by Blake, Kasi
Still, a tiny warning bell rang in the back of his mind.
If he did anything magical, it was all over for him.
Chapter four
Welcome to the Jungle
Lack of sleep left his brain in a pleasurable fog.
Anger at his father for lying to him had dissipated about half an hour ago. Hurt had turned to confusion. Then his revolving emotions returned to anger. Finally, his fury went from rapid boiling to a slow simmer. Matt had wanted Trick to wake him after an hour so he could take a turn standing guard, but Trick hadn’t bothered. He couldn’t sleep anyway. It would have been ridiculous for both of them to stay awake all night. Anger at being deceived kept him tied in knots.
Sunlight brought relief. At least he could go to school and get away from his family problems for one day. Part of him wanted to see Dani so he could get his necklace back. Even if he didn’t want to wear it, his father had given it to him. The other half of him hoped he wouldn’t run into her. Seeing her would just lead to an awkward conversation.
All night he’d contemplated his rekindled memories. What should he do about his father? He’d gone back and forth until he thought his head would explode. At four in the morning, he had convinced himself to search for his real father. By 4:15, he’d decided to forget the man existed. Twenty minutes later, he was ready to tear the world apart to find him. Again and again he changed his mind at regular intervals.
He was curious about his missing brothers, but their absence didn’t leave a gaping hole in his chest. He had Matt. One pain in the butt brother was enough. Too bad he couldn’t replace his real father with Sean Donovan as easily.
Trick had gotten a ride to school with Scarlet because Matt hadn’t wanted him to take his motorcycle after going sleepless. Usually he was against taking orders from Matt, but they’d reached an agreement. He would catch a ride, and Matt would stay home from work. The first part of the day sailed by without incident. Since he wasn’t hungry, he agreed to help Scarlet make some money during their lunch hour.
A taut rope stretched between two trees behind the school’s main building, and Trick walked it with confidence. If they got caught by a teacher, they’d probably get detention. He didn’t care. The task wiped his mind of confusion, anger, and dark thoughts. Surrounding him, at least a dozen of his classmates watched, including Scarlet. She collected money from students betting on whether he’d make it to the other side. They didn’t know it, but the money was already his. No way was he falling. He felt a hundred pounds lighter without the necklace—like he could fly if he tried.
Arms out for balance, he crossed the rope with a steady gait, one foot in front of the other. His bare feet partially curved around the rope. At least he’d been smart enough to remove the expensive biker boots Sean and Laura had given him for his birthday last year. The soles were too stiff. He wouldn’t have made it more than a couple steps.
As he reached the end of the rope, a few students cheered; the others groaned.
With a triumphant grin Trick raised his arms in victory.
“Twenty says you can’t do it backwards,” Doug Peterson called out.
Doug stepped forward, waving two ten dollar bills in the air. If Trick had to pick a school rival, someone who worked consistently to outdo him, he’d pick Doug. The jerk did his best to cast Trick in a negative light no matter the situation.
Scarlet took the money without asking Trick if he could do the deed.
Students cheered him on, Scarlet being the loudest, and Doug smirked from the sidelines.
“You got this, Ape-face!” Scarlet shouted. “Come on. Woot, woot!”
Trick took a deep breath. With his gaze set on a fixed point straight ahead, he carefully placed one foot behind the other. He stretched his arms out again. He took another step backward and found a place for his foot. Concentrating hard, he focused on balance. He moved his left leg back and slid his foot into position. Then he repeated it with the right leg. A slow smile crept onto his face. He was more than halfway home. Any second he would hear a round of cheers.
Maybe he should do stuff like this more often. Easy money.
One second he was in perfect balance with the rope and with nature. The next, he was flat on his back, gazing up at the pale blue sky. Confused, it took him a minute to realize he’d fallen. Nothing hurt. He seemed to be in one piece.
Doug stepped over his prone body while waving his winnings around. “Any time you want to do this again, let me know.”
The small crowd dispersed.
Scarlet hovered over him and shook her head. “What is it with you and that girl? She gets within a mile of you and you go from cool to klutz in three seconds flat.”
Trick didn’t have to ask who Scarlet meant. It could only be one person, his own personal jinx. He lifted up on his elbows to scan the general area for the familiar face of Dani Foster.
If he was Clark Kent, she was his kryptonite.
“Uh-oh,” Scarlet said with a groan. “She’s running this way, and she has a sign up sheet in her hands. Good luck, Ape-face.”
Scarlet walked off as he looked across the quad to find Dani.
A concerned expression tightened her facial features as she crossed the grass. He stood and waited for the inevitable conversation to begin. She was a girl, so naturally she’d want to talk about her feelings. No doubt she’d been searching for him all morning in a desperate attempt to discuss last night’s kiss. She probably wanted to start dating now. Maybe she even thought they should be exclusive.
Had she started writing his name on her notebooks yet? All the girls did it, usually before a guy even knew they were alive. They’d write the guy’s name and pair it with theirs, usually with a heart around it. Sometimes they put 4-Ever as if a high school romance could last beyond graduation. Waste of time as far as he was concerned, and it chilled him to the bone to think a girl might be doing it with his name.
Clipboard in hand, Dani asked, “Are you okay?”
“Depends. Where’s my necklace?”
He plunked down on the grass and grabbed his boots. He slipped them on while waiting for her to answer his question. Did she have a hangover from last night? If so, he couldn’t tell by looking at her dewy skin and bright eyes. She hadn’t slept either. How did she manage to look so beautiful?
She said, “I’ll give it back after school today.”
“I might not be home.”
“Then I’ll leave it in your mailbox.”
Voice dripping with sarcasm, he said, “If you’re looking for a souvenir to remember last night, I’ll give you a lock of my hair.”
Her face flushed red. “I don’t want to remember last night, you pigheaded jerk.”
He finished with his boots and stood. Nodding at her clipboard, he asked, “What is it today? Stopping pollution? Saving orphans?”
“Oak tree.”
“Say what?” He must have heard her wrong.
“They want to tear down that beautiful old oak tree in front of the school to make the lawn look bigger for some stupid reason. That tree has been growing in that spot for decades, and it doesn’t deserve to die.” Her eyes grew suspiciously damp, and she blinked them several times. “Sorry. I’m still feeling emotional over Bandit. Guess I should apologize for taking your necklace while I’m at it.”
“Why did you rip it off my neck like that?”
“I was drinking and being stupid,” she said in a tone that let him know she thought he was clueless. “I did it without thinking. Blame it on my dad and Claudia. I heard them talking about you, and Claudia was saying they needed to get their hands on the necklace. Knowing my stepmother, she probably thinks you use it as a security blanket.”
Security blanket? Where had Dr. Baxter gotten a stupid idea like that? He’d only worn it night and day because it was the last thing his real father had given him. No need for finger pointing, and where did she get off talking about him to her husband? Where was the doctor-patient confidentiality?
&nbs
p; It took him a moment to realize he was staring over Dani’s shoulder at nothing. When he returned his gaze to her face, he caught her looking at him with something new in her eyes.
There it was, the sweet and sappy gaze of a girl falling for the wrong guy. He liked her, but not enough to go to the trouble of finding another person to keep safe.
Time to put his power of making girls mad into action. He just hoped Dani was easier to offend than the vampire girl. Distance was what they needed, a lot of distance, and it would be a plus if he could make her hate him enough to never speak to him again.
“Was I the first guy that ever kissed you?” he asked.
“No. Of course not. Don’t be stupid.”
“Are you sure? I’ve kissed a lot of girls and I mean a lot. You weren’t as, how can I put this without hurting your feelings? You didn’t seem to have much practice.”
The color left her face, but she lifted her chin. “I’m sorry if I didn’t measure up to your high standards. It was kind of hard to kiss someone with lips like a cheese grater. Try a moisturizing lip balm before you kiss some other unlucky girl.”
He smiled at the growing pink tinge in her cheeks. “My lips are baby smooth.”
To prove it, he brought her hand to his mouth. It wasn’t the smartest thing he could have done. He should be putting distance between them. If he started to develop real feelings for this girl, he’d have to find a new person. That would be difficult... unless another task oriented, perfectionist with OCD moved in next door to him.
He slid her fingers across his lips before she snatched her hand away. “See?” he asked.
Dani faltered. Her mouth opened and closed several times, obviously searching for a great comeback. It usually took Dani a few minutes to think of something mean to say. Not like Scarlet, who could shoot off one-liners faster than Annie Oakley could shoot a rifle.
He tapped his foot and waited.
After a minute she got a look of triumph on her face. Nodding, she said, “Maybe your face looks like a baby’s butt, but it doesn’t feel like one.”
He grinned. He had a feeling he was going to have to find a new person just so he could argue with his cute neighbor. Talking to her relieved his boredom and stress, not to mention temporarily cooling his anger towards his father. Conversation with her was better than a massage at a fancy resort spa.
His grin widened. “All the other girls think I’m adorable.”
“Then go bother one of them, and leave me alone.”
Dani started to walk away, anger in every stomping step.
“Hey,” he called after her. “Don’t you want me to sign your petition?”
She whipped around, doubt etched on her face. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in saving a tree.”
“Trees give oxygen, and I like to breathe. See? My reasons are purely selfish.”
“Aren’t they always?”
He went to her since she obviously wasn’t going to return to him. Maybe his signature on her petition would redeem him in her eyes just enough so she wouldn’t avoid him entirely. He couldn’t wait for Round Two.
When he reached for the pen, their fingers touched.
An electrical shock shot through his body, and his vision went black. It happened so fast he didn’t have time to panic. When his vision cleared, he was staring out a glass door through Dani’s eyes.
Her thoughts were his thoughts.
♫
Heartbroken, Dani covered sadness with a smile. Even though most girls at school thought they wanted to be her—she’d heard them talking—she didn’t have any real friends, no one she trusted enough to share her inner turmoil with. The girls she counted as her closest buddies, the ones she hung with would stab her in the back and step over her dead body if they could take her place as head cheerleader, debate team captain, or student body vice-president.
Bandit had been her best friend. She had told him everything over the years, her deepest feelings and darkest secrets. Her dog had always been there for her; now she was alone.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she quickly blinked them away. She couldn’t believe her stepmother had forced her to go to school the day after losing her furry best friend. The woman seemed incapable of compassion.
Dani stopped at the end of the school’s main hallway, hand on the glass door. Her reluctance to push it open stemmed from the fact Trick Donovan was in the quad area, surrounded by people as usual. She envied him sometimes. He didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. Nothing bothered him.
When she was younger, she used to daydream about getting him alone. Only she’d been too young to know what she would do with him if she managed the impossible. Like now, Trick was always in a crowd. Her father insisted the neighbor boy was an exhibitionist and just wanted attention.
Her dad was wrong. She was sure of it. After studying Trick for years she’d come to the conclusion he secretly hated the attention. It wasn’t his fault he had the good looks of a model or that the crazy things he enjoyed doing were the kinds of things other people enjoyed gawking at, and it wasn’t his fault he was born with a magnetic chemistry that pulled people closer.
What did it say about her that she was attracted to a guy the principal knew by name for all the wrong reasons? Her stepmother would say she liked Trick because he represented the person she wanted to be.
She brushed fingers over her gloss-covered mouth and thought about yesterday’s kiss. Her only regret was that she’d been intoxicated. For years she’d fantasized about kissing that boy, waited patiently for it, and now that she’d done it, the moment was a mystical blur
The first time she’d seen Trick, he’d been playing basketball in his driveway. She remembered it vividly. He had been wearing black shorts and white sneakers with his dark blue t-shirt on the ground next to a water bottle. Damp with sweat, his brown hair had been plastered to his head. On other guys she would have thought it was gross, but he had looked incredible.
The sight of his tanned upper body had fueled her girlish daydreams, and now she finally knew what it was like to kiss him. Sort of.
Magical. Too bad it couldn’t happen again. If her dad and stepmother even thought she was interested in him, they’d send her to boarding school.
She’d kept her crush a secret for years. No one knew, not a single living, breathing soul. Whenever his name came up in conversation, she wrinkled her nose in distaste at the girl who had mentioned it. “You like him? Seriously?”
If anyone learned the truth, how she watched him from her window when he played basketball with his brother, wrote about him in her journal, and thought about him non-stop, she’d be humiliated. She might even beg her dad to send her to boarding school.
Guys like Trick didn’t date girls like her. He went for girls who were wild like him. Even his best friend Scarlet was constantly in trouble. She got into almost as many fights as he did, and she was usually at his side when he got busted for something. In fact, Dani heard the two of them were in detention at least three days a week every single week. The principal referred to the two front desks in the detention room as Trick and Scarlet’s seats.
Dani moved to the side in case someone wanted to go out. She stood in the corner and watched Trick walking a tightrope. How did he come up with these stunts?
A few years ago, Dani had spray-painted a row of school lockers in the evening after cheerleader practice. She’d planned to take credit for it—along with the detention—all to impress a certain reckless boy. But her conscience had raked her over the coals, making her sick to her stomach for days, and in an ironic turn of events, Trick was blamed for the vandalism.
She’d been too scared to confess.
Instead, she’d vowed to never do anything bad again. Some people just weren’t made for the criminal life.
Her eyes narrowed on Trick.
Why was he walking a tightrope? Was he hoping to join the circus when he didn’t make it into a good college?
Unable to help herse
lf, she stood still and watched him. Her heartbeat quickened, but she promised herself it was only because she admired his balance.
If he had a theme song, it would be Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble.”
The second she saw him through her window all those years ago, faking his brother out and running up to the garage door to dunk the basketball, she’d known he was trouble. Guys that cute always were, weren’t they? More trouble than they were worth.
Determined not to run from what might be an embarrassing confrontation, she pushed the door open and stepped into the bright sunlight. She hugged the clipboard to her chest. Maybe if she hurried, she could get to where she needed to be without him noticing her.
She started to turn and head around the crowd instead of through it.
Trick fell off the rope.
A startled yelp burst past her lips, and she ran to him.
♫
“Are you going to sign it or just stare at it?”
Trick blinked. “Huh?”
Back in his own body, he needed a moment to reconnect to his own thoughts and emotions.
Dani, obviously unaware of the trip he’d taken into her recent past, yanked the pen and clipboard from his numb fingers. Without waiting for an explanation she headed back inside.
He stared after her in shock.
Had it been real, or was he losing his mind?
With regret he watched her walk away. On the outside she looked fine, but she was a total mess inside. The loss of her dog had hit her harder than he’d imagined. He wouldn’t have been mean to her if he’d known how much she was hurting. She was so sad; he followed her into the school.
A couple kids he barely knew tried to get him to stop. They wanted to talk, but he was determined to find Dani. She’d disappeared into the crowd. Some of the students congratulated him on his successful tightrope walk, and a few encouraged him to try the backward thing again.
He ignored them.
