Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series)

by Monica O'Brien

  Once again, Rykken made such a perfectly logical argument that Brie couldn't refute it, couldn't even refuse it. She tried to pretend that she was a regular girl and he was a regular boy and they could have a regular, high school relationship.

  She took a deep breath, giving him a smile. "Maybe if I wore my nightgown to school, you would have kissed me sooner."

  "You have no idea how long I've waited to kiss you," Rykken whispered. He let his thumb trace the edges her lips. "Years."

  "What are you waiting for then?"

  Rykken gave her a hard look and put his hand around her neck, gently pulling her face to his. She felt her entire body turn to jelly, but his arms held her up as he kissed her again, rougher this time. She ran her hands through his damp hair, resting them on his hard chest as they let themselves get lost in just one moment, the quiet eye of a typhoon.

  "What the hell is going on out here?"

  Brie and Rykken jumped apart, both of them recognizing the voice instantly.

  Pilot.

  *****

  Pilot looked from Rykken to Brie, not sure who he was more angry with at the moment. His night with Kennedy had already ended poorly, when she informed him she was leaving again and didn't know when she'd be back. Then, when he got home from his date, he noticed the kitchen light on. He followed it outside and saw his best friend and sister kissing through the patio door. Rykken stared at the ground, stirring his foot in circles on the cement. At least he had enough sense to be ashamed; Brie met Pilot's eyes with defiance.

  "What are you doing out here?" she asked. "Did you just now get home from your date?"

  Pilot stared at her in disbelief. "What are you doing out here? It's three in the morning." He turned to Rykken. "And why are you at my house?"

  Rykken looked up, opening his mouth to answer; but he stopped when Brie stepped in front of him. Brie folded her arms across her chest. "I invited him."

  Pilot gaped at the two of them. "For what? You're definitely not finishing up a school project! You're supposed to be grounded."

  "Don't make a big deal out of this," Brie replied. She glanced at Rykken, who averted his gaze. "We were just kissing."

  She said it like it was something normal, like 'we were just picking flowers' or 'we were just chewing gum.' But anyone who knew Brie and Rykken even a tenth as well as he did would know that two of them kissing was monumental. They hated each other. They could barely be in the same room together without hurling insults at each other. How did that lead to kissing outside the van Rossum patio door?

  Pilot took a deep breath. "Again, it's three in the morning. So that doesn't explain much." Pilot rubbed his forehead. "Can I have a minute with Rykken?"

  Brie grimaced. "This was my decision too, Pilot. I get to choose who I date."

  "Who says I want to talk to him about you?" Pilot asked. "The world doesn't live and breathe for your existence."

  Brie opened her mouth, but Rykken spoke first. "Stop it," he said, holding his hands up and stepping between the two of them. "You two squabble like siblings or something." Pilot guessed that Rykken meant it as a joke, but he didn't smile. Brie continued to glare at Pilot.

  Rykken put his hand on the small of her back and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes iced over, and when she looked up she was glaring at Pilot again. She stalked past him, opening the patio door to the kitchen and slamming it behind her as hard as she could.

  Even this simple act—the two of them whispering together, his best friend's ability to command his sister

  —gnawed at Pilot's stomach.

  Pilot looked up to see Rykken trying not to laugh. "What's so funny?"

  "Nothing," Rykken said, his face turning instantly serious again.

  Pilot paced back and forth for several minutes, so long that Rykken sat down in the meantime. Pilot had so many questions swirling around his head, he didn't know where to start. Finally, Pilot pulled up a patio chair and sat down next to Rykken.

  "Are you sleeping with my sister?" he asked, barely choking the words out. He rested his forearms on the small glass table positioned between them.

  Rykken looked genuinely surprised. "No. It was a kiss. I swear I didn't touch her until tonight."

  "You had your hands all over her," Pilot said. "You can't expect me to believe that this wasn't planned."

  "Pilot, I swear, it just happened. It wasn't like I came over here to kiss her or anything."

  Pilot glared at Rykken. "What are you doing here then, if you're not sneaking around with her?"

  Rykken looked away. "I couldn't sleep. I needed to swim, and Brie said I could do laps in your pool any time I wanted."

  Two words rattled around in Pilot's brain. Brie said. It was those two words that finally unwound him.

  "Are we not friends anymore or something?" Pilot asked. "Since when are you closer to my sister than me?"

  Rykken seemed taken aback. "You're still my best friend. Like Brie said, it was a couple kisses."

  Pilot wasn't sure which bothered him more—the kisses themselves, or that the kisses represented another secret in a string of secrets Rykken was keeping from him.

  "If we're still friends, why aren't you ever honest with me anymore?"

  Rykken stared at his hands, avoiding Pilot's eyes. "What do you want to know?"

  Pilot flinched, wondering if he was going to get real answers this time. "Tell me why you quit water polo."

  "I already told you, I played water polo for the wrong reasons. I was doing it for a college scholarship, and once I realized that, I didn't want to go the water polo route anymore."

  Pilot wished his friend would look at him. "Is that the same reason you quit surfing?"

  "I didn't quit surfing. I've been busy the last few weekends, but we can go next weekend."

  Pilot hated himself for doubting, but his gut feeling was that Rykken was lying. He tried a different line of questioning.

  "What's going on with your foster mom?" he asked. "She was scared last Sunday at the school."

  "She's fine," Rykken said. Pilot gave him a skeptical look. "I have no idea what you're talking about,"

  Rykken continued.

  Pilot slammed his fist into the table. "Why are you lying to me?" The table gave underneath the swing of his arm; he had hit it harder than he realized. His hand came away covered in slices of blood. The pattern in the surface of the table looked like the thin beginnings of a spider web, with thick, red liquid smeared across the center.

  Rykken's eyes widened. He stared into the pool, his forehead scrunched.

  "Yeah, great friendship." Pilot walked over to the towel stand and grabbed one to wrap his hand in. His fist throbbed, and he regretted losing his temper. He sat down again. "How long?" he asked, in the calmest, most normal tone he could manage.

  Rykken's head flipped back to Pilot unnaturally fast. "How long what?"

  "You and Brie. How long has this been going on?"

  "I told you, it just happened tonight."

  "No. I mean how long have you liked her."

  Rykken stared at the table, picking at the shards of broken glass nonchalantly. "I don't know," he finally said. "For as long as I can remember. Since I first saw her probably."

  Pilot whistled; shocked and not at all amused. He twisted his neck around to release the building tension. His anger subsided a little, but it was quickly replaced by a stabbing pain.

  "Since you first saw her," he repeated. "So Justin has been telling me the truth this whole time."

  Pilot's temper begged to get the best of him. "He tried to tell me you liked her, but I didn't believe him. I thought you were making an effort because I asked you to be nice to her. But Justin was right, and you were the one lying." He felt his anger turning into something much more vulnerable, something that no guy liked to experience when it came to his best friend.

  "I didn't lie to you," Rykken said angrily, his voice choking up.

  Pilot shrugged his shoulders helplessly, unsure how to repair
their friendship. "You didn't tell me the truth."

  "Fine," Rykken said. He took a deep breath, wincing. "This is hard for me to talk about with you, though."

  "It's not easy for me either, man."

  "Okay. The truth is I liked Brie before, superficially—I mean, your sister is pretty. I'd be blind not to notice that." Pilot didn't look at Rykken. "But I've gotten to know her better since you both moved here. My feelings for her aren't like Justin's—they're real and genuine. I don't have any hidden agenda."

  "Why haven't you told me this before?"

  "What was I supposed to say to you?" Rykken asked in an aching, unbecoming voice. "That I'm in love with your sister?"

  Pilot balked; love? That didn't ease his emotions any.

  "What would that have accomplished when up until tonight, I had no idea how she felt about me?"

  Rykken placed his fingers on the sides of his forehead, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the portion of glass table that wasn't cracked. "I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I'm completely crazy about her."

  Rykken wasn't saying the words, but Pilot could hear the subtext. It wasn't what he wanted to hear.

  He let out the breath he had been holding in. "We are like brothers, Rykken. I've trusted you with everything. You've seen my house. You've seen my family situation. You know my secrets. I don't let people in very easily."

  "I haven't betrayed your trust on any of those things."

  "You have though." Pilot's head shook uncontrollably. "If there was one unspoken boundary on our friendship, just one—it was dating my sister."

  "I can see that," Rykken said, his hands trembling. "Do you think I wanted this to happen? I've tried to hate her, trust me."

  "Does Brie trust you?" Pilot asked. He couldn't imagine Brie falling in love with someone who was keeping things from them. She had more trust issues than Kennedy, almost.

  Rykken looked away again, a sure sign he was about to lie. "I guess she trusts me. I don't know."

  Pilot's eyes sharpened to a knife point. "If she trusts you, it's because she knows what you're keeping from me, isn't it?" Pilot was surprised by the words that had come out of his mouth, but now that he said them, he knew they were true.

  Rykken's glossy eyes confirmed Pilot's suspicions. The confession was almost too much to bear. it was one thing to be suspicious, another to know the truth. He turned away from Rykken. "I must have done something really wrong if the two people I trust the most are confiding in each other and leaving me out."

  "Don't," Rykken said. "If you want to talk about friendship and trust, why haven't I seen you all week?

  And whom are you dating anyway? How long is this mystery girl going to stay a mystery from the 'two people you trust the most,' supposedly?"

  "Don't try to change the subject," Pilot said quietly. They were keeping secrets from him—even now, when he called Rykken out on it. Pilot felt himself deflating, all the anger and pain escaping him, leaving behind a pit of emptiness in its place.

  "Is it so terrible?" Rykken asked quietly. "Brie and me," he said, when Pilot looked up. "You didn't freak out when Brie dated Justin."

  Pilot thought for a moment. "You're different."

  "Why?" Rykken asked. His voice was so pitiful, Pilot almost felt sorry for him. "Am I not good enough for her? I know I don't have money—"

  "No," Pilot said, waving his hand. "Of course it's not about that. You know that."

  "What is it then?" Rykken sounded desperate. "I thought you'd be happy to get her away from a guy like Justin."

  Pilot sighed, trying to put into words why he was upset. "Brie is just starting to come back around," he said. "She's alive again. If something happens to put her back into that depressed state... I won't be able to forgive the person who caused it."

  Rykken nodded slowly. "Never. I won't hurt her."

  "Ever?" Pilot said. "Look. I can tell she really likes you. Maybe you're even in love, like you say you are. But I don't want to choose between you two. If it comes down to it, I'm going to pick her; even if it's her fault to begin with."

  Rykken stared into the pool again. "I understand."

  Pilot tried to put himself in Rykken's shoes, but he couldn't. There was nothing good that could come of this situation. "So that's your choice, then," he said. "You really want to risk our friendship on a relationship that may not work out. Hell, we're all in high school. It probably won't work out."

  Rykken blinked several times, his eyebrows flinching. "If you understood how I felt about her, you'd know that I don't have a choice."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Rykken didn't go the van Rossum house on Sunday. Instead, he settled for a few text messages with Brie, agreeing that they would talk about their relationship in the coming week.

  He missed her though. At the same time, Pilot's ominous words echoed in his head. If something happens to put her back into that depressed state... But Pilot had no idea how intricately bound the two of them were, and how far Brie was willing to go to get closure for her mother.

  Rykken wondered if he should try to talk Brie out of the trip she was planning. He doubted anything he said could change her mind, which is why he had insisted on going with her instead. But he questioned whether Pilot was right about Brie's mental health. Sirena could easily talk her into something, and he wasn't sure how much he trusted someone who would approve of her fifteen year old niece going on a dangerous mission.

  Lunch on Monday was awkward, partly because the water polo team lost their second match of the year that weekend, but mostly because Pilot was barely speaking to him. The van Rossum's were finally back in school with extra staff on hand to protect the campus and their privacy. Of course, that didn't stop the students from violating the van Rossum's privacy—the excitement over Brie's accident was near breaking level. Pilot tried to be polite to the intermittent groups of girls who kept asking him to autograph their magazine copies of James and him in their swimsuits on the coast guard boat, but Rykken could tell that the extra attention made him uncomfortable.

  Pilot's tolerance ran out after a particularly bold freshman girl asked him out on a date. "I'm going to hide out in the library," he said, bolting from the table.

  Justin mocked his departure in true form. "Library my ass. He's probably meeting that sexy girlfriend of his in a bathroom stall for a quick one."

  Rykken blocked out Justin's crude words. Pilot and him didn't talk about their sex lives much, thank God. That would have made their conversation about Brie a million times worse than it had been.

  But one part of Justin's sentence bothered him. "You've met Pilot's girlfriend?"

  Justin shoveled mashed potatoes into his mouth, not looking up. "You haven't?" The manilla sustenance sloshed between his tongue and his gums when he opened his mouth.

  Rykken gritted his teeth together. He didn't want to admit to Justin that he wasn't exactly at the top of Pilot's list of confidants anymore, partly out of pride, and partly because he didn't want to explain the reason for their fallout.

  Luckily, Justin wasn't the type of guy who could pass up gossip. "She's hot," he said. "Dark, smooth skin, long hair the color of snow, incredible body."

  The description left Rykken unsettled. The image he conjured of the girl seemed familiar for some reason, like he'd seen her before. But he would have remembered if he met Pilot's girlfriend—it wasn't like there were a ton of teenage girls with long, white hair walking around.

  Justin studied Rykken's face and smirked. "I take it you haven't met her. If it helps, she was there that day we went to Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin when you were wearing that girly necklace and you couldn't afford to eat." He looked at the empty space of table in front of Rykken. "Is today another fasting day?

  I can loan you five bucks if you're hurting that bad."

  Rykken's shoulders pulsed upward. Justin was a jerk sometimes, but he was always the guy who defended Rykken when other people made fun of his lack of cash flow. "What's your problem bro?
"

  "You, mostly." Justin stabbed a chunk of meat. "Everyone on the team is pissed off at you for quitting."

  "I'm sorry," Rykken said, remembering Brie's words. Justin doesn't hate you... his priority is the team.

  He hoped she was right. "Things will pick up. At least the season is almost over."

  Justin set his fork down, his jaw set. "Our loss this weekend makes me look like a loser of a captain who can't win matches."

  Rykken hadn't thought of it that way before. "It was one match," he finally said, furling his eyebrows.

  "It's not the end of your career."

  "It sucks that they'd all rather have you leading them, though. It's like you're off the team, but still stealing them away from me." Justin glared relentlessly. "Brie too. She called me last Thursday to tell me that she couldn't see me anymore."

  Rykken's heart skipped a beat. "Oh."

  "She said someone told her she was 'leading me on,' and I think it was you." Justin's eyes challenged Rykken to deny it, and he did with the shake of his head. But despite Justin's shortcomings, he had known Rykken since they were kids, and Rykken could tell Justin didn't buy it.

  "Real clever line Camacho—and once I was out of the picture, that paved the way for you to make your own move."

  Rykken couldn't believe Brie had told Justin the truth. He swallowed hard, wondering how to salvage the situation. "Neither of us can control how we feel about her. I'm sorry."

  "I'm just wondering if Pilot knows that you're screwing his sister."

  "First of all," Rykken said, "I'm not. Not everything is about sex. And second, Pilot knows that I like her." He's just not thrilled about it.

  Justin popped the knuckles on his right hand, then the left. "A few months ago, we were best friends. We have years of friendship behind us... we've been surfing buddies for as long as I can remember. Two celebrity kids show up, and you've become this different person."

  "It has nothing to do with them," Rykken said, annoyed by Justin's implication. "I don't abandon my old friends just because I found shiny new ones. Our friendship has been on the decline for awhile, when I earned captain instead of you. I didn't ask for that."