by Eliza Nolan
Dad raised his eyebrows, and stood up straighter. "Is he one of your new friends at school?"
That I could answer. "Yes."
"What time are you thinking about going?"
"We were going to meet at five. I'd like to leave it open in case we decide to meet up with Clara and Nate later. Can I stay out till ten?"
"Make it nine," he said.
I counted it as a win, and went to my room to call Graham.
"Julia," he answered.
I smiled at the sound of his voice. "We're on for tomorrow. I'll see you at five."
"And you'll tell me all about the adventures you had today, right?"
"I'll give you all the gory details."
"I can't wait," he said.
I couldn't, either.
Chapter Nine
The sun was setting as I made my way down the block towards the coffee shop. The street was nearly empty. A lone man held a phone to his ear, and leaned against his too shiny, red car. He nodded to me as I passed. I smiled back meekly.
I pushed open the coffee shop door and stopped at the noise and crowd. The place was packed, people all crammed into the small room. I grabbed a coffee then scanned the crowd and found Graham sitting at a small, wooden table for two. Thank God, he'd scored us a seat.
Seeing him brought back our misunderstanding at school on Friday. The hurt from him ignoring me, the shame of how I'd freaked out on him at lunch. So embarrassing.
When he noticed me, he smiled cautiously and came over to meet me.
"Hi," he said.
We stood by the counter for a moment. Were we at the hugging stage yet? I wasn't sure, and obviously neither was he. Finally he thrust out his hand and grabbed mine, shaking it gently.
I blushed at the awkwardness.
He led the way to the table and we sat down.
"Now, I owe you an apology," he said.
I looked at my hands splayed on the table. "I was the one who stood you up yesterday. I'm so sorry about that."
"It doesn't make what I did on Friday okay." He reached across the table, put his hand on mine, and looked at me through his heavy lashes. "Sorry I messed up our plans." The simple touch sent waves of warmth shooting up my arm.
"It's not a big deal," I said, unable to look him in the eye. "I know you had that project to do with Libby. Besides, Clara said you thought I ran out on you the other night. I guess I would've thought the same thing."
He pulled my hand across the table towards him, leading me to look up at him. "If I hadn't had that stupid project with Libby, I would've dropped everything to hang out with you." A small frown pinched his forehead and his eyes pleaded for forgiveness.
I glanced away. Words, I needed words. "Fine." I gulped. "Apology accepted."
"Thank you." He sat back in his chair a little. "So, what's the story behind you standing me up last night?" He smirked.
My stomach tightened. Now that I was here with him, I didn't want to tell Graham about yesterday. The way Samantha treated me had left me feeling raw.
"It's okay. We can talk about something else," he said when I took a moment too long to respond.
I looked up at him. Maybe I could show him the way. If he saw me opening up now, confiding in him, perhaps he'd be more willing to talk about Charleston. I leaned forward. "No, it's okay."
I scooted my chair closer and started from the beginning, telling him about Samantha and what happened yesterday. How I ended up forcing her to go home to her parents' house.
"It takes a strong person to do something like that," he said when I finished. "A lot of people would've just left her there in the parking lot." His hand still held mine and his thumb now brushed it gently, sending tingles all up my arm. Only this time they weren't those odd prickly ones, they were definitely the hot-boy kind. A dopey grin took over my face.
He squeezed my hand. His voice deepened. "Just promise me you'll never give large amounts of cash to strange men ever again."
I snickered, but he didn't smile. So, he wasn't joking? He was actually trying to tell me what to do. I pulled my hand out of his and looked him square in the eye. "I did what I had to do to take care of a friend. I'd do it again in a second."
"You don't know what sort of guy this Thomas was. Besides, what if someone else saw you with all that cash and mugged you?"
I hadn't thought of that, but I still didn't see a way around helping Samantha.
He reached out and took my hand again. "The next time you're faced with something like that, could you at least call me? I would've felt better if I were there with you."
So he wanted to be my protector. The independent side of me screamed no way do I need any sort of bodyguard, but another part of me buzzed. That part of me warmed at the thought. And, admittedly, I would've been safer, if I'd had another person there who had my back.
But promise him? Um, no. I chewed my lip. Unless… "I'll make a deal with you," I said. "I'll call you the next time I find myself in a questionable situation, if you tell me about Charleston." It felt low, knowing how private he was about his past, but after the whole psychic dream thing with Clara, I needed to know more.
His forehead creased and he froze.
Crap. "I'm sorry," I said, slinking back in my chair.
"No, no, it's fine." He still looked uneasy. "I think it's time for me to talk about what happened. I'd like to try."
He looked down at the floor as if deciding where to begin. For once, it seemed that he couldn't look me in the eyes.
"I told you about private school and my friends, and being ignored because we weren't 'Bluebloods,' Charleston royalty. We had a good time, though. We went to the beach on the weekends, I managed to get good grades, and we stayed mostly out of trouble." Graham shifted in his seat. "It wasn't until last year when we met Jack that things changed."
"Jack?" I asked.
"A kid from Philadelphia. He came to Charleston to live with his father after his mother died. Jack's father's a Blueblood, but Jack was never considered one of them because he was the product of an extramarital affair. So when he came to our school, he hung out with the rest of us Yankees."
Graham ran a hand along the back of his neck, then continued. "His dad was paying us to clean out the attic of their old family home when we found… the… book…" Graham said the last word so quietly I barely heard him. He stopped talking and went a little pale, his eyes scanning the coffee shop.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Can we go somewhere less crowded?"
A shiver of fear spread up my neck at Graham's unease. What had he been into in Charleston that made him so nervous he was afraid to talk up here in Minneapolis? I still wanted to know as much as he would tell me. In a way, I was involved, too, in whatever went on; my dreams needed answers.
"There's a Greek restaurant around the corner that never seems to have any customers," I offered. "I'm guessing their food is questionable, but we could go there for dinner."
"I love questionable Greek food." Graham smirked.
We got up. He helped me with my jacket, then went to the door and held it open for me. I internally high-fived myself. Not only was I hanging out with a guy who was extremely gorgeous, he was well-mannered, too. I smiled as I went out ahead of him, leading the way.
Restaurant Athena, as I'd promised, was empty aside from the waiter and cook. Both leaned against the bar, chatting. The waiter sat us at a booth near the front and gave us menus. "Would you like anything to drink?"
"Water, please," I said.
"Coke, please," Graham said.
The waiter left to get our drinks and I looked expectantly at Graham.
He sighed, leaned in, and continued his story right where he'd left off. "So, as I was saying, Jack and I found this book in his dad's attic. It was old and leather-bound with a picture of a phoenix on the front. No title."
"Wait," I interrupted, "like the phoenix tattoo on your arm?"
"Yeah," he said, subconsciously rubbing the sleeve that cove
red it. "The bird on my arm is the one on the book. Jack and the others all have the same tattoo.
"The inside pages were all handwritten, but in such neat writing, it was like the cursive on the Declaration of Independence or something. It had to be old. No one can write that nice anymore.
"It was filled with all these rituals and…" He stopped at the sound of chinking glasses. The waiter approached and served our drinks.
Tucking the tray under his arm, he said, "Are you ready to order?"
I hadn't even opened my menu, but I always got a salad at Greek restaurants. "I'm ready. Do you need time?"
"I'll be ready by the time you're done ordering," Graham replied.
I ordered my salad and he must've just picked the first thing he saw. "I'll have a falafel sandwich." We handed our menus to the waiter and he left.
Graham sat silent and thoughtful.
"You were telling me that there were rituals in the book." I thought about my weird dreams with creepy, hooded men. The one with Graham in particular. They were just dreams, weren't they? "What sort of rituals?"
Graham ran his hand through his hair. "I can't tell you. I shouldn't have told you about the book at all."
No! Finally, I'd gotten him to open up, to tell me something, anything that might make sense of my dreams. And now he was going to clam up again? No, I wanted more. The worry in his eyes told me not to push, though, so I waited quietly, watching him.
He eventually began again. "Have you heard of secret societies?"
"Like the Masons? Old guys that hang out in lodges with other old guys?" My knowledge of Masons wasn't complex.
"Sort of, but the Masons are more out in the open. You can openly be a Mason. This is different. I'm talking about a group of people who don't even acknowledge they're part of a group to the outside world."
"How would I know about them if people deny they exist?" I asked.
"Rumors get out. They make movies about them, like the Skull and Bones."
"Wasn't that a movie about a secret group of guys who went to Harvard?" A secret group of college guys was way hotter than my image of the Masons.
"Yale, actually. The Skull and Bones are real. Their members are sworn to secrecy." Graham looked up as the waiter came over and set our food down in front of us.
"Thank you." Graham watched the waiter walk away. "I shouldn't tell you any more. I don't want to get you in trouble, Julia. It's best if you just aren't involved."
"But we're in Minneapolis," I argued. "What could possibly get me into trouble here, so far away from Charleston?" I wanted to know the answer to this question more than he knew.
His brow creased. "There were certain rules about what would happen if anyone outside our group were to find out, and consequences too terrifying to think about if someone tried to leave. I'd like to think they'll leave me alone now that I'm so many states away, but you should know it's possible they'll come after me."
"Up here?"
He set his fork down. "If they came up here, I wouldn't let them hurt you, Julia," he said. "But I'm sure it would never come to that. I mean, they're just a handful of high school boys, right?" He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than me.
If it was just his friends, it shouldn't be a big deal. Why was he worried they would come up here? From what I knew of high school boys, they were lucky if they could make it to their next class.
"How is everything?"
I jumped at the waiter's voice beside me.
"Great," I said, even though I'd hardly touched my salad.
Graham nodded and the waiter left again.
"This isn't the way I imagined things going tonight," Graham said. "I was hoping to spend the evening making you smile. I didn't want to scare you." He took my hand in his. "I'm sorry. This has to be one of the saddest dates you've ever been on."
I couldn't help but smile. I hadn't even thought of it as a date until he said it was. I'd never been out on a real date before, unless kissing a guy at a party counted.
We put the serious talk on hold and he spent the rest of dinner making me laugh. When we finished, he paid the tab.
"Can I drive you home?" he asked.
"Sure."
I zipped my coat up against the cool night air and we headed for the car. Graham slipped his hand into mine as we walked. The awkwardness of the earlier handshake was gone, replaced by a strong, sure hand that fit perfectly with mine.
He guided me to the passenger side and opened the door for me. His chivalry was becoming less patronizing, and more a sweet gesture. Inside the car, he leaned towards me and said, "You're pretty amazing, Julia." He brushed my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear, sending shivers through me.
Holding my face in his hands, he looked at me with his crystal blue eyes. I drank in his presence. He was so close I thought he would kiss me. But before he could close the gap, his eyes caught something behind me and he pulled back. Without saying anything he turned the car on and threw it into gear.
I turned around to see what had made Graham pull away so quickly. The man across the street, the same one who'd been leaning on his shiny, red car and talking on his phone when I arrived several hours ago was still there, only now he was staring straight at us as he struggled to open his car door. The guy watched after us as we sped away.
"Do you know him?" I asked as Graham turned a corner so fast my body pressed against the door and my stomach almost flew out of my throat.
"Only because he was there when we walked to the restaurant."
"He was there when I got to the coffee shop, too." I waited for Graham's reaction and hoped for an explanation.
Graham's expression didn't change, but the car's speed increased. I tugged on my seatbelt to make sure it would hold tight. He drove several miles out of the way down backstreets at twice the posted speed limit before finally relaxing a little and easing off the gas.
"Who do you think he was?" I asked once we were going a normal speed again.
"I'm not sure."
"But you think he was there because of you? You think he has something to do with your friends in Charleston, right?"
"Julia. I don't think we should talk about this anymore. I wish…I hadn't told you about all this."
"Graham." I sighed, exasperated. "I'm done with all these secrets."
He shook his head, but kept his eyes on the road. "All what secrets?"
"Clara asked me not to tell you something, but I can't keep this from you, and you have to stop keeping things from me." Maybe I'd lost it, but I didn't care anymore. I needed to know what the heck was going on.
"What did Clara ask you not to say?" He glanced over.
"I had a dream that Clara was taken by these guys. And when I told her about the dream, she told me it wasn't just a dream, it had actually happened."
"Hang on. You dreamt about her abduction?"
"Yes. But that's not all. I've been having nightmares about these hooded figures, the ones who kidnapped Clara. In my dreams they perform rituals and now you're telling me that you and your friends found a book filled with rituals. Graham, I don't believe in clairvoyance or whatever, I don't. But all my dreams seem to be related and they all seem to have something to do with you and Clara. I need to know what's going on. I need to know what happened in Charleston."
Graham pulled the car over, even though we were still a few blocks from my house, shifted into park, and turned to me. "Clara knew you were dreaming about all this, and she didn't want you to tell me?"
I bit my lower lip. "She only knows about one she was in. It really scared her, so I didn't tell her more."
As we sat on the side of the road, I told him about the dreams in the clearing with the stone altar and the man who cut into the boys' chests.
"Wait. You dreamt about the ceremony happening to different people?" He asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"This makes no sense. How are you even dreaming about stuff that happened to us? I mean, maybe Clara told
you about it, and then you dreamed it." His eyes searched the distance as if his mind was racing to put together what I was telling him. "Oh," he said. "Clara never saw the Phoenix Circle clearing."
"The what?"
"The Phoenixes, that's our group. The clearing with the fire pit and the altar you saw in your dream was the Phoenix Circle. We used it for the rites. We were there the night Clara was taken."
"So, it's true?" I asked. "The dreams I've been having are images out of your past?"
His face said it all - shock mixed with bucket loads of confusion at my revelation. His eyes searched the distance as if he was trying to puzzle together what was going on. He let out a frustrated sigh.
"The ritual sounds like my initiation ceremony. I don't have a clue why you'd be dreaming about it, but I'll do some digging. Maybe I can find out." He reached for my hand and wove his fingers between mine, and glanced at the clock. "For now, let's get you home."
He shifted into drive, pulled the car back onto the road, and drove the rest of the way to my house.
When we got there, Graham opened my door for me, and helped me out.
He put his hands on my cheeks, framing my face with his gentle yet firm touch. He leaned in and kissed my forehead. His smooth, full lips lingered a bit before pulling away.
I looked up into his eyes and frowned as instant change swept across Graham's face. His skin grew pale and his body tensed. I stepped back as he grimaced and bent over, grabbing his head.
"Graham?" I panicked.
"Give me a second," he whispered. He crouched down on the ground breathing hard and fast.
I squatted next to him and put my hand lightly on his back.
He took in a deep slow breath, then another, still clutching his head in his hands. "Graham." My voice shook with fear. I looked back at the house. Dad would help us, but I didn't want to leave Graham out here to get him. Should I call 911? "I'm scared, Graham."
"It's a migraine," he finally managed.
I relaxed a little. Thank goodness. A migraine wasn't good, but at least he knew what it was and would survive.
