“Why?” I ask. I spin the chair away from the monitor and face him, crossing my arms. “Was it you who told Brianna about him?”
“Me?” Lucas frowns and shakes his head. I look away from him to the window. It’s dark outside, and our reflections dance in the windows, but all I can see is kissing. Brianna kissing Adam. Adam kissing Brianna.
“You told her, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His face is blank, and he continues to shake his head. Suddenly, I want to leap out of the chair and throttle him.
“Brianna. You told Brianna that Adam Knight spends his summers here. Didn’t you?” That has to be it. Brianna didn’t meet Adam at a party. She didn’t kiss him under a mistletoe. She found out that Laris Knight’s son spends his summers here, and this is her plan to dig her claws into him. Yes, that’s what this is...or not. Even through my muddled thoughts, it doesn’t make much sense. Why would she pretend to have met him?
Lucas continues to shake his head. “No,” he says. “I never told her anything about Adam. We made that promise—”
“And you’re so good at keeping promises.” Venom slips into my voice. He holds his hands up and steps back from the desk.
“I don’t want to fight. I swear I didn’t tell her,” he says. “Anyways, I came in here to see if you were ready to go.”
“You don’t have to give me a ride. I can walk.”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s dark out.”
“So. This is the U.P., not Detroit. The scariest thing in the woods are the bears and they’re more scared of me.”
“Sage, please. Let me give you a ride.” A haunting ache pulses from his eyes, and I swallow back further protests and nod. Ten years ago, his older brother died in the woods when a hunter’s stray bullet pierced his skull. For Lucas, there are scarier things out there than the dark or the bears.
“Jus
t give me a minute.” I turn back to the computer.
“I’ll wait.” He stands there, crossing and uncrossing his arms, wiping his palms on his jeans. Waiting and waiting and waiting. The flickers of our former friendship have disappeared and the awkwardness returns. His eyes burn my skin, and his breath steals the air, and my brain swims. I can’t concentrate. I sigh and push the chair back from the desk.
“I can meet you—”
“Outside,” he says. “I’ll wait outside.”
He leaves, but my concentration doesn’t return. Images of Adam and Brianna batter my brain over and over and over, and it’s closer to ten minutes before I shut off the computer and leave the office.
It’s dark outside, only a patch of faded driveway illuminated by the porch light outside the office. Lucas leans against his truck, tossing his keys into the air and catching them. He drops the keys and lunges across the gravel to retrieve them.
“Ready?” he asks in a breathless voice.
Not really. But I walk to the passenger’s side of his rusting green truck that he and Adam refer to as ‘The Babe’. Lucas rescued it in poor shape on its way to the salvage yard the year before he got his driver’s license. Adam spent most of that summer in Lucas’ driveway helping him get it running, and I spent every summer since sandwiched between the two of them chasing their latest crazed obsession. Bass fishing on Lake of the Clouds. Hiking the Escarpment Trail through the Porcupine Mountains. Searching the beaches for the elusive Lake Superior agate. I yank the door open and climb up on the torn leather seat. It smells of car oil and campfires and fast food french fries. Lucas may have changed, but his truck hasn’t.
I slam the door shut, and he crawls in the driver’s side. Outside, the stars glitter in the sky, and for a moment, for this moment, I want to be glittering with them. I wonder what Adam is doing right now. Is he thinking of me…or Brianna?
One Starry Knight: A Scifi Alien Love Story (The Starry Knight Saga Book 1) Page 2
