by Dela
“Right.” I waved good-bye and played around on my phone until my time of doom arrived.
I was surprised that Lucas wasn’t in class when the hour hit. Part of me actually thought he’d show up. I was pulling out a piece of scratch paper when he slid onto the edge of the chair next to me. He smiled casually, as if nothing was wrong, though a second later his right leg started to shake, and he tapped his pencil on the armrest.
I looked away with a roll of my eyes and reached into my backpack, where Mae’s book was sandwiched between textbooks. I pulled it out and pried it open, looking for interesting facts I could add to my speech. I was grateful that the grade was not based solely on our written report, which I was sure we were going to bomb. As I swiped a strand of hair behind my ear, I saw Lucas do a double take at the book on my lap.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, pointing to it.
“The library.”
“Which one?”
“The one on the pier.” I folded my arms over it as if to protect it from his protruding stare. “Why?”
“Can I see it?”
A funny feeling ballooned inside me. I watched him suspiciously, holding him responsible for my uneasiness, and inched away slightly. “No.”
“No?” That demeaning tone made me feel ten times smaller.
“Because it’s not mine,” I blurted. “And it isn’t the library’s. My friend let me borrow it.”
“Who?”
“You wouldn’t know her.”
Lucas pondered this as the creases between his eyebrows deepened. “You said the library on the pier?”
I nodded weakly, my mind incoherent. The furrow of his eyes, the freshly shaven face—he did shave—the unruly hair; it was all hot. I had squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them wide to wake up when Professor Tanner called my name. Panic washed through me, and I looked to Lucas.
He smiled slyly and handed me a sheet of paper.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Our report.”
My fingers went stone cold as I stared at the sheet between them. “You did our report?”
He chuckled. “Don’t you want to read it first before you get up there?”
“Ms. Moss?” Professor Tanner called.
My hand shaking at the risk I was taking, I walked to the front of the room and cleared my throat. Lucas spread his arms across the chairs on either side of him and grinned boyishly. I was either going to regret this or cherish this. I looked down at the typed page and began.
Everything flowed until halfway through, when the details became gory—and very similar to what I had witnessed. Sights and sounds from yesterday—even scents—flooded my senses. My body shook enough to make me clip my words midsentence, and I had to stop. I glanced around the class, mortified, as I wiped my perspiration from my brow. Nobody cared. Half were looking down at their phones, and the others were either doodling or checking the clock. As I further stumbled over words like scalp and dismember and cannibals, I made an obvious effort to scowl at Lucas. When the torture was over, my body trembled with fury as I sat next to him.
“What?” he mouthed, as I glared at him.
“You’re just sprinkled with surprises, aren’t you?” When he didn’t respond, I blew out all my hot air like a pricked balloon. “Of all things about their civilization, that is what you decided to put in it? Blood-crusted hair, beating hearts, dismembered bodies, cannibals!”
His usually animated face suddenly showed no emotion. “Yes, because that is how things were.”
I leaned back quickly, my body pounding for some reason. “Why couldn’t you have put something about their calendar or native vegetation?”
“What’s the fun in that?”
My mind ran a million miles an hour after reasons why Lucas would know so much about that—or why I saw what I did. I had begun to wonder if there were still tribes of them today, hiding and doing those things in secret, when Lucas chuckled weakly.
“Those Aztecs don’t exist anymore,” he said.
I was stumped. “Ancestors, maybe?”
His lips sealed with a pinch, and he looked downward. “How’s your hand?”
I glanced at my hand and let out a slow breath of astonishment. The swelling and redness were gone, and the knuckles were bony again. That’s weird. I twisted my hand and made fists over and over again. Just an hour ago it was a yellow plum.
“It’s, uh, better,” I said.
“I see that.” His bushy eyebrows were raised, but not in a pleased way.
I tucked my hand under my other arm, out of his view, and nodded. “So what’s the deal with you?”
His blue eyes moved to the burgundy book on my lap. “Find anything interesting?”
“I haven’t really read it yet.”
“I had one similar years ago. But it’s all fake, only legend.”
I didn’t understand why his attempts to discredit Mae’s book vexed me so badly, but they made my blood sizzle. Disagreeing with Lucas would probably always be the norm.
“How do you know?” I asked stubbornly, petting the rough cover.
“Because, I told you, I had one just like that, but I lost it.”
“That can’t be true. I think this is the only copy.”
“No, there were more.” His voice held a hint of dishonesty. I stopped, perturbed by his arrogance. It was insulting. Did he really think I was that gullible?
I packed the book back into my bag and zipped it shut. “Listen, Lucas, now that this whole report thing is over, we don’t have to pretend to be nice anymore. I have my own thing going, and you clearly have your own agenda as well. Okay?”
“Okay what?”
“Stop talking to me.”
He folded his arms and laughed, amused yet again. “What’s my agenda?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
He leaned in close enough to let the curl of his dark eyelashes send my body into shivers, and he flashed a closed smirk. “Oh, Zara, but you should. Deeply.”
I stared at him as I inched as far away from him as possible, and I turned my back and leaned toward the professor. As class ended, I watched Lucas leave without a good-bye or a glance or a wave. Maybe ignoring him would mend our fake relationship.
When I stepped outside, the last cold breezes of the storm had covered the parking lot with rust-colored leaves. I breathed in. The crisp air finally smelled like autumn. I sat in the wagon with the windows rolled down and studied my hand, baffled that there was no sign of injury.
As I drove home, my thoughts turned to Lucas, as they usually did lately. After the report disaster, there was no way I was going to trust him. Then I remembered that Gabriella was coming with us to Reno. I squeezed the wheel tighter, hating that she would probably report everything I did to her stupid, hot brother.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Night Games
The next day, I forgot about Lucas long enough to get laundry done. In between loads, I helped Mom bake an apple pie. As I packed the last of the necessities for beautifying myself for Reno, I glanced down. My duffel bag was overflowing with every item I owned. I zipped it anyway, shifted my hip to the side, and yanked it up, yelling bye to Mom and Dad as I opened the front door.
Lucas was standing on the porch, dressed all in black. When he smiled wide, I saw straight, gleaming teeth. It was heart-jerking, yet irritating that he could be so beautiful. It wasn’t fair.
“Are you here to kidnap me?” I joked.
All pretense of happiness left him. His face went blank, and his body tensed.
Well, that didn’t work. “What are you doing here, Lucas?” I asked as I shoved past him.
“I’m sorry.”
“For?” A memory of him at the accident surfaced, though I pretended I hadn’t a clue. He’d denied it completely, been a jerk to me a
ll along. Suddenly I felt he shouldn’t be apologizing, he should be explaining, starting with how he knew where I lived.
“For not being straightforward with you. Here.” He pushed a rose toward me. The stem was wild with thorns; blood red rimmed each petal over a solid white bloom. It was perfect. I looked back up. Underneath his dark lashes I saw grief, and exhaustion again, as though he hadn’t slept in days.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s a rose,” he said, managing a snarky smirk. “You know, most girls would take it and say it’s okay . . . or throw it in the guy’s face.”
“I’m not like most girls.”
He snickered. “Trust me, I know.”
“Do you? Because you didn’t seem to care when I tried to work on the report with you. And why the hell do I feel like you’re always lying to me?”
He shrugged. Now he looked as though he really didn’t care. “Zara, nothing can excuse how I may come across.”
“You’re right, but an explanation would, starting with this rose.” I swung it like a magic wand.
“If I could, I would, but I can’t,” he pleaded.
“What do you mean?”
His hand fidgeted around in his pocket. “Look, I didn’t come here to disturb you.”
“Are you going to explain the roses in my room?”
“What do you mean?”
I shook my head at him, incredulous. The boy had a lying problem. I mean, he was only offering me one of the same flowers I’d found in my room. I gripped my bag and walked past him.
He turned after me. “I was hungry. Thought you might like to go grab a bite to eat.”
“Are you asking me out?” I laughed.
It was hard to act tough when my bag was digging into the bones of my shoulder. It slowed me down. I tried to push it along with my hip, but it started to hurt, and I stopped and dumped it to the ground.
“No!” His voice was high, playing it off. “No,” he repeated, though it sounded like he was reassuring himself. And then he sighed, looking at the grass. “No.”
I raised my eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.
He glanced up, looking innocently—subtly—through his dark lashes. “So?”
“I can’t. I’m going out with the girls tonight. Your sister is coming with us, didn’t you know that?”
“No, of course I did. But there’s been a change in plans.”
“What?” My voice jumped an octave when my cell vibrated in my pocket. “It’s Bri.”
Lucas watched as I listened to Bri ramble on in one long sentence. Tommy and the rest of the boys wanted us to go play night games with them, and of course Bri had accepted. Everyone was to meet at Bri’s house at dark.
“You were right,” I said, dropping the duffel bag at my feet. “Ever played night games?”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll explain while we eat,” I said.
As I levered up my bag, which now seemed to be full of cement, Lucas snatched it away, disregarding my nasty rejection, and carried it effortlessly to the house.
I walked to his expensive car, shocked that I’d actually agreed to go with him. When I sat down inside, it was like being on a beach, smelling the ocean. It was very clean, and the light gray leather still looked brand new. I looked around. The buttons on the dashboard were all futuristic looking compared to my wagon.
“Where are we going?” he asked, sliding noiselessly into his seat.
“Hamburgers?”
I had a ten-dollar bill folded in my back pocket; it would buy me one bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a drink at Lamplight’s Diner. I was impressed when he said he didn’t need directions. Then again, Tahoe wasn’t that big.
We drove to the pier’s strip mall in a silent bubble, mainly because our togetherness was awkward. Last time we were here, he’d caught me as I fell. I kept thinking of the phrase Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl hates boy, girl likes boy, wondering strangely if the last part would happen. Luckily, Lamplight’s Diner was only a few minutes away, a few stores down from Mae’s library, and we arrived there before I said something dumb.
When he pulled into the small parking lot, I watched people at the lake docking their boats amid the long, towering shadows cast by the setting sun. Lamplight’s filled the larger space in the back corner of the mall. It was still a small diner, but they had a fairly decent patio on stilts over the water. I usually sat there.
Lucas and I followed our hostess through the restaurant, past the vintage streetlamps set at each booth, to our table outside. The air was cooler over the lake—a crisp chill that gave me a running shiver. I slipped my cardigan on and sat down. The waitress lit the gas heat lamp next to our table, letting her eyes wander to Lucas frequently.
“So, what are night games?” Lucas asked, looking away toward the lake.
My spirits lifted, despite my annoyance with the server’s obvious stare, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Are you ready to run a lot?”
He sipped his water, clearly suppressing a laugh. The sunset sparkled in his eyes when he looked back up. And then I noticed his beard—it had to have been a week’s worth of growth, but he’d just shaved yesterday. That’s strange.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, smiling still, letting me dissect him in my mind.
I reminded myself to look past his unblemished handsomeness, past the butterflies now fluttering in my stomach. The waitress cleared her throat. I looked up, but I could feel his eyes on me.
“Two bacon cheeseburgers, two fries, and two strawberry shakes,” Lucas said.
The waitress and I simultaneously looked at him.
“That is what you were going to order, right?” he asked.
I shook my head silently.
“You got it,” the waitress said, walking away with her head down as she scribbled.
When she had disappeared, I started explaining. “The first thing you need to do is wear all black”—I briefly looked down at his clothes—“which, apparently, you already are. Then we split into two teams. One team runs, the other finds. Usually we start at Bri’s and finish at the gondolas over at Heavenly. The finders’ team will give the running team a five-minute head start. Their goal is to run on foot to Heavenly without getting caught. The team that makes it there with the most players wins. And, I also should tell you that anything goes: backyards, alleys, you name it.”
He seemed very interested, though with a wise smirk. “Why all black?”
“Because you can blend in with the night.” Duh.
“Ahh,” he exhaled, his smirk turning to an amused smile.
I wondered what his secret humor meant as minutes passed in silence. Lucas let me be, looking around at other tables or toward the mountains across the lake until the waitress set the greasy food in front of us.
“Anything else?” she asked Lucas.
“No, thank you.”
Lucas seemed too polite for someone my age. Normally my friends would just grunt, or look down until the server eventually walked away, recognizing they were being ignored. I liked his manners—it meant I wasn’t feeling embarrassed, the way I always was with my guy friends.
I remembered something important as I shoved a fry into my mouth. “Oh, and I should probably warn you: Tommy and Jett can get a little crazy. They’ve been known to drive the truck on sidewalks and lawns to find someone.”
He watched as I loaded my hamburger with ketchup, then leaned in. “That was going to be my next question. How do you guys see in the dark?”
“The cars’ headlights mainly, but Jett has a searchlight, so watch out for that. And sometimes they’ll get out and chase you down on foot with a flashlight.”
“Right.” His smile appeared again. “So, have you ever made it to the end?”
It wasn’t hard to catch the sarcasm in his ques
tion. I frowned. I don’t look that helpless, do I? “Only once. I always get outrun if I’m being chased on foot. But if they’re in the cars, you can hide behind bushes or fences.”
He nodded, somehow gloriously. “Got it.”
I looked down and shoved another french fry into my mouth. “It’s easier said than done,” I assured him.
“I think I can handle it.” There was a tint of laughter in his voice.
I watched as he took his first bite. The juices ran down the burger to his hand, then splattered onto his plate. It was interesting watching Lucas get dirty. He was somehow the cleanest person I knew, even if he did always seem to have scruff on his chin.
“Do you like it?” I asked hopefully.
“Very good.”
Lucas’s hair spiked messily upward, a dark terrain that seemed untouchable. It was stunning how his short sideburns moved halfway down his ear, drawing my eyes to his defined jaw. I looked around at other tables impulsively. My suspicions were confirmed when old ladies giggled in our direction a few tables down. I rolled my eyes and looked back to Lucas, who hadn’t moved his eyes from me.
“So, you never told me . . .” I began, but he pointed a finger to his cheek and tapped.
“Oh!”
My free hand instantly flew up and found ketchup on my cheek. I was sure my cheeks flushed the same color as I wiped it off. I looked down, embarrassed, and noticed his hamburger, or what was left of it after a few bites.
“Are you even well enough to be running after your blackout?” he asked.
I looked back up quickly. “Lucas, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you any of that. It’s so stupid . . .”
“Saying I’m glad you did,” he interrupted, “would be an understatement.”
“What do you mean?”
His gaze dropped suddenly. “Your hand’s all better.”
“I’ve been healing fast lately,” I joked. He didn’t laugh.
“Is that normal?”
“Not really. But when I got home from the hospital, my injuries went away really fast. And now these ones did too.”
His stare lingered before he spoke. “What do you remember about that night?”
