by Aimee Laine
“Yeah?”
“What are you making?” Moving from the colander to the pot in a matter of seconds, Charley couldn’t tell a red pepper from a tomato as they slid in and around.
“Just a stew.” Lily continued to chop and slide.
Much like Charley, Lily had taken on a young persona. She, James and Cael all found themselves in the realm of the teenage years again—each for different reasons.
Unlike Charley, who preferred locks and softness, Lily chose a wispy, iron-flat, mid-back blonde and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt to suit her age. No one would have believed someone so young could be a master chef—completely at home in her state-of-the-art, stainless steel, double-oven, multi-sink paradise.
Charley propped her elbows on the speckled-black granite, tilted her head to peel off one contact lens; she repeated with the other. Gone were the blue and in their place, the color of her kind. She let her chin rest against clasped fingers.
She caught Lily’s quick lash raise—would have missed it if she’d blinked. The window behind Lily mirrored the ghost of movement, a shift from dark to light and light to dark again.
“Hey, James,” Charley said.
His fingers dug into her shoulders, stretched and pulled muscles she’d worked to relax. She sighed in complete and utter pleasure.
“How was the first day, Charley? Or should I say Mira?”
“Fantastic.” She closed her eyes as he continued to knead.
A little more weight into her shoulder, a whiff of his cologne, and she found James’s head just above the same spot he worked.
“And did you see him?”
“I most certainly did.”
“And?” His fingers continued their discovery into muscles across her arms and pulled her spine tight. She’d made her change earlier that morning, so he knew where she’d still be sore.
“Handsome. Strong. Kind. Conscientious. Nervous.” With each descriptor, Charley let her head shift from one side to the other. The stretch gave her a moment to consider.
“Still can’t believe you’re taking your vacation for this.” Cael’s groggy voice added to his slouched form as he shuffled into the kitchen.
“Mornin’, Cael.” James’s hands left her shoulders and sent a light punch which almost toppled the six-foot-seven Cael.
“Unh.” One hand shot out for balance. “Not mornin’.”
Charley couldn’t help the smile. “You guys truly are brothers.” The quick squeeze from above told her James heard her soft comment.
Cael stumbled his way to the fridge.
A knife-wielding Lily reappeared. “Get outta there! I’ve got dinner coming!”
Cael ignored her in favor of grapes and cheese. Mouth full and tray in hand, he turned to Charley. “You look the part, by the way.” He popped another of the green fruits.
“Thank you.” Charley planted her forearms flat on the counter.
He tilted his head over each shoulder as if to shrug. “So, I gotta ask—” He threw a grape above his head and caught it between his teeth. “Given what happened a year ago with this same boy, what’re you going to do when he falls for you? What happens when … this time … you can’t give him up.”
Charley pulled one hand out from under the other, noting James stopped his massage, and Lily stared at her.
Cael nodded once. “And this time … you don’t have to?”
At the end of the four weeks, could she disappear—return to her made-up homeland of New Zealand—and leave Wyatt none the wiser?
• • •
Wyatt found her in the cafeteria, surrounded by students. Light danced off her hair, which she had pulled up into a tail. Laughter rang from her entourage. He wanted to run up, scatter the crowd and keep her for himself.
Idiot! You’re hung up on a girl who’s gonna leave.
Instead, he sauntered—not too slow, not too fast—toward the group. A lowly freshman caught his gaze and whispered to another. As soon as Wyatt reached them, the entire group dispersed to other tables. In what used to be the center of the flock, Mira sat, books and bag under her folded arms, relaxed and comfortable.
“Uh, hi!” Wyatt stood, hands in his pockets, longing for a less awkward reunion.
“Hi!” As she tilted her head in his direction, her curls escaped from her band and dropped onto her shoulder.
Wyatt fought the desire to reach out and twirl them, to pull her face right up to his and be the man his friends all thought him. He shook off the fantasy and let himself fall onto the seat next to her.
“So. Um …”
The corners of her mouth turned upward. “Um?”
Idiot! He screamed in his head again. After a number of ‘ahems’ and a few fantastical delusions, he tried a second time. “Sorry, allergies.” The lie worked as well as it could, which he assumed meant not at all. “Uh … so, how’s day number two?”
“It’s okay, I guess.” She shifted in her seat. Her curls fell further as she did.
Stop! Wyatt chastised himself with an internal groan at his stupidity. “Anything I can help with?” Kidney? Liver? My car?
“Well …”
Wyatt left her to her thoughts, though he’d have preferred to take them over. Hands on the table, he entwined and unlinked his fingers. Sure she could see the heat rise in his cheeks, he crossed his arms, propped one foot under the table and pushed to lean back.
“Let me know anything you need. I am the class president and all. I have some pull around here.” He gestured with a thumb toward the doors and levered himself back with his foot.
“Well … the girls? Here earlier?” Her head tilted so her hair trailed to her shoulder.
He itched to tug at it.
“They said there’s a dance coming up, and I should go.” She moved her hands to her lap.
Metal clambered against ceramic as he dropped the feet of his chair to the ground. “You could go with me. I could take you. We could go together.” He pointed back and forth between them. “I mean, I have to go ’cause I’m the—well, being neutral, I wasn’t going to pick a date or anything. But, it’d be great if you went with me. Right? I’d be happy to take you.” He smiled too big, spoke too fast. Heat rushed to his cheeks again, but he forced himself to maintain eye contact.
She looked back at him, her eyes wide. “That sounds like a lovely idea.”
“Cool!” Wyatt slapped his thigh, realizing he’d become a complete dork. One foot back under the table, he lifted the chair’s front legs off the floor again. “So, um, who’re you staying with?” He hadn’t nosed into personal details during their tour the previous day, instead kept it simple and straightforward.
“With a family on Turner Point.”
“No kidding. Wow. That’s a scary hill.” Wyatt scrunched his nose. “At the base?”
She shook her head, bouncing her curls. “The top. Not so bad in the daytime.” Her fingers moved back to the table top, drumming polished nails against it.
“What’re they like?” He knew most foreign exchange students, at best, disliked their host families. For whatever reason, the accommodation process stunk, and every year, one or another of the students left early on account of the families.
“They’re wonderful. There are three my age—Jack, Carter and Leena. Very sweet.” She smiled as she mentioned their names.
He didn’t recognize them, though he knew a couple Turner Point families—the few who risked the hill were districted to go to West. More comfortable with the path of their conversation, he kicked his chair back a notch. His hands fell to the seat where he could drum underneath.
“So what made you pick the U.S.?” His fingers tapped out a beat from the school’s fight song.
She bit the corner of her lip. “A boy.”
Wyatt opened his eyes wide. He’d never considered she might have had a boyfriend already. Here for a boy? Here? Who? Where? Rambled thoughts kept his attention elsewhere and caused his foot to slip.
He missed the support bar.
In his correction, he overcompensated, and before he could catch the table, he caught air. With a crack, gravity won and the tile exacted payment on its behalf.
“Wyatt!” The voice echoed through his head, pounding in his ears. Be quiet, he wanted to say. He reached over his head, rubbed at the spot that throbbed, ached and burned all at the same time.
“Wyatt?” The same voice reached into his mind.
The repetition added to the heartbeat which jolted and bumped within his head. Please make me the invisible man!
Warm palms pressed against his cheeks. Despite his utter embarrassment, his hands met hers at his temple. The bump of jewelry told him they came attached to Mira.
“Owww.” Eyes closed, his cheeks burned under her touch.
He peeked at her from half-closed lids, her face no more than an inch from his. The speckles of lavender in the crystal blue of her eyes sent warmth away from his cheeks and straight to his center. For a moment, he’d have sworn her pupils constricted into vertical slits.
“Oh my god, I’ve got a concussion.” Elbows against the cold floor, Wyatt struggled to right himself.
One hand left hers to hover over the point of impact, where a bump made its home against his skull.
“No, strike that. I’m okay.” Not in a million years would he get away without the memory of the story.
“You’re not okay. Let’s get you to the nurse. Have her take a look.”
Her concern melted his resolve and his distress over the ‘boy’. She did care about him—at least a little. He smiled, though he had no idea what the effect would look like on his face as the back of his head continued its battle with knives and swords.
“God, that hurt.” He rubbed as her hand met the same spot.
Their glances cemented themselves to one another.
Maybe she can like me as much as whoever it is.
Her gaze broke. She stepped around him, wedged her arms under his and pulled until he stood, with a strength he didn’t expect from a girl her size. Cheers erupted around him. His squint, an attempt to reduce the volume, didn’t work.
She must have understood his expressions as her hands covered his ears for him. The touch, and the tingle that went with it, tugged at his heart.
Despite the cheers and cat-calls, to leave would mean her hands would drop, and when they did, their connection would be broken.
“Thanks,” he said.
“No problem.” She mouthed the words.
Despite the throb and the beat that matched his heart, she continued to hold tight. Wyatt shifted his legs to prevent any accidental, visible growth.
“Let’s get you to the nurse.”
“I’m okay, really.” Just keep your hands right there.
“I don’t care.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “If I have to drag you myself, I will.” She added a foot stomp, and her hands left his ears to the mercy of the room.
He grinned. “Hold my hand?”
She grabbed both of them, worry etched into her forehead.
He’d fall off a chair every day if he needed to.
Available Now
Available Now
Coming March 2013
Table of Contents
Reviews
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgements
Author
Little White Lies
LWL Chapter 1
LWL Chapter 2
Other Books
Table of Contents
Reviews
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgements
Author
Little White Lies
LWL Chapter 1
LWL Chapter 2
Other Books
