by C. L. Stone
I was tempted to sneak up on him and take it, like he’d taken a few things from me, but I was too lazy to get up fully yet.
I wasn’t too surprised he was there, but why sleep on the floor? I nudged him with a foot.
He smacked his lips, rolled over, and looked at me with half-opened eyes. “Mmmm.”
I made room for him, scooting to the far edge of the cot against the wall.
A smile broke out on his lips. He got up on his hands and knees slowly. He eased himself into the sleeping bag beside me. The metal of the cot creaked a little as he settled in.
“Morning,” he whispered, his dark eyes blinking rapidly.
“Good morning,” I said softly. My throat was dry, so my voice was raspy. “You didn’t have to sleep on the floor.”
“I didn’t want to wake you. North said you had a hard time falling asleep.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about what to do.” I did feel a little better after sleeping. Before, I was waiting for explosions. Now I was just ready to get out of the house and figure out ways to stay away from it for as long as possible. Having some sort of plan in place would ease my dour thoughts...at least, so I hoped.
He smiled and slowly stroked my forearm with his palm, warming the skin. His voice was a little croaky at first and then got better. “This will be easier than you think. Just get on Carol’s good side and stay there. She knows a bit about us, but she seems sympathetic to you. That’s good, right? Do what she says for a bit. Make it seem like you’d be a good choice for a private school. We’ve got the rest. We’ll feed her brochures for fake private schools.”
He made it sound so simple. Like all I had to do was pretend and I’d be out. “Will she want me to go?”
“She won’t pass up free tuition. If she’s concerned at all about money, in her mind, you’ll have room and board completely paid for two years until you graduate and go to college. Victor was thinking about doing the same thing.”
I sat up on my elbows to check in with him. “What? Why?”
His brown eyes focused on me, unwavering. “Victor wants to get out from under his dad. Getting into a private school full-time is probably the way to go. He’d be able to stay away for weeks. It’s the same as you, getting them to sign off on a school. You’ll be out of here before you know it.”
The news was surprising. Victor’s situation I understood. I knew his father. He was pretty harsh. What about his mother? What would she think?
Here I was complaining about being inconvenienced, disappointed about having to wait in an uncomfortable situation. How did Victor feel when he had to be home, or at a concert, something he might not want to be at? He did it for a reason. In the future, there was a promise he’d be how he wanted. He was patient enough to wait for it.
I’d felt like I was the only one, but I was with the people who understood what I was going through better than anyone.
I still wanted out. I wanted what some of them wanted for themselves. Still, if they were going to be patient, I needed to be, too. Besides, where would we go? We couldn’t all just live with Nathan in his house forever.
Perhaps I was too hopeful to get out of here so soon. It was only half the problem. I sighed heavily, staring at Luke’s chest rather than looking at him.
Luke continued to rub my arm. “Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” he said. He reached for my jawline and eased my face up until I was looking at him. “Tell me.”
His dark eyes warmed, silently urging me to tell him the truth. I breathed in, still smelling the musk of North lingering in the air, and then Luke was there, asking me to tell him things. His scent, vanilla and sugar, mixed with the others in the room. It brought comfort to me.
“There’s a lot to do,” I whispered. I swallowed, sighed and rolled onto my back. “And it isn’t just Carol. What happens even if I get out of here? I heard the fight you guys had. Back at Victor’s yesterday.”
“I was wondering if you did. Some of them were yelling loud enough.” He let go of me, creating a minuscule amount of space between us. He propped his head up with his arm and gazed at me. “Don’t let them worry you, though.”
“Kota’s really upset,” I said.
“After you fainted, you scared the crap out of him. We were all pretty on edge after that. Don’t take it seriously. We’d fight over gum.”
I cracked a small grin at his attempt at a joke but quickly lost it just thinking of what they’d been yelling about again. “I mean about everything else. The plan. The mess...”
“You’re not a mess, Sang.” He shifted his head closer, his nose near mine. “Kota was always going to be the one to convince. You get him to believe in this, then we’ll all follow. We knew this.”
I couldn’t stop hearing Kota’s voice, sounding so doubtful about what North and the others had wanted to try: us together in a relationship, whatever that meant. Kota’s lack of faith in it left me wondering again if this was at all something I could dare to ask any of them. “It was all wrong. He found out because...I was kissing Gabriel. He saw us.”
His lips twitched at the corners. “I know.”
“It didn’t happen right. He shouldn’t have been surprised like that. I should have told him.”
He reached out to cup my cheek into his palm. His thumb traced my lower lip. “It was bad timing, but would there ever have been good timing?”
“It could have gone better.”
“It is what it is now.” He smiled and then leaned in and kissed my nose, slowly, and remained close by so his warm breath fell on my face. “You can’t change what happened, so let’s look at this now. He’s learned about it. He’s still here. That’s good. If he didn’t want this at all, he’d have said so.”
The conversation echoed in my head. The stress...he couldn’t stop seeing me kissing the others. It hurt him. I thought for sure he’d never be able to look at me again.
Only when we were in the car, and the concern he carried then, staring right at me at times.
Then there was the look he gave me when I was about to go inside the house, when it looked like he was coming after me, and he was so worried that it made me pause.
The things he said to me on the phone... I didn’t know what it all meant. He was hurt, but every time he talked to me or was around me, I remembered seeing that desperation.
The same desperate feelings I had, that I needed to know he still cared about me.
I groaned. “I feel like I really let him down and hurt him, and I keep seeing his face and how disappointed he was.”
Luke leaned in close enough he could have nuzzled my nose. He sighed heavily, his warm breath falling against my lips. He then drew his head back so he could look at my eyes. “Sang, I know him. I’m sure he was upset. However, he’s...not said no. We just surprised him. That’s all.”
“He didn’t seem to want to.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he said. “I heard him trying to want to and not being able to wrap his head around it. We all did that.”
I pressed my lips together firmly, as if doing so would eliminate the growing knots in my stomach and heart. “I can’t imagine why he would try. I feel like I treated him badly for not saying anything.”
“We’re all at fault for it, but he’ll know why once he’s had a chance to think it over. There was no easy way to tell any one of us. We only found out because we went to see Lily and her team, remember? Before then, what did you think was going to happen?”
I shook my head, my lips moving for a moment as I thought of everything I’d feared, remembering something I had forgotten. “I...was afraid to disappoint you all. I was afraid to hurt everyone by telling someone how I really felt... I just assumed I couldn’t choose among you because it hurt too much to choose just one.”
He moved a hand over to his chest, pressing. “Before I found out, I would have been upset if I saw you kissing Gabriel. But it was only because I’d have worried you did
n’t like me.”
“I like you,” I said quickly and then my voice cracked at the end as it wasn’t the full truth of what I felt. It was just my immediate reaction to what he was saying.
He chuckled and then leaned in, touching his forehead to mine. “Kota got a shock, but I bet it was because of the same thing. The reason the rest of us weren’t really forward about a relationship with you was because we all assumed Kota had first dibs.” He coughed out another giggle and then quieted. “Sorry, that sounded weird.”
“But what does it mean?”
“He saw you first, and the rest of us weren’t going to make a move when it was clear he liked you and we all thought you just liked him. Or at least I could tell. But then you seemed to like me, too. So I was confused for a while. I didn’t want to hurt Kota by getting you to date me. That, and when we told each other not to pressure you when you were going through a bunch of stuff.”
For months, we’d all tiptoed around each other, not saying what we were thinking. I had known I was doing it, but I didn’t realize they were, too. “Kota seemed to sometimes want to...and then would back off sometimes.”
“We all did, for so many reasons. But Kota’s going to come around. He was the heart of our group for the longest time. He was the one that pulled us all together.” He paused and then his eyes narrowed. “It’ll change, soon, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re all in this for you now. It used to be him, but now it’s you.”
I backed my head up a bit. We were still close, nose to nose, and it almost hurt to look at his face. “I don’t understand. The heart?”
“We weren’t always close,” he said, a soft smile on his face. “North and I used to fight all the time. The doc and Mr. Blackbourne... Victor and Gabriel...we all kind of butt heads every now and again. Kota sets us straight. If we’re too mad at the others to keep it together, we focus on him. He just has this way of drawing us back in and making everything right.”
I pictured when Gabriel was upset with Victor for buying me too many things. I thought of North and Luke sometimes fighting, or North and Silas... there were other instances, too. I’d often wondered how they managed to stick together when they were so different. Was Kota responsible for all of it? “I didn’t know.”
He smiled softly and then leaned in, kissing me lightly on the lips. “You’re the heart now, Sang. You talked to Victor and Gabriel that last time, and they calmed down. You calm North down when he yells at me. You’re just like Kota. Give him time to sort it out for himself. He’ll see. Once he’s on your side, once he believes in all this, it’ll be different. And I think he will. He’s just like you.”
I stared at the black soundproof material along the walls and ceiling. The air coming through the roof above us had a bite of winter to it. I breathed it in, allowing it to fill my lungs. I wanted to believe Kota would go back to before I fainted, before he learned about Gabriel and me. I couldn’t take it back, but would he ever be the same?
Luke put a hand on my hip and smiled at me dreamily. “Unless you just want to run away with me to Australia.”
The idea of just getting out from under Carol and going far away enough it wouldn’t matter was a tempting one. Totally ridiculous, but for the moment, I was willing to play pretend just to pull myself out of the dark mood. “I’d need a passport, right?”
“Not if we take a boat,” he said.
Was that how it worked? But maybe I was thinking too seriously. I remembered a time we’d envisioned the diner together. We had elaborate plans. The diner had ended up different than what I’d pictured, but it hadn’t mattered. What we pictured didn’t have to come true. It was just fun to think about. “Do you know how to sail?”
“I could get Silas to teach me,” he said. “Or we could get a big yacht. Maybe Victor will buy us one.”
I giggled, shaking my head. “Why Australia?”
He chuckled and leaned in, his nose touching the tip of mine. “It’s summer over there. We could go to the beach.” He put an arm around me, his palm at the small of my back and tugging me close.
I blinked when he was too close to look at directly. “I’ll have to remember my bathing suit.”
“We’ll take anything you want. Unless we need two boats for it.”
“We need a bigger boat,” I said. “For all of us.”
He backed his head away, his face lighting up. “Let’s bring a chef. Someone to make us pancakes.”
“We’ll need chocolate chips.”
“And your mocha coffee.”
I beamed. “And all the candy and cakes.”
He grinned. “Hmmm, now I’m hungry.” He opened his mouth wide, and then lightly bit me on the nose. “Gnar, gnarh.”
I giggled, covering my mouth with my fingers just to smother the sound a bit out of reflex.
At the same moment, he redirected his bite to my hand, just over my mouth.
I stilled, a laugh erupting from my throat and I tried to squash it, and I squeaked.
He laughed softly and then reached up, removing my hand. “I thought we were past this part.”
My cheeks heated as he leaned in to kiss me.
It started with a slight press of his teeth against my lips in a pretend bite, but he quickly changed, puckering more, pressing his mouth to mine.
He drew my hand to his chest. His shirt was partially open, and he redirected my touch to his skin.
I froze, feeling his smooth chest, too intimidated to move. I wanted to, like how I’d seen girls in movies touching a guy she was with on the chest.
He deepened the kiss, and rolled to hover over me. His hand returned to my hip, and then slid up until his palm was touching bare skin at my waist.
His palm shifted to the small of my back, pulling me in.
My heart went wild. I nervously grasped at his chest.
My fingernails scraped gently at his skin.
I sucked in a sharp breath and released him quickly. I hadn’t meant to scratch him. My nails were a little longer after camp than I was used to, and I hadn’t gotten to trimming them.
He mumbled something against my lips, released my back long enough to hold my hand back up against his chest, keeping my hand pressed over his heart.
His heartbeat was as fast as mine.
He backed up a bit, opening his eyes slowly. His breath was warm at my face. “I’m supposed to get you to get up to leave, but I don’t want to. I want to stay here with you.”
“We don’t want to stay...” I whispered, holding my breath after.
He drew his lips in tight against his teeth and frowned. “You’re right. Not here.”
I sighed and tucked my head into his chest. “One day, I’ll be out of here. We won’t have to hide like this.”
He pressed his cheek against the top of my head. “One day, for good. Soon. I’ll make you pancakes every morning. I don’t even make good pancakes, but I’d do it...or get North to do it. He makes better ones.”
I let myself giggle, grateful for the happier mood. Luke seemed to know just what to say to make me forget my stress for a moment, and sometimes I needed it. “He’d make us eat veggies for breakfast. We’ll have to make it.”
“The best food is always the food someone else made.”
“I can make some.”
He chuckled. “You make good food. I really want grilled cheese apple sammies again.”
“What’s the plan now? What do I do today?”
He hugged me close. “You need to leave here without eating breakfast,” he said and then he started to release me. “Oh man, I’m stupid. Here I was talking pancakes.”
“I can wait to eat,” I said.
He grinned. “You can have some after. Dr. Green wants to run some tests.”
“Are we going to the downtown hospital?”
“He can do most of it at Nathan’s, I think.” He kept his palm against my cheek. “Hopefully you won’t have to go anywhere. Just don’t faint again,
okay?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” I breathed in through my nose and let it out slowly, looking at his dark eyes. “I guess now is as good a time as any—before she makes breakfast and expects me to sit at the table to eat it.”
“Sure,” he said with a smile. “I may have to stay a while if you wake Jimmy up on your way out, so just make sure you head straight to Nathan’s the moment you’re out the door. If Carol insists on someone going with you, or taking you herself, head to the diner, and just start working the counter until they go away. We’ll try to avoid Carol as much as we can. We still don’t know how much she might know about us individually.”
All the sneaking around pushed a heavy weight onto my heart. I used to be so paranoid about my stepmother. This time, it felt more dangerous. Carol was way more attentive, and Jimmy was nosy. Sneaking around might not be as easy as before.
Dolled
I gathered up a set of clothes out of the wardrobe without looking at them, and a pair of sneakers. I knocked lightly before opening the attic door.
Jimmy had hung up a clothing line across a small part of the far side of the room, and a makeshift curtain made out of bedsheets had been set up.
Was that his idea? I appreciated that he thought I needed privacy and was making an effort. Or was it so he had privacy? Maybe I’d been around the Academy guys, who shared everything with me, for too long.
Would it make it easier for Luke to leave? Or for the others to come in as needed? I thought it would make it harder, because I couldn’t just look out and see if he was asleep.
Would it make it hard for the cameras to catch something important?
I wondered if Jimmy assumed I’d eventually want to come out of the attic if I knew there was a way to divide the room.
I groaned internally at the idea.
I didn’t want to be here long enough to get that comfortable sharing a space.
I got dressed in the bathroom, putting on a gray wool skirt made of material that felt like a sweater and a thin long-sleeved white shirt. It was dressier than I’d anticipated, but I didn’t want to risk waking Jimmy up.
