by Amira Rain
“I’ll keep you safe from Jen and her dangerous flailing arms, Sydney. I promise. Even if I have to dance us right out of the barn.”
I laughed, then rested my head against his chest, having not even really thought about the action before I’d done it. It had just felt perfectly natural for some reason. And now, with my head against his chest while our bodies slowly swayed in time, I had a sense of being where I was supposed to be in some profound sort of way that I couldn’t even articulate, even to myself. This feeling intensified when Hayden brought his mouth to my ear and spoke in a low voice, so low, in fact, that I could barely even hear him.
“I’ll always keep you safe.”
His tone wasn’t jokey now, and although he’d spoken very quietly, I knew I’d heard him correctly. Smiling a little, I kept the side of my face on his muscular chest while a current of some sort of electricity seemed to zip through my entire body, even while at the same time, I was beginning to feel deliciously warm and relaxed being in Hayden’s arms.
During the second slow song, we began kissing, and I could almost just feel everyone’s eyes on us. I didn’t mind, though, which struck me as kind of funny, because I’d never really been one for public displays of affection. However, with Hayden, I just really didn’t care who saw us kissing. I kind of liked it, even, realizing that I wanted him to be “mine,” and I wanted everyone to know that he was.
By the end of the second slow song, I had a pretty good idea that he officially was, or was at least well on his way.
As the last notes of music faded, he dipped me, then brought me back up and spoke in a low voice near my ear. “I don’t think you know how beautiful you are when you smile…although you’re always beautiful, whether you’re smiling or not. You’re gorgeous, actually.”
I smiled right then, and he brought his mouth to mine and kissed me until a fast “club-type song” began playing. At that point, we decided that maybe we should take a rest and leave the dance floor so that I could enjoy a piece of cake. Carla had made two quarter-sheet cakes, one vanilla and one chocolate, decorating them both with sky blue flowers, because she’d heard that sky blue was my favorite color.
While I ate a piece of vanilla cake with a thick layer of white buttercream frosting, Hayden went to go get another glass of whiskey from a makeshift bar that had been set up in one corner of the barn. He’d been gone just a few moments when Jen sat down next to me with a large piece of chocolate cake topped with a large piece of vanilla cake. After eating an enormous bite, she washed it down with a drink of punch and then scooted a little closer to quietly tell me something.
“Carla makes good cake; I’ll give her that…but she’s also really good at giving people little messed-up sort of looks. Like, look at how she’s looking at Hayden right now.”
I followed Jen’s line of vision and saw Hayden standing at the makeshift bar, talking to Sam. Behind the bar, Carla was pouring a drink, not giving anyone any “messed-up sort of look.” In fact, her focus was only on the drink. However, just when I was about to turn my gaze back to Jen, I saw Carla lift her gaze to Hayden, drink in hand.
And I couldn’t deny that the look she gave him was kind of “messed up.” It was something of a “death look,” even. It only lasted a moment or two, though, and then she said something to Hayden and handed him his drink with a smile. He took it and gave her a little smile in return, then took a sip and went back to his conversation with Sam.
Again, Jen spoke to me quietly. “See? Did you see that? That’s like the kind of look that she gives me and you sometimes, except she looks at Hayden even worse.”
Thinking, I pulled my focus from Hayden and looked at Jen. “Well…I’m starting to think that Carla is just kind of a ‘deep thinker’ about people sometimes. Like, you know how some people have ‘resting bitch face?’ I think she might just have ‘deep thinking face’ sometimes.”
Jen shook her head. “No. It’s more than that.”
“Well, just tell me why you think she’s doing it, then…because to say that her looks are anything more than just ‘deep, serious thinking face’ looks just doesn’t really make much sense. Like, I get that the two of you maybe aren’t exactly a personality match, but I seriously doubt she hates you, or even dislikes you.
And as far as me, why would she go through all the trouble of throwing me this party tonight if she doesn’t like me? And as far as Hayden, what could she possibly have against him? He’s the leader of the community that she lives in, and he seems to be doing a pretty good job as leader. So, why can’t you just give her the benefit of the doubt and start thinking that maybe her serious sort of looks are just that…just simply serious, deep-thinking sort of looks.”
Jen frowned. “I can’t start thinking that because I can feel in my guts that that’s just not true. She has some kind of bad thinking about me, you, and especially Hayden.”
“Well, what, you think she wants his job or something?”
Jen snorted. “No. She couldn’t even do his job, because she’s not that strong of a vampire, kind of like how my mom was. Carla definitely couldn’t lead everyone into a fight, like Hayden does. She could maybe help a tiny little bit in a fight, but that’s about it.”
Looking over at the bar area again, I thought that I’d maybe just seen Carla giving Hayden another dark look, just for a fraction of a second this time, although I couldn’t be sure. Maybe I just imagined it, I thought. Now that I’m looking for it, maybe I’m just making myself see something that isn’t there.
At any rate, what I thought I’d seen made me have a sudden thought, and I asked Jen if Carla and Hayden had ever dated.
Jen said no. “Not that I’ve heard about, anyway; but I always hear everything around here, so I think I would know.”
I’d thought that maybe if they had dated, and things had ended badly, that might explain Carla occasionally casting a few bitter-type looks in his direction.
After a large bite of her double-decker cake, followed by a swig of punch, Jen continued on the Carla subject. “I honestly don’t think Carla has ever dated anyone here on the farm. And she’s been here like…two or two-and-a-half years or something? Maybe three. Somewhere around there.”
I found this kind of surprising, given Carla’s model-perfect looks. I would have thought that she would have had vampires throwing themselves at her right and left. And if not vampires, at least guys from Sweetwater, where I knew she went to shop frequently.
Seeming to read my mind, Jen said that she thought that maybe Carla wasn’t over her ex-boyfriend yet. “They were together before she came here, and I really don’t know too much about the whole thing; but I overheard her telling Mel one day that her boyfriend had been the ‘love of her life,’ but that things had ended ‘very badly.’ Mel kept asking her a bunch of questions, but Carla just kept saying, ‘Oh, I really don’t want to answer’ or whatever. So, all that makes me think that she’s probably still not over her ex-boyfriend.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then the funny looks she gives people sometimes might make a lot more sense.”
Hoisting another large bite of cake, Jen frowned. “How do you figure?”
“Well, her breakup might have put her into a period of depression…and sometimes when people are depressed but trying to hide it, it can ‘slip out’ sometimes, almost like their ‘mask’ slips off. And maybe that’s what you’ve been seeing with Carla. Maybe her little looks are just fleeting moments of sadness when her ‘mask’ slips, and maybe her sad face just has a tendency to look angry or something.”
Looking at me with an exasperated sort of expression, Jen slowly shook her head. “Boy…we should all be so lucky to have someone making excuses for us like the ones you make for Carla. She could kick a puppy right in the middle of this barn, and you’d just be like, ‘Oh, she just tripped over it or something.’ Right?”
Cutting off a forkful of cake, I sighed. “Carla isn’t kicking puppies, Jen.”
“Yet. She’s not ki
cking puppies yet. She might be kicking Hayden soon, though, just based on the couple of looks she’s given him tonight. She might be kicking you real soon, too.”
Becoming a little exasperated myself, I suddenly set my fork down without eating the bite that was on it. “Can we make an agreement?”
Jen asked what it was, and I told her.
“Can we simply agree not to talk about Carla anymore? See, even really good friends sometimes have a topic that’s just ‘off-limits,’ and I think this might be mine.”
Shrugging, Jen said fine. “We don’t have to talk about her ever again. Just keep an eye peeled around her, though, Syd. She’s a funny, borderline-weird one. And I’m only saying this because I care about you.”
I knew that Jen did care about me, but I had become convinced that her fixation on Carla was about a little bit more than that. She was jealous of my friendship with Carla, plain and simple, despite saying that she wasn’t. For whatever reason, she didn’t seem to be jealous of me spending time with Mel, or at least not more than a little bit sometimes; however, with Mel being her twin, I figured that maybe that just made things different somehow.
Like maybe, even though they fought like cats and dogs, Jen still saw Mel as some kind of an extension of herself, which made her feel okay about “sharing” me with her.
At any rate, I was ready to be forever done discussing Carla, and her probably-perfectly-innocent looks, with Jen. As it was, I felt a little guilty even talking about Carla right there at the party she’d thrown for me.
Before Jen could go back on her agreement not to mention Carla again, I quickly changed the subject, asking her if she’d taught Wanted to line dance. He was currently out on the dance floor, doing funny, adorable little hops among all the dancers.
Hayden soon returned to our table; Jen left; and I forgot all about our conversation regarding Carla. Hayden and I spent the rest of the evening talking, laughing, and slow dancing some more. “In his arms” was quickly becoming my favorite place to be on earth.
Around midnight, the party started winding down, and since I’d begun yawning almost uncontrollably, Hayden said maybe he should walk me home. I agreed, stifling another yawn with my hand.
After saying goodnight to the couple dozen partygoers still left in attendance, Hayden and I thanked Carla for throwing the party.
She said she’d been glad to do it. “I just wanted you to feel as welcome here as I did when I first came to the farm, Sydney.”
The smile she gave me after saying this was so seemingly genuine that again, I felt kind of guilty for even entertaining Jen’s jealousy-induced crazy talk for as long as I had.
However, while Hayden and I walked home in the dark, hand-in-hand, I realized that I just wanted to hear directly from him that he and Carla had never dated. Not that it would make me think any differently about either of them if they had dated just briefly or something, or so I told myself; but I supposed I just wanted the true story from someone other than Jen, who maybe didn’t know everything that had ever gone on at the farm.
When I just came right out and asked Hayden if he and Carla had ever dated, the genuine look of surprise on his face, illuminated by the moonlight, told me all I needed to know. However, he still answered my question.
“No. Carla and I have never dated. Why?”
I said I really didn’t even know, which was the truth. “I guess just because she’s so beautiful, and because I saw her looking at you a couple of times tonight, or I thought I did. It was really no big deal.”
“Well, if she was looking at me in any funny sort of way, I guess I’m not stunned. When she first arrived here, she kind of came on to me and made it pretty clear that she was interested in me…she was even pretty persistent about it for a short while…but, I told her right away that I wasn’t interested. I just didn’t feel any kind of a spark with her at all.”
Now it was my turn to be surprised. Considering how beautiful Carla was, I would have guessed that Hayden would have been just as interested in her as she was with him. At the same time, though, I knew that different guys were attracted to specific different things both body-wise and personality-wise, and I also knew that a “spark” couldn’t be forced if it just wasn’t there.
Thinking that now Carla’s funny looks at Hayden made perfect sense, I didn’t ask him anything more about her. She’d simply had a crush at one point, I figured, and maybe she was still just a little salty or sad that her feelings hadn’t been returned. No big deal.
Because of what Hayden had said about there not being any kind of spark for him “at all,” I didn’t feel threatened by Carla’s unrequited crush in any way, and I actually even felt a little sorry for her. As a girl who had quite a crush on Hayden herself, I could only imagine how it might feel to be rejected by him.
Hayden soon changed the subject to asking me if I felt too tired to walk the rest of the way home, since we were only about halfway there. I said I was sure I’d make it; however, this statement was immediately followed by a yawn that I just couldn’t stifle.
Coming to a stop on the narrow woodland footpath, Hayden asked if I wanted a lift.
Uncomprehending, I just looked at him for a moment. “What?”
“I’ll give you a piggyback ride, or just carry you in my arms, whichever way of getting a lift you prefer. Just go ahead and pick one.”
Smiling, I said I’d started to really like the feeling of being in his arms.
Grinning in response, he scooped me up, held me to his chest, and began walking up the path. “That’s good…because I’ve started to really like the feeling of having you in my arms.”
By the time we got to the house, after having shared a few laughs and many more kisses along the way, I was starting to think that I might be falling in love with Hayden. All I knew was that I’d never before felt the way I was currently feeling, which was to say almost on some sort of a high just to be around a guy. If the way Hayden was looking at me, holding me, and kissing me was any indication, he was feeling the same way.
And then I had to go and ruin it all.
CHAPTER 18
Earlier that day, before getting ready for the party, I’d put the little “Daddy’s little star” onesie in a gift bag with some tissue paper and then had stashed the bag in a cabinet beneath the island in the kitchen, thinking that I’d maybe give Hayden this gift before the party. However, when he’d come home and had told me how beautiful I looked, I’d just felt like it wasn’t the right time for a baby gift for some reason.
Now, however, high on falling in love and pretty sure that Hayden was, too, the timing seemed right, despite the fact that we’d agreed to forget about the “other stuff” going on between us for the evening. It just felt right.
So, once we went inside the house, finding no one else in the kitchen, I pulled the gift bag out of the cabinet, telling Hayden I had a surprise for him, and then handed it to him. “It’s just a little thing…but I just felt like you should have it.”
The moment he took the gift bag, which he did with his expression turning somehow dark, I knew I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t like I could just take the gift back now, though, even though I maybe should have.
Hayden put the gift bag on the island, pulled out the tissue paper, and then pulled out the tissue-wrapped onesie with his expression darkening even further. Then, when he unwrapped the onesie and held up the tiny scrap of newborn-sized fabric, he winced, almost as if he’d actually been slapped or something.
After dropping the onesie on the island almost immediately, he raked a hand through his hair. “Sydney, I thought we agreed not to talk about the ‘other stuff’ tonight.”
“You’re right. We did.” Angrily stuffing the onesie and the tissue paper back in the bag, I glanced up at him. “We didn’t agree to anything having to do with gifts, though, and I guess I was just stupidly excited to give you this.
Maybe I thought that it would help ease you into things a little…but I should have been sma
rter. I should have realized that I’m the only one of the two of us that’s actually dealing with all this pregnancy stuff, and I probably always will be.”
Not waiting for a response from him, I began stomping out of the kitchen, feeling hurt and humiliated even more than angry. He didn’t follow me.
A short while later, I cried myself to sleep, realizing that by allowing myself to start falling in love with Hayden, I’d only added an infinite amount of complication to an already-complicated situation. Now not only was I carrying a baby that he apparently wanted nothing to do with, but I was also in love with him and might have to get used to the idea that he’d never be able to fully return my feelings because of the baby.
The following morning, I woke up early, at least an hour before dawn, despite having not slept well the night before. Not only had my nose been congested from all my crying, making it difficult for me to sleep, but I’d also had a few dreams about Hayden, too, specifically dreams about his arms around me, which had made me wake up each time, teary-eyed.
Deciding that it was probably no use to try to go back to sleep again, I took a shower, letting a stream of cool water depuff my tear-puffed eyes. Then, after getting dressed and drying my hair, I went downstairs, intending to make a huge breakfast, because despite my emotional upheaval, I was starving.
I seemed to be starving all the time now, or at least all the time when I wasn’t completely nauseated. My bouts of morning sickness had been lessening, happening to me maybe only once or twice a day now, briefly, which was leaving me with a lot of time to eat.
With my mind on food, and expecting to have the kitchen all to myself to just do some quiet thinking while I cooked, I was slightly startled when I found the kitchen well-lit, with Hayden sitting at the island, head in hands. Near his elbow was the gift bag, which, in my state of upset the night before, I’d forgotten to take up to my room with me. The tiny newborn onesie wasn’t in the gift bag anymore, though. It was now lying flat on the island, right in front of Hayden.
