Center of the Universe (Twelfth Keeper)

by Malory, Belle

  It was more than Phoenix had given her.

  Seven

  Kennedy sat on her bedroom floor next to the floor-length mirror, rifling through Reagan’s makeup case. It was an ideal time for snooping since both her mom and sister were out of the house today. Hopefully they stayed gone for a while because going through Reagan’s makeup was like hitting the jackpot. The case was artfully organized, containing nearly every color imaginable. She picked out a bright red lipstick, uncapped it, and puckered her lips. When she was done, she looked in the mirror, and thought the vibrant shade didn’t look so bad next to her auburn hair.

  “What a lovely little gem you are,” she said, holding the lipstick up. “I think I’ll keep you.”

  The lipstick gave her a disapproving look. “Okay, borrow you,” she conceded. “Reagan will never even notice you’re missing. Promise.”

  Vibrations accompanied a flashing blue light on her wrist. She pressed a button, and said, “Morning, Matilda.”

  “Just how much sun are you getting down there, cupcake? I think it might be frying your brain cells.”

  She arched a brow, wondering if the robot tampered with her brace and found a way to spy on her. A glance at the gunmetal band wrapped around her wrist didn’t show signs of new programming.

  Besides, cryptic comments and Matilda went together like peanut butter and jelly. There was a point coming soon, she was sure of it. “What’s wrong, Tildy? Are you still all torn up over my absence?”

  “What’s wrong?” she huffed. “What’s wrong is that either my system went haywire, or pictures of you kissing your neighbor are all over the waves.”

  Kennedy stilled, wincing. “How bad is it?”

  “So you’re admitting to playing sucky-face with the boy next door?”

  She sighed and inserted the blush brush back into its compartment. “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, check out your TV if you want to see how bad it is. You’re on almost every channel.”

  “No, thanks,” she muttered. “I was there the first time. I don’t think I want to relive it.”

  “So it wasn’t the good kind of kiss, eh?”

  “No. And neither were the repercussions.” What looked like sunglasses stuck out from the side of the makeup case. Kennedy picked the square-shaped eyepieces up and held them over the top half of her head.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  How does this thing work? “Not really.” She clicked a button on the top of the device. Illuminating white lights blinded her eyes. Dropping the thing, she blinked several times, unable to see anything.

  “Not fair of you to be so vague when I’m not there to read your emotions, cupcake.”

  Vision returned in spots, and then refocused after a few seconds. Kennedy quickly returned to the mirror. “What in the world…”

  “Are you okay?” Matilda asked. “Your heart rate picked up a fraction.”

  Tiny crystals surrounded the outside creases of her eyes. A palette of pink and silver shadows covered her lids. Kennedy touched the miniature work of art, smudging kohl liner on her fingertips. “I’m fine,” she finally replied to Matilda. “I was just caught off guard by this…holy cow, my eyes are purple.”

  How had she not noticed that until now?

  “Statistics say you’ve found an eye-dazzler,” Matilda said. “And you called me bored?” A tsk, tsk came from the brace’s little speaker.

  “Do your statistics know how to change my eyes back?” Because if they weren’t a greenish-blue by the time Reagan came home, she was in deep trouble.

  “The little button on the left corner.”

  The doorbell rang, and Kennedy jumped.

  Ah, crap. She hadn’t expected them back this early. “Matilda, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later,” she said, and before the stubborn robot could object, she ended the call.

  Hurrying, she held the dazzler up to her eyes, pressed the button and steeled herself for the torrent of blinding white lights.

  As soon as her vision returned, she shoved the makeup case back in Reagan’s dresser where she’d found it. “Coming!” she called when the doorbell rang for the second time. Sheesh. Someone was being mighty impatient. She swung open the door. “Don’t people around here remember their keys—”

  Her sentence cut off to an inaudible mumble of words as her gaze met a pair of pitch black eyes. “Phoenix?”

  Eight

  Those eyes sharpened in on her as soon as she’d said his name, carrying more weight than she knew what to do with. Phoenix stood there in the doorway—her doorway—towering over her.

  No words came her way as she took all of him in, from his dark blue shirt, to his loose jeans and black boots that weren’t made for Amelia Island. Dark circles lined his eyes, and his blonde hair was messier than usual, but none of that detracted from his appeal. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked in the low, mesmerizing voice she’d missed so much.

  She politely stepped back, holding the door open. He came inside, pausing for the briefest of moments when he moved around her.

  “I thought you were in Russia.” It was the only thing she could think of to say, and despite her heart beating wildly beneath her chest, she managed to say it calmly.

  Phoenix looked around her home as if he’d never been there before. Technically, this was only his second visit, but with the way he studied his surroundings—like he was familiarizing himself with every inch of space—made it seem new to him.

  “The job ended yesterday.”

  Watching him made her feel a little uncomfortable, as if he were glimpsing a small piece of her soul. His gaze fixated on a photograph of her and Reagan when they were little kids. He picked the frame up, staring at it for a few seconds before setting it back down. Puzzled over what captured his attention, Kennedy glanced at the photo, and saw nothing mysterious behind her and her sister’s toothless grins.

  “How did it go?” It felt like a good question to ask. At the end of the day, they were still teammates.

  “I’ll brief you on it later.” He pointed to a portrait on the wall. “Did you paint this?”

  Deep swirling grays and blues made up a stormy scene on the canvas tacked to the wall. She nodded. It was her freshman art project. No one had warned her how difficult rainstorms were to paint, and it had taken her weeks to finish, including many late-night attempts trying to get the colors just right.

  Looking at it through his eyes made the painting seem different somehow. The little imperfections stood out, all the minute details most people never even noticed, glaringly apparent.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, surprising her.

  She held her breath, holding his compliment tight against her chest. Tense moments passed before he turned around to face her. “Where’s your family?”

  “Out shopping.” She twisted the brace around her wrist.

  “Were you about to go out, too?”

  “No…” What would make him assume that? “Why?”

  “Your face. It’s all made up.”

  Kennedy caught sight of her reflection in the hall mirror and grimaced. Holy hell. She still resembled a circus performer, minus the purple eyes. “I don’t normally wear this stuff. I was messing around with my sister’s makeup.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So you like to paint on and off the canvas.”

  That was a nicer way of describing what she put her face through. “I guess so.”

  Phoenix rocked back on his heels, his gaze drifting over the walls, up to the ceiling and then finally back down to her. “I feel like I don’t know as much about you as I thought.”

  Insinuations filled his words, whether he meant for them to or not. Kennedy swallowed the giant lump in her throat. He didn’t come right out and say what he was thinking, but he didn’t need to. She already knew, and she suspected it was why he was here. The only thing she couldn’t figure out was why he bothered coming at all. The way he kept his distance, standing acr
oss from her stiffly, left no doubt in her mind he had seen the waves.

  “So where’s your bedroom?”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking up at him in confusion. He had asked that question so casually, he could’ve been asking where the kitchen was. “You want to see my bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  For a second she forgot its location, lost in his inscrutable gaze. She cleared her throat, trying to collect herself. “Upstairs on the right. I share it with Reagan—”

  She hadn’t even gotten the words out of her mouth before he headed that way.

  Okay. This was definitely strange behavior coming from Phoenix. She couldn’t help but follow him, wondering what he was hoping to find in there.

  If she thought him being in her house was invasive, his presence in her bedroom was ten times worse. She hadn’t lived here in months, but still…this was her home, nothing like the lifeless apartment on Olympus that she was still settling into.

  Guessing which side of the room belonged to her was easy. It looked like a tornado had blown through exactly half of the space—rumpled bed, clothes strewn across the floor, old-fashioned books piled high on her nightstand—and she’d managed to create the mess in a only a few days’ time. The other half was immaculate. Needless to say, sharing the room with her OCD sister had caused many arguments over the years.

  When Phoenix stopped next to the window, she had trouble breathing. He only glanced out of it for a moment before turning around, but it felt wrong. That window was stapled to the part of her life she reserved only for Hunter. Intertwining the two parts had never been on the agenda. It was like trying to put pieces together from two different puzzles; they didn’t fit.

  She sat down on the bed, feeling lightheaded. Pretending like nothing was wrong wasn’t working. If he didn’t start talking soon, she was going to lose it. “Why are you here, Phoenix?”

  “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?” Ice coated his voice, which lowered a few octaves.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, and focused on breathing. His weight sank next to her on the bed, and when she opened her eyes he was staring at her with that same unreadable expression as before.

  How did he stay so unaffected? Every little thing about him affected her, and yet he didn’t bat an eye. “I can leave if you want me to,” he offered, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  She pressed her lips together, wondering how much longer he intended to torture her. He leaned closer, the sound of his voice tickling her ear with its seductive resonance. “I came because I wanted to see you.”

  “You wanted to see me?” She didn’t buy it. His words and his eyes were telling two different stories.

  “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

  That was all she could take. Kennedy stood up, losing every ounce of control she had left. “I kissed my neighbor.”

  There. It was out there.

  Breaking the news (that probably wasn’t news) to Phoenix could have been done in any number of ways, but she meant to say “I kissed Hunter” and somehow the word neighbor replaced his name as if she were incapable of saying it.

  Guilt clawed at her insides, and until this moment, she hadn’t realized that guilt was linked to Phoenix. She shouldn’t feel guilty. They were not exclusive. She could kiss whomever she pleased, whenever she pleased…but then why did this sound like a confession?

  “I know.”

  She slowly sank back down into the bed.

  He knew. Of course he knew. So why wasn’t he saying anything? Silence filled the room, choking her worse than any words could. “You told me not to put a label on us,” she whispered. “I didn’t.”

  She steeled herself for some type of reaction, his anger, or pain—anything.

  “Do you have a pen?”

  Kennedy pressed her palms against the mattress. Jesus. He was literally the most unfeeling person in the world. Maybe kissing Hunter hadn’t been such an awful thing after all. Maybe it allowed her to see this side of Phoenix before she did something stupid like fall in l—

  No.

  She wouldn’t even think it.

  “Pen?” he asked again.

  She inwardly sighed and pointed to the far corner of the room. “In the desk. First drawer.”

  He went there, dug around for a pen, and while he was at it, pulled out a roll of duct tape.

  She didn’t know if he was mailing a package or planning to murder her. Either way, she watched his odd behavior with a mix of fascination and annoyance. Using his teeth, he tore off a piece of duct tape, then used the pen to scribble something on top of it.

  Kennedy craned her neck to see what he wrote, but it was too far away. After he finished, he ripped the piece of tape off the desk. “Come here, Kennedy.”

  She crooked a brow. “Um...I’m fine where I’m at, thank you.”

  “Come here,” he said more pointedly this time, daring her to disobey.

  This was not the Phoenix she knew.

  Scratch that, this was the Phoenix she remembered before she got to know him—the lethal man-machine with the eyes of death.

  She took a few steps forward, looking for any bottles of water lying around. Spare weapons always came in handy.

  Phoenix slapped the tape against her stomach, startling her. Confused, she straightened her blouse to look at it. It read:

  Kennedy Mitchell

  Property of Phoenix Jorgensen

  Fragile Heart Inside

  She had to read the words a few times before they fully registered. Once they had, she wasn’t sure what to say.

  Phoenix reached for her hand, interlocking his fingers through hers. Warmth spread up her arm, soaring straight to her core. “Is that label specific enough for you?”

  Tears watered her eyes, and she blinked them back. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. She nodded, afraid to speak out of fear her voice would break. He didn’t need to see just how fragile her heart really was.

  “Good,” he whispered, sighing. A thousand pounds released itself from that breath.

  Relief.

  It was the first emotion to cross his face, and she was taken aback by how strong it was.

  “Why now?” She had to ask that question. Couldn’t help it. “Why not the night you brought me into the glass room?”

  “Do I really need to point out how recent events may have changed things?”

  The thought of Phoenix watching her kiss Hunter on TV caused her to cringe. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He looked into her eyes, and she held his intense gaze. He took a deep breath, before saying, “You scare me.”

  Kennedy blinked a few times, letting that soak in. Well, that was…unexpected. And flattering? Um, no. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you not even two minutes ago.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “This—us—scares me.”

  “Why?” If he fed her some crap about the fear of monogamy, she swore she would take the tape off her shirt and plaster it to his mouth.

  “Because of what I am, what we are. We’re supposed to be heroes. And everyone knows how to take down a hero—you look for a weakness.” He shrugged, as if it was incredibly easy to figure out. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re my weakness.”

  When she didn’t say anything, his hands untangled themselves from hers, slid up her arms and came around her, enclosing her between them. “I never wanted to risk you. Not you.”

  “Weakness,” she repeated the word in a daze. She had never considered that until now. “We are each other’s weaknesses.” She hugged him back, squeezing him tightly for the hurt he felt at her expense and sharing in his fear. Imagining someone use him to get to her was more than frightening. It was inconceivable. “I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it.” He pulled back a little, and touched the piece of tape on her shirt. “This wasn’t supposed to get so serious. I meant to make you laugh.
”

  She did smile as she looked down at the label again. “You should’ve added a warning.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. Something like May contain nuts.”

  His face broke into a grin, and with it, the tension swept out of the room. “True.”

  “I saw a magazine. It said you and Hephsa Hannigan were dating.”

  “We were,” he admitted. “Over a year ago.”

  She nodded, realizing everything she’d heard was a bunch of lies. She knew it all along, but still…she let it to get to her. His hands teased their way into her hair, and he pulled her close again, breathing deeply. “That night in the glass room, Kennedy, I should’ve told you…exactly how I felt.”

  “Forget it,” she shot back.

  “No.” She felt him shaking his head above hers. “From now on, you will always be sure.”

  Was he going to say…?

  “I won’t use those words,” he said, and she wondered if he had the ability to read minds. “I don’t want the moment surrounded by mistakes.”

  She winced, feeling the weight of hers again. They both made such stupid mistakes. His hiding how he felt, and her pretending to feel something she didn’t. Every part of her wanted to touch Phoenix and kiss him until those mistakes disappeared, hoping they would erase entirely.

  “When I say it—and I intend to—you’ll have no doubt in your mind that I mean it. But until that moment comes, I want you to know how important you are. When I think about the future, I only see your face. When I look at the stars, your name is written in them. You’re not just another girl, Kennedy. There is something about you that is different. Something I know I’ll only feel for you. So I hope you like that label because it’s never coming off.”

  It took enormous effort to pull the air back into her lungs after hearing all that. Phoenix rested his head on top of hers, shaking with her. It couldn’t have been easy for him to open up like that. He was used to a mindless, almost mechanical way of living, and yet here he was, looking inside himself and allowing her to see him, too. She wouldn’t take it for granted. Just as she had felt that incredible feeling that nearly knocked her off her feet on the day they met, she was moved once again. With every word he spoke, she felt her heart bind itself to his, becoming two parts of a whole.