by M. Leighton
I turned around, so close to Bo our thighs touched. “A great idea, huh?”
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” His eyes twinkled in mischief and his deep grin brought out twin dimples on either side of his mouth. I’d never noticed them before, but I thought they were the sexiest thing I’d ever seen on a man.
“Why did you want to get rid of her?” My belly was squirming with butterflies.
“I thought I’d steal you from Home Room and—”
Bo trailed off, distracted. A fraction of a second later, I smelled something. I had no idea what it was, or even how to describe it really, other than it smelled wonderful.
“What’s that smell?” I drew a huge breath into my lungs, relishing the aroma it carried. I could almost taste the scent it was so heavy in the air.
I felt Bo’s body tense. “You can smell that?” His eyes were narrowed suspiciously on me.
“Of course I can.”
He frowned, but then his eyes moved off to lock onto something behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see what had caught his attention.
A hush fell over the crowd in the hall and they began to part, mashing themselves up against the rows of lockers on either side of the corridor. That’s when I saw him.
He stood alone at the end of the hall, towering at least a head over everyone else. No one moved or said a word. No one even breathed. It was like the world stopped spinning for a split second, time itself standing still to admire this one person.
With intense blue eyes and wavy blonde hair that brushed his forehead and his collar, he could’ve been a surfer but for his pale skin. His eyes met mine and the left side of his mouth pulled up into a cocky smirk. For a second, I thought I was going to actually swoon. Swoon! Who even does that anymore?
“Ridley,” Bo said from behind me, his voice low and deadly. “Go to class. I’ll meet you back here after Home Room.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew by Bo’s tone that it wouldn’t be wise. Just before I turned to do as Bo suggested, I saw the stranger’s attention flicker to my left. Struggling to tear my eyes away from him, I physically turned my head just in time to see Trinity round the corner and come onto the hall.
Like everyone else, she stopped and stared, instantly entranced by the new guy. Altering her course the tiniest bit, she drifted unerringly to him, almost as if he was reeling her in.
When she stopped in front of him, the top of her head barely reaching the middle of his chest, she recovered more quickly than the rest of us had. As I watched, she turned on her charm full blast, eliciting a deep chuckle from the newcomer. I shivered when the sound rang through the hall. It was like the auditory equivalent of heroine.
Bo stepped up to my side and I swung my gaze to him. He was tight-lipped and frowning, but there was something in his eyes, something I hadn’t seen there before.
“Do you know him?”
His response was terse, anxiety evident in his tone. “No, but I know he’s one of us.”
“One of us as in…” I trailed off, looking at him meaningfully.
Bo nodded, one short, curt bob of his dark head.
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
The bell chose that moment to ring. Bo and I stood together, watching Trinity point to something on a paper that the guy was holding and then gesture down the hall. I can only assume he was asking for directions and that she, exemplary citizen that she is, was giving them.
Not one to embrace minimalism, Trinity no doubt offered to show him the way, because they walked off together. When they were out of sight, I felt the air come back into the hall, everyone around me snapping out of their stupor and scrambling to get to class.
Bo started to walk off, but then, as if in afterthought, he turned back to me. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said, brushing his lips over mine.
He looked at me absently for a few seconds before I saw him mentally return to me with a faint shake of his head. It was evident by the clearing of his expression that he was no longer with Trinity and the stranger down the hall; he was with me in the here and now.
“Promise me you’ll stay away from him,” Bo insisted.
“Of course.”
The concern on his face had me agreeing immediately, but it also worried me. It couldn’t be a good thing when someone elicited this kind of reaction from Bo.
“See you soon.”
He turned and walked away and I watched him until he was out of sight. Plagued with an odd sense of foreboding, I turned and made my way down the hall in the opposite direction, toward Home Room.
By the time I was seated in class, the whole incident in the hall seemed strangely distant and confusing. I couldn’t remember what had been so fascinating about the new guy. In fact, I was a little embarrassed that I’d gawked like an idiot, and right in front of Bo no less. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I had no intention of letting it happen again.
Contrary to what he’d said, I didn’t see Bo after Home Room. In fact, I didn’t see him at all until lunch. I did, however, see the new guy quite a bit. Every time I turned around, he was with Trinity somewhere. He was even sitting with her at lunch, holding the entire table captive by his peculiarly compelling presence.
I was sitting under the tree I’d claimed as my new lunchtime hangout when Bo found me. He saw that I was studying the newcomer and he leaned up against the tree behind me to watch, too.
“His name is Lars Swenson.”
“How do you know?”
“Student Services.”
“Is he from around here?”
“No. He’s supposedly an exchange student from Switzerland.”
“Do you think Trinity knows him?”
“No. I think she’s just fallen under his charm like everyone else,” he said pointedly.
I craned my neck to look back and up at him. “I’m not under his charm.”
I felt a little insulted that he’d lump me in with all the nitwits that were hanging on his every word.
Bo’s eyes darted down to me and he quirked one brow suggestively. “Maybe not now.”
I chose to ignore that comment, mainly because I had no defense. It was true—I had been nit-witting over the guy this morning, just like everyone else. “Why doesn’t he affect you like that?”
“Probably because we’re the same.”
“You’re nothing like him,” I declared in Bo’s defense. Though I knew nothing about the stranger (other than he had piercing blue eyes and a mouthwatering smell), instinctively, I had no doubt that he was trouble, trouble of a magnitude that I’d never seen. He made me feel twitchy inside, and not in a good way.
“No, I think he’s probably very, very old,” Bo said, his voice dropping down low.
“What does that mean?”
“That he’s also very, very powerful.”
“What’s he doing here?”
Just then, Lars lifted his head from where he’d had it bent listening to Trinity and his eyes locked with Bo’s across the lawn. Though his expression never changed, menace rolled off him in thick, black waves.
“I think he’s come for me,” Bo muttered, apparently unconcerned.
“What?” I was immediately alarmed. I wasn’t sure what that even meant, but it sounded terrible. It sounded deadly. “Why?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long until I find out,” Bo said, never taking his eyes off the stranger.
I looked back and forth between them, wondering what kind of silent battle was being waged and why no one else seemed to notice. When my gaze flicked back to Lars, I saw a cold grin drift across his lips right before he glanced at me and then turned his attention back to Trinity. In a way, I had the feeling that we’d somehow been marked, but marked for what I didn’t know.
“Bo!”
Bo and I both turned to look toward the picnic tables, where Savannah sat with Devon. She was motioning us to come over.
> I felt Bo’s fingers brush the back of my head. I turned to look at him over my shoulder. He squatted down, twirling a lock of my hair around his finger, seemingly fascinated by it.
“I guess it’s time we go make some plans for a double date, huh?”
Bo’s lips were curved in a casual smile, but when his eyes met mine, I saw a hint of something worrisome in their depths, something he was trying to bury beneath his carefree expression.
I reached up to grab his hand where he fiddled with my hair. It was cool, where only a few short hours before I’d been able to feel intense heat.
“Tell me everything is going to be fine,” I requested, knowing that it was impossible for him to guarantee such a thing, especially considering that he was dying.
“I’ll make it as fine as I can,” he replied.
“You’re cold, Bo. Didn’t you get…something to eat before school?”
“Yeah.”
I wondered if worry or fear would burn through the blood he drank more quickly, like he said excitement would. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t think I needed to. Something in his eyes told me that it did, and that he was much more concerned than he was willing to admit. He obviously didn’t want me to know just how bad it was, so for his benefit, I stood to my feet and plastered a bright smile on my face.
“Then let’s go make a date.”
********
The weird parts of my day had apparently only just begun. Since I’d so publicly challenged Trinity, she hadn’t really made as much of a stink as I’d suspected she would. The locker thing was a mild stunt, something that only brushed the surface of Trinity’s deep and disturbing repertoire of vengeful schemes. Each day, especially when it came to cheerleading, I wondered when she’d make her move and how bad it was going to be.
Today, however, she threw me for a loop. She arrived at practice late, which wasn’t unusual for Trinity, but she was all smiles, something that I hadn’t seen much of since the incident.
I ignored her for the most part, the same as I’d done since I’d stood up to her. No sense waking up that sleeping dog any sooner than was absolutely necessary. The strange thing was that she responded to me cheerfully when I asked her to change position or straighten her arm or…well anything really. Her smile was wide and seemed genuine, but it was her eyes that concerned me. There was a gleam in them, a malevolent twinkle that made me extremely uncomfortable. It seemed as though she was laughing at me, like she’d made the final plans for her revenge and she was overflowing with the juiciness of it.
The thing I worried about most was whether or not her plotting, her ultimate revenge, now involved Lars.
Bo wasn’t at my car when practice was over, which disappointed me more than I cared to admit. I scolded myself for wanting to spend every waking minute with him, for expecting him to feel the same way, but it had virtually no effect. I still felt deflated and depressed by the time I got home.
Those feelings were quickly forgotten, however, when I pulled into the driveway and parked behind Mom’s car. I glanced at the dashboard clock. It was 5:45. Mom was never home before 10:00 unless Dad was there. Never. She always had some serious drinking to do after work and that took time.
The gloom of a dark, ominous cloud pressed down on my shoulders like a physical weight, making my feet feel like they were shod in concrete shoes. With each step, it seemed an effort to drag them forward, on toward the front door.
Carefully, cautiously, I raised my key to the lock, but the door flew open before I could even push it into the slot. Mom stood there, all smiles and sparklingly clear eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re home!” Both her face and her voice were animated and strangely excited. She stepped forward to throw her arms around my neck in a hug that would’ve staggered a grown man.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” She pulled back to look at me. “Nothing’s wrong, Ridley. Why would you ask such a question?”
I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. I thought about saying something like Because you’re usually at O’Mally’s getting three sheets to the wind by now, but that probably would have been neither advisable nor appropriate.
“No reason,” I answered, deciding on a strategy of evasion. Pretense and light deceit had worked well in our house for years. Why stop now?
I smiled, moving past her into the foyer.
“The chicken smells great,” I commented, breathing in the savory smell of meat.
“I haven’t even started cooking yet. How can you smell it?” She asked this as she took the duffel strap off my shoulder. “Here, let me take this to your room while you go wash up.” She walked my bag down the hall, calling over her shoulder, “You can help me with dinner.”
I just stood there, mouth agape, watching the person who looked like my mother walk my bag back to my room.
When she reemerged, she looped her arm through mine and pulled me toward the kitchen, like two best friends at summer camp.
“I’m fixing chicken spaghetti, garlic bread with parmesan cheese, salad, and key lime pie for dessert. How does that sound?”
She deposited me in front of the sink while she went to the refrigerator for supplies.
“All that just for two?” I lathered my hands beneath the warm water.
“We might have company,” she announced.
“Who?”
“Your friend from school.”
“Which one?” She didn’t have to know that the list was much, much shorter than it used to be.
“Lars.”
I could barely think over the shrill scream of Def Con Five sirens going off inside my head. Hands dripping and eyes narrowed suspiciously, I turned toward Mom. “Lars? How do you know about Lars?”
“You don’t have to play dumb, Ridley. I know all about him. He stopped by while you were at practice and you know what?” She turned around to look at me. “I really like him.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Lars had been in my house, alone with my mother.
“What were you doing here, Mom? Don’t you usually work late?” That’s what she called getting her drunk on—“working late.”
Mom wrinkled her brow. “Hmm,” she said, slightly dazed. “I can’t remember why I came home early, but I did.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I really like him.”
“You really like him,” I repeated, racking my brain for the best course of action. Something was very wrong with my mother and it evidently had something to do with Lars.
“I do,” she reiterated. “That should please you, right? I mean, what girl doesn’t want her parents to like her boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Well, whatever you call them these days, but you know what I mean.”
“So,” I began, trying to adopt a matter-of-fact tone and demeanor. “What all did you and Lars talk about?”
My mother actually sighed as a dreamy look came over her face. “All sorts of things, but mostly you.”
“What about me?”
