Jade stared into her coffee before finally looking at him. “What was that all about?”
Langston raised an eyebrow at her and took a sip of coffee.
“I mean,” she said, “what was happening with you last night?”
Langston rested his elbows on the marble top, slumping over a little.
“Everything about you was…” She searched for a word. “Intense.”
“Where do I start?” Langston took a deep breath. “I was angry when I got here. I don’t get angry often, and clearly I don’t handle it well when I do.” He rotated his coffee mug. “I had a disturbing conversation with my mom last night and the only thing—the only thing—I wanted was to be with you. I couldn’t get here fast enough.”
Jade smiled.
“I know I probably should have called, but I just needed to get here. I wasn’t thinking straight.” He cupped his hands around the hot mug. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She laughed a little. “A little discombobulated, but yeah, I’m okay.”
“Are you going to class?”
“I don’t even think I can make it downstairs, I’m so exhausted.”
“I’m not going in today either.”
“Yeah, I heard you on the phone.” She looked out of the window. It was still raining. “Want to play hooky together?”
“Yeah, I do.” Langston tried to stretch, but flinched.
“Sore?”
“Like never before.”
She giggled and stood up. “You should be with all the things you did.” She pushed a chair back to its original place.
Langston lent her a hand tidying the room.
“Okay, I’m just going to ask,” Jade said. “What’s with the furniture?”
Langston laughed uncomfortably. “You saw that, huh?”
“Hard to miss.” She picked up a book and notepad and placed them on the coffee table. “It was like an anti-gravity chamber in here. I tried to ask about it, but you were in the zone, you know?”
“I was preoccupied.”
“That you were.” She looked around the room. “So is there an explanation for this, or do I need to call Ghostbusters?”
“Let me ask you something first. Are we, like, official? Are you dating anyone else?”
“Of course not. You’re my boyfriend.”
“I am?”
“Yeah.” She put a hand on her hip. “Why? Are you dating other people?”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “Just you.”
“Good.”
Langston started cleaning again. “I guess I should tell you that I had a fight with my mom last night. I freaked out and broke a mirror—in a way.”
Jade looked at him questioningly.
“Like how I moved your furniture,” Langston clarified. “With my mind.” He realized how crazy he sounded and hoped she wouldn’t try to have him committed after this conversation. “Anytime I have a burst of emotion, things start moving. This morning was the first time I may have been able to control it.”
Jade stacked a pile of magazines. “What happened this morning?”
“I moved your contact lens case in the bathroom. Came right to me.”
“Is that what you were trying to do that day I saw you staring at the plants in the lobby?”
He coughed uncomfortably. “Yeah.”
“Can you show me?”
“I’d like to, but for some reason, I go into spasms of pain when I do it.”
“You didn’t last night.”
That was true. In the several times he’d used his ability, he hadn’t hurt himself until this morning. Langston looked around the room at all of Jade’s furniture and wondered how long he’d kept things moving throughout the evening.
“I overdid it,” he said under his breath, still looking around.
“What?”
“I think I overdid it,” Langston said louder. “That’s got to be it. I’ve never moved this much stuff before. I bet my body is overworked from the telekinesis.”
He looked for something light. He spotted the open bag of gummy bears. Come, he thought. A yellow gummy bear floated out of the package and landed with a plop into the warm remnants of Jade’s coffee mug.
“Oops,” he said. “I meant for that to land beside the cup.”
She fished out the bear, shook off the drops of coffee, and popped it into her mouth. “You’ve got to work on your aim.”
“This is true.” He cleaned his glasses with the hem of his shirt. “Why aren’t you more freaked out about this?”
Jade shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m too dazed to think straight. Maybe it’s because I’ve always known you were special. Ask me again tomorrow. I might be freaked out then.”
They laughed and moved to the couch. Langston sat on the remote control, accidentally turning on the television.
Jade muted it and sat beside him, smiling. “Anything else I should know?”
“Yes, actually.” Langston knew he’d surprised her because her smile faltered a bit.
“Remember the nano robots I told you about before?”
“Yeah,” she said cautiously.
“My advisor told me that the project is on hold indefinitely. That basically meant that I couldn’t move onto testing them in a host. So, without telling him, I became the host.”
“Meaning?”
“I injected a batch into my own body.”
“Wait.” Jade held up a hand. “Why would you inject yourself with something you didn’t know would work? What if they kill you?”
“A—I was desperate. I had, like, a half hour to do all of that and B—I believe in my work. Even if the nanos don’t work, I know they aren’t going to kill me.”
“If you say so. I’d have injected them into someone I didn’t like.” She grinned and started arranging the magazines. “Just kidding. But I wouldn’t have injected them into myself.” She shrugged. “Do they work at least?”
“Doesn’t appear so. If they worked, my shoulder would have been completely healed just hours after I got shot.”
“How do you get them out?”
“First, I’d have to find them. I have a tracking program, but I cloaked this batch. Unfortunately, I’ve hidden them from myself. They’re in me… somewhere.”
“Wow. Anything else?”
Langston figured he’d save his dealings with J.T. for another day. “No.”
A commercial for Twister Energy Drink came on the muted television. G. Hunter was on the screen riding his bike and drinking Twister. There was a slow motion clip of sweat dripping off his face before he turned to the camera and said something they couldn’t hear.
Jade stuck out her tongue like she’d just tasted a lemon. “I’m tired of seeing that guy. I even have to see him when I go to the bakery.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a new billboard for Twister on the way there. It’s huge.”
“Yeah, after he won that last competition, the endorsements exploded.”
Jade yawned. “I gotta go back to bed. This coffee did nothing. Come on.” She took his hand, nodding at a condom peeking out of Langston’s wallet. “And bring that.”
What do you know? Langston thought, following Jade to the bedroom. Everett was right after all.
Chapter Thirteen
After their nap, Langston fixed Jade’s Xbox, and they saved humanity from the zombie apocalypse for two hours. They ordered grilled chicken pitas and hummus, and watched The Terminator and The Princess Bride. While the closing credits were rolling, Jade set up an obstacle course of sorts. She lined up gummy bears and an assortment of cups on the living room table.
“Okay,” she said. “Time for target practice.” She pointed to each gummy bear-cup combo in turn. “Pineapple, there. Raspberry, there. Strawberry, there. And orange and lemon, there and there.”
Langston concentrated on the clear, pineapple bear and thought, “Up.”
The bear levitated off the table and mi
grated toward a bright blue coffee cup, hovered, and then dropped inside.
Jade clapped. “Yay!”
After Langston successfully put all the bears in their respective cups, Jade set up a row of nail polish bottles. “Zigzag them between the bottles.”
Langston handled them singly without difficulty, but when he tried to zigzag three at once, he lost control. Jade watched anxiously with her fists jammed to her mouth, calling out “Whoa!” and “Careful!” when a bear went awry.
Langston stacked the bears into a pyramid where they wobbled and toppled over.
“I’m starting to get a headache.” He’d overextended his fledgling skills the last couple of days. “Wanna get out of here for a little while?”
“I wouldn’t say no to some ice cream,” Jade said. “I like that place down the street. Udderly Creams?”
“I’ve seen the sign, but I’ve never been.” Langston searched for his shoes. “Got a favorite flavor?”
“My favorites are cherry chocolate and pistachio. They make good rainbow sherbet, too.”
“I like cookies ‘n’ cream.”
Jade smiled. “I like that one, too. Oh, and salted caramel.”
“Sounds like you just like ice cream.”
She giggled. Since the rain had let up, they walked to Udderly Creams and took their double scoop cones with them on a cool evening stroll around the city.
“So, how long have you been able to, you know?” Jade wiggled the gloved fingers of her free hand.
“The telekinesis? I noticed it the day after my birthday.”
She licked her pistachio ice cream. “What happened?”
“I reached for my keys on a table and they slid over to me.”
“You didn’t freak out?”
“It was one of those moments when you know something happened, but you don’t want to deal with it. So, yeah, I freaked out, but I just pushed it to the back of my mind until it happened again.”
“Did it scare you?”
Langston nodded. “It still does. Things happen out of my control, like your furniture or my mom’s mirror.” They stopped at a corner and waited for a car to drive by before crossing the street. “I even slammed the door once when my advisor was talking to me.”
“He didn’t say anything?”
“He said I needed to call maintenance.”
“Hmm.” Jade adjusted her scarf and bit her waffle cone. “What are you going to do about it?”
“The door?”
“Your powers. Are you going to become some sort of undercover superhero like Spiderman?”
Langston laughed. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I need to get complete control of it. I can’t go around slamming doors and breaking mirrors every time I get angry.”
Jade hopped over a puddle. “I guess not.”
They walked a half a block in silence, taking in the sloshing sounds of tires driving on the wet asphalt and a group of teenagers across the street laughing.
“Just so you know,” Jade said suddenly. “I don’t sleep around.”
Langston swallowed, almost choking on his mouthful of ice cream. He braced for the brain freeze, which did not help his headache. “I never thought that.”
“I don’t want you to think that I’m that kind of girl. We haven’t known each other that long.” She stared straight ahead, not meeting his gaze, though Langston was sure she could see him looking at her.
“You could say the same thing about me.”
She shook her head. “It’s different for guys.”
“I have nothing but respect for you, Jade.” He wanted to tell her that he thought the sun rose and set by her, but figured that was too much. “I’m the last person you have to worry about judging you.”
She turned to him and smiled.
“Have you been worried about that all day?” he asked.
Jade nodded, laughing a little and looking embarrassed.
Langston held out his hand, stopping her. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m not asking you to tell me your deepest, darkest secrets, but if you want to, I’m here.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Your secrets are cool.”
“Really?” Langston looked at his watch. “I was a virgin until yesterday. Does that sound cool?”
Jade’s jaw dropped. “No freaking way.”
“Way.”
“Where did you learn how to…?” Jade started walking again. “You really seemed to know what you were doing.”
Langston grinned down at his half-eaten cone. Thank you, Men’s Health magazine. I am forever in your debt. Langston made a grand effort not to show how tickled he was at Jade’s compliment. When they’d finished their cones, Langston took Jade’s hand, enjoying the fuzzy feel of her glove.
“What are you planning to do after graduation?” he asked.
“I thought about traveling for a few months. My mom went to New Zealand when she was my age and she said it was one of the most profound times in her life. She told Justine and me that we need to get away, find out who we are in this world.” Jade sighed. “Maybe I’ll go. Maybe I won’t. I think I’ll try to get a spot in the symphony, but it doesn’t have to be here, I guess. Maybe I’ll teach. I don’t know.”
“Has Justine gone anywhere yet?”
“She and her husband Hampton went to Italy for a month for their honeymoon. I don’t think that was exactly what my mom had in mind. I think she meant for us to do it before the husband and kids. She thought it would help us solidify our identities before we became other things like wife or mother or employee.” Jade shrugged.
“Where do you want go?”
“I honestly haven’t given it much thought lately. Before she passed away, I thought I may want to go to New Zealand like she did, but some days I want to crawl under a rock and not go anywhere.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Langston said. “What happened to her?”
Jade shook her head. “It was so stupid. She was in a grocery store parking lot and tripped and fell. She hit her head on one of those parking blocks, those concrete things that keep cars from rolling too far. She was knocked unconscious and never woke up. She died three days later.”
Langston squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“My dad almost had to pull me out of school. I was afraid to do everything. I thought I was going to slip in the shower and die, or fall down the stairs and die, or fill-in-the-blank and die. That’s why I don’t have a license. I’m afraid to drive.” She sighed. “Do you know how exhausting it is to panic twenty-four hours a day?”
“But you made it, didn’t you?” Langston said. “Last year of school and you’re still in one piece.”
“I go to counseling every other week. It helps get me through the rougher patches.”
He nodded, wishing he could contribute something more than his condolences. “Do you have a picture of her?”
“Sure do.” Jade got her phone out of her jacket pocket and pulled a glove off with her teeth so she could tap the screen. She held up the phone and Langston saw three people. “That’s her in the middle. Justine’s on the left making that weird face… and me, of course.”
“Beautiful,” Langston said. “All three of you.”
“Thanks.” She smiled and put the phone away. “Let’s talk about something a little less depressing. What’s your mom like?”
“Except for the lying about my entire past thing, she’s great.”
“Oh.” Jade seemed to have realized her error.
“Seriously, though,” Langston said, not wanting to make her feel any worse, “she is great. Maybe you can meet her soon.”
Jade smiled. “That sounds nice. When do you think you’ll talk to her again?”
He shrugged. “Maybe in a day or two. I need to get my head back on straight.”
By the time they got back to their apartment building, it was nearly midnight.
“Pretty late for a school night, don’t you think?” Johnny teased a
s they entered the front door.
Jade flashed a smile. “Hey, Johnny.”
“Hey, Miss Lewis. Doing okay?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“Working the long shift today, huh?” Langston asked.
“Rodney called in sick earlier today,” Johnny said, “so I’m pulling a double. I don’t mind. I’ve got a vacation coming.”
“Where are you going?” Langston asked.
“Ruth and I are going to visit our daughter in New York. She’s going to take us to a Broadway show!”
“Oolala,” Jade said. “Sounds like you’re going to have a great time.”
“I plan on it.” Johnny tipped his hat. “Night.”
In the elevator, Langston hit the buttons for the second and fourth floors. “I better head to my place.”
“Yeah, it’s late.” Jade kissed him when they stopped on the second floor. “See you later.”
When Langston stepped out of the elevator onto his floor, he saw his mother sitting next to his door, purse in her lap, chin resting on her chest.
“Mom?”
She started and looked up. “Langston.” She sounded sleepy and relieved.
“What are you doing? How long have you been here?”
Khone looked at her watch. “Almost two hours.” Langston offered his hand as she stood up, and she straightened her cardigan and skirt.
“Why?” He unlocked the door and they walked inside his apartment.
“You weren’t answering your phone or returning any of my messages. I was worried after the way you left the house. I even called you at Bronze Leaf.”
“I didn’t go in today.”
“Oh?”
Langston kicked off his shoes as they sat on the couch. “I’m sorry I made you worry, but I needed some space.”
She nodded. “Where have you been?”
He shrugged. The corners of Khone’s mouth went down, but she didn’t press him like she normally would. Langston wanted to go to bed. The last thing he wanted was a stressful conversation with his mother after such a wonderful day.
“As you can see, I’m fine, so you can go home now please.”
Khone shook her head. “We should talk about what happened.”
He sighed loudly and gave her a go-ahead gesture.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I made the best decision I could for you, and that included not telling you the truth about your parents. I’ve always felt bad about it, but it was necessary.”
The Wiseman Revelation (The Wiseman Series Book 2) Page 11
