But the clock on the microwave tells me I’m wrong. There will be no time.
Mark sits down across from us with a too high pile of pancakes and a too wide grin on his face. He winks at my mom before slapping a thick slice of butter on the center of the top pancake and swirling a spiral of syrup around it.
“Mmm,” he says before stuffing a forkful into his mouth. His lips bend as he chews, his eyes darting from my mom to me. His brows bounce and crumbs spew from the corners of his mouth. My stomach turns. His fingers flash as he lifts his fork again from a huge gold ring. It's star-shaped with several diamonds that I can only pray are fake. Because if it's real, it must have cost a fortune—a fortune that probably came from the insurance settlement my mom received when my dad died.
“So,” he says swallowing. “Did either of you ladies hear what happened down by the lake last night?”
I stop chewing.
“No, what happened?” My mom asks.
“I guess there were some really weird lights. Like some kind of explosion or something.” he says. “I was hoping Sage could tell us all about it.”
“Me?” My heart rattles, and I lean forward, gripping the edge of the table, squeezing until it hurts. Mark’s eyes narrow as if he knows something. Or rather he knows that I know something.
“Yeah you.” He licks his lips, pushing a sticky string of drool into the corner of his mouth. Disgusting.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His eyes lock steadily with mine.
“I think you do.”
“I was sleeping last night. How would I know?” My voice and my face stay level, but inside I shake. He knows. But what does he know? And how?
“Hmph. Sleeping.” He raises his eyebrow and lifts his glass of juice. He takes a sip and grins before winking at me like we’re in on some big secret. I nearly jump in my seat. What does he know? And what do I even know? Nothing. Except there were lights and Adam showed up in the lake. That and Stella went crazy and drove us to the middle of the woods to meet Adam’s father at a pyramid of stones. And if he thinks I’m going to share that with him…hell, I’m not even sure it happened.
“So, when did you get home last night?,” Mark asks. His eyes shrink, squeezing into mine as if he can see into my brain. “And where were you out so late?”
“That’s none of your business,” I clip and shake my gaze from his. He’s not the first of my mother’s boyfriends to pull this act-like-my-father crap.
“Maybe not, but it’s your mother’s business.”
“Then let her ask,” I take a bite of pancake and chew slowly. Mark looks to my mom, but her lips are pressed tightly together, still slightly curled into a smile. I know she won’t ask. She never asks. She hates conflict. With her boyfriends. With me.
Mark raises an eyebrow at her and her bottom lip trembles. “We’re having a nice breakfast. Sage is home now. Everything’s okay—”
“No,” Mark interrupts. “It’s not okay. I live here now, and I think I deserve respect. I’m the head of this household now.” Rage builds in his voice and a whisper of fear flickers across my mother’s face.
“You’re a temporary guest. You’re not my father—you’re just a temporary boyfriend.”
“Sage, stop it,” my mom says. Her eyes are filling up with tears and she’s trembling all over. There’s so much more I want to say, but I bite my tongue and stuff another bite of pancake in my mouth, chewing loudly.
It’s too late. Mark’s eyes shoot fire and his face is crimson. “How dare you speak to me like that? How dare you?” He slams his fists into the table sending dishes crashing to the floor. Tears sputter from my mom’s face, dripping across her cheeks.
This is my moment. My perfect moment. Mark is lost to his anger, and my mom is just lost. I can slip from the room and escape. I may even make it to Stella’s.
But shiny tears slick across the bruises on my mom’s face, and Mark’s fingers curl into his palms. I can’t go. I can’t let him hit her again. I stand up, my head barely reaching the bottom of his chin.
“You made your mom cry,” he says.
And before I can respond, before I can even think of responding, his fist slams into my cheek.
Chapter Ten
The second summer after Adam rescued me, we discovered the beach behind a finger of stones jutting off the main beach Stella’s guests use. The sand is coarser on the other side, a mix of pebbles and dead branches, but the weeds and boulders hide us from the tourists, creating our own private paradise. Most of our summers are spent there, plotting out places we will travel to someday, inventing elaborate backgrounds for the latest tourists, or making up our own twisted stories. Sometimes Lucas joins us, he and Adam often ending up in some sort of contest. Rock skipping, body surfing, spear fishing while I referee. But in recent years, Lucas has spent the summer chasing every out-of-town teenage girl that visits, leaving the beach mostly to me and Adam.
We call it Our Beach.
If last night is real and if Adam is really here, it’s where I will find him.
My cheek throbs as I make my way through the woods. There is pressure building beneath my skin where Mark hit me. It will mean a bruise the color of dried grapes and require makeup so thick my skin will crack at a smile. I push my mom’s sobs out of my ears and try not to think that I should’ve been at work a half hour ago.
I need to get to our beach.
The spring sun is warm, and I breathe in the damp earth and leaves, sweet and bitter. My heart beats faster as the forest disappears and the lake appears. It is subdued today, just ripples bubbling at the shoreline. The water sparkles several shades of blue in the morning sunlight and a light breeze plays with my hair. I pass the empty wooden chairs that line the beach in front of the cabins and the hollow fire pit. The deck swing gently sways in the light breeze.
I stop at the tire tracks.
They run through the sand, a pattern carving its way from the parking lot to the shoreline. I follow them to where Adam had fallen. To where Stella and I had helped him into her truck. A shiver powerful enough to rattle my teeth surges through me, rooting me to the ground. Holding my breath, I scan the beach, the cabins, the parking lot. Stella’s truck is parked in its usual spot. Everything seems quiet. So normal.
I jump over the tracks, afraid of my shoes brushing away the only evidence I have of last night. I need to get to our beach. I need to know if he’s here. If this is all real. Because seeing him is the proof I need.
My heart roars as I climb over the rocks. I hoist myself up onto the middle boulder, swinging one leg up and the other. My fingers slip on the shiny cold stone and I break a nail, but I manage to hold on. Adam’s there…waiting for me. I know it.
I drop to a smaller patch of rock on the other side and step off the stones onto the beach.
I was wrong.
No Adam. Only sand and lake and sky.
My heart sinks to the ground, and I sink with it, wrapping my arms around my knees and bowing my head. I close my eyes to hold back the tears and listen to the lake as it talks to me. I thought he would be here. How could I have been so wrong?
A tear slips free from the corner of my eye. And then I feel him. Really feel him. It’s a tingling across my skin. It’s my heart leaping in my chest. It’s a knowing, a deep down knowing that I feel only with him.
I open my eyes and lift my head to the rocks where he stands in a faded green jacket and dark washed jeans. His hair blows in the breeze, a dark, black curl dancing across his forehead. He slowly approaches, his blue eyes watching me with a wariness I’ve never seen before. It makes my heart ache. A year or a month or maybe even a day ago, I would have run to him and thrown myself in his arms. But now there’s last night and…well, it’s different.
“Hey.” He stops several feet away and lifts the corner of his mouth into a half-smile. “I hoped I’d find you here.”
“Hi,” I say without a smile. I should be smiling. This is my Adam. But my mind is a loop of
questions, and my heart is a revving engine, and nothing is as it should be.
“Your face?” He sits down next to me leaving a generous amount of space between us. “What happened?” I press my hand against my throbbing cheek.
“I fell,” I shrug. “It probably looks worse than it feels.”
“Last night?” he asks.
“Huh?”
“You fell last night?”
“Yeah,” I press my teeth against my bottom lip. There’s doubt in his eyes but he doesn’t push it. Instead he runs his fingers through the sand, creating a slew of random shapes.
I play with my fingers, twisting them back and forth in my lap and try to clear my head. I need to ask him about last night. What was the light? What was that in the forest? Did I really see a UFO? What was wrong with him? I need to find out why he’s here in April when he never comes before June.
But I can’t concentrate with the sweat coating my palms and my heart gaining speed. He’s close enough that I can feel the heat from his skin. A low hum buzzes through me as if every molecule in me is yearning to be even closer.
“We’ve got to talk about last night. I’m sure you have questions,” he says and looks at me again, his face dark with worry and anticipation.
Questions? Oh yes, I have lots of those. What were they again? I tear my eyes from his before he can see the blush in my cheeks. Rays of sunlight dance across the lake, waves caress the beach, birds sing of spring.
My vision flashes to last night. The cold, the wind, the woods, the pyramid, the light—the strange, strange light. The spaceship. And then there’s last summer—that kiss we haven’t talked about since. But it’s all worlds away in the morning sunshine. All except Adam who is next to me. Living, breathing, waiting. Waiting for me.
I meet his gaze and his jaw flexes, and he bites his lip. I’m filled with the urge to reach across this divide. To wrap my arms around his neck and press my lips to his. To crash into him. To hold him. To entwine myself so deep nothing can pull me from him.
I want him. My Adam.
My breath rattles and my heart pounds, and I claw my fingers into the beach. I bite down on my tongue until I taste the blood. He’s waiting. Waiting on me. Waiting for the questions. My questions.
They float around my brain like ships lost at sea. What happened last night? How did you end up in the lake? Why were you in the lake? What is going on?
But none of them are the question I want to ask.
I need to ask.
I open my mouth and close it, glancing from him to the lake to him again. Say it, say it, say it.
“Did you kiss Brianna?” The words tumble from my lips. Oh god, I did not just say that.
His face melts into confusion, and the thoughts turn in his eyes. “What?” he asks, shaking his head. “Brianna? What are you talking about?”
“Yeah, Brianna Woods,” I say with more force. There is no going back now. “You kissed her under the mistletoe last year at a Christmas party. Some party at your dad’s?”
He shakes his head, but there is dawning recognition in his eyes. He freezes, and his eyes give me an answer. The answer I don’t want. I leap to my feet.
“Sage.” He reaches for me, but he’s not close enough. Wiping tears from my cheeks and brushing sand from my clothes, I back away from him.
“I-I gotta go. I’m late for work.” I turn from him and run. I run from the beach, from the truth, from him. He calls after me, but I keep running.
Chapter Eleven
Liz, the manager at the diner, is in the kitchen when I walk in two hours late. Her dark brown eyes appraise my face, seeing the growing bruise under the caked on layers of concealer I stopped at home to apply.
“Glad you could make it.” She smiles, but there’s an annoyed edge to her voice.
I open my mouth. I’ve never been late before. I never call in sick. I never miss a shift. But the wrinkles beneath her eyes sag and the corners of her mouth droop, and I swallow my words. Liz’s husband took off last fall leaving her to raise their three young kids on her own. Most days she works from open to close at the diner and goes home to make lunches, help with homework and sew costumes for the spring musical. I’m not sure when she sleeps.
“Sorry. I overslept. Uh, what section do I have?” I glance to the wall where Liz keeps the schedule.
“Two and part of three,” she says. “Bonnie called in sick, and Amber can’t stay any longer. It’s busy today. Late night?” I shrug, tie an apron around my waist, and head for the front before she starts asking too many questions.
“Sage,” Liz calls, and I glance back. She points to my face. “Turn him in.”
I stop and hold my breath. Ask her what she’s talking about. Tell her she’s wrong. Tell her I fell and it’s a freak bruise. But Liz isn’t dumb. I avert my eyes from her probing gaze. The busboy and a waitress whiz past, and I can’t think of a response. So I turn and escape the kitchen.
The Star Harbor Diner is a box of dark wood and brown leather seats sandwiched between Stan’s Pizzeria and J.P. Johnson Law Office. Threadbare carpet, scratched counters, permanently spotted windows, yet it’s a favorite among locals and returning tourists. Part of the charm is that it never changes. The decor, the menu, even most of the waitresses have been around as long as I can remember. In my early days of living in Star Harbor, my mom and I ate every Friday night dinner in the corner booth underneath the black and white photo of Fourteen Mile Point Lighthouse. The hole in the seat, created by a pencil tip I accidentally pushed through the leather when I was twelve, is still there.
Today the restaurant buzzes and the tables overflow with ‘regulars’. Amber weaves towards me, pausing to fill coffee at the tables in her path. She greets me with a smile so white it can be seen from space.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” she says, tossing her dark hair behind her shoulder. Amber is gorgeous, model gorgeous. She’s nearly thirty, but she could easily pass for twenty with her perfect complexion and glossy brown hair. Liz thinks she’s the long lost twin of Eva Longoria. “You wouldn’t believe what a crazy morning it’s been.”
“Sorry, I’m late.”
“Oh, no worries. Would you believe I got a date out of it?”
“Really? And you said yes?” Although Amber gets hit on all the time, she rarely says yes. Not that I blame her. There aren’t a lot of unmarried local guys out of high school that aren’t raging alcoholics or missing teeth.
“He’s not from around here.” She grins. “He’s from out of town. And before you ask, no, he’s not married.” She lowers her voice. “He’s investigating the lights out by the lake last night. Did you see them?”
I curl my fingers into fists and bite my cheek. How does she know about the lights? “Uh, no.”
“Hmmm. I don’t think they’re too far from where you live. I didn’t see them either, but it’s all anyone’s talking about this morning.”
“Really, first I heard about it. What happened?” I try to keep it light, but my voice trembles. First Mark and now Amber. This can’t be good.
Amber talks fast, her eyes dancing. “It was down by Stella’s, they’re saying. You work for Stella, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” I rub the bruise on my arm left by Stella’s fingers when she begged me not to tell anybody about last night. Blood begins to pound through me so loud I’m sure she can hear it.
“I guess the lights came from the beach down by her place. The witness who saw it says it was so blue and so bright it lit up the forest for miles. Police are saying it was probably just the northern lights, but some witnesses are swearing it was a UFO. Can you imagine, a UFO here in Star Harbor?”
I give her a shaky smile, and she pats my shoulder.
“Too bad you missed it,” she says. “Being that you’re so close and all. Sure you didn’t see or hear anything?”
“I’m sure.” I brush my hands along my jeans. She needs to go, and I need to work, and this conversation needs to be over. I glance around t
he restaurant scanning the tables full of waiting customers. “You should get ready for that date.”
“Oh yes.” She looks around the restaurant. “Table three is finishing up.” She waves at a table by the window. “And then tables four, five, and six are waiting on their food. I think they just sat someone at one. And oh, you should see him, he’s so hot,” she squeals.
“Table one?”
“No, silly my date.” She glances at the clock. “I better go get ready. See ya.”
“Have fun,” I say, and she tosses me a shiny smile and walks away.
I check in on my tables, refilling coffee for Jim, a retired regular, grabbing clean silverware for family of five and dropping off the check for two women who are chatting over pie. I grab a fresh order pad before heading to table one, a dark booth tucked in the corner where the lone occupant isn’t visible until I’m standing over him, familiar curly black hair bent over the menu. My heart does a free-fall through my chest. I should back up and walk away, but I can’t move.
Go, go, go. Go before he lifts his head. Stupid feet. Move.
Too late.
His blue eyes find mine, and my throat clogs and my face flushes. His lips curl into a smile, sending waves of warm pins rolling over my skin.
“Can you talk?” he asks.
“I’m,” I say in a dry voice. “I’m working.”
“What time do you get off?”
“Not until seven.”
“How about after seven?”
“Maybe,” I tremble as his eyes hold mine and the sounds of the restaurant fade into the background. The clanging dishes, the humming voices, the outdated pop music. Gone. It’s just us, and for a moment it’s last summer again, and I’m wondering if he’s going to kiss me. His eyes melt into mine, and my heart flutters, and I step closer. . .
Adam shifts his gaze back to his menu and I jump. The noise returns, and I yank the order pad from my apron and struggle to uncap the pen. “What-what can I get you?”
One Starry Knight: A Scifi Alien Love Story (The Starry Knight Saga Book 1) Page 6
