She squeezed me back and for the first time in forever, I felt like I was hugging a true friend. One that didn’t need me, one that didn’t want to use me...one that just wanted to hang out with me exactly as I was.
34
Micah followed me home. I introduced him to Julia and Seth who eyed him with surprise, obviously both jolted by his towering persona. As I watched Indie shuffle into the room, I guessed I understood their feelings. They were a contrast in so many ways, but when he spun to face her and her eyes lit with that smile, it felt so right. He gathered her in his arms, whispering something soft and delicate in her ear. I turned away, wanting to give them some privacy. Julia kept gazing at them with a mushy look on her face. I couldn’t help a grin.
“You guys can go hang out in my room if you want or there’s the back deck.” I pointed down the hallway. It was hardly as nice as our large front deck, but it was private.
Micah nodded his thanks and walked Indie down the hall.
I turned back to Julia and chuckled at her.
“What?” She gently slapped my arm. “They are just all kinds of cute together.”
“I know.” I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. “I heard them talking yesterday. They’re one of those love at first sight couples.” I unscrewed the cap and took a swig of liquid before leaning against the bench. “So they have been pining for each other for months. Now they finally get to be together.” I couldn’t help a wistful sigh, wishing the same for me. A hard knot formed in my belly and I tried to get rid of it with a few gulps of water.
It didn’t work.
Julia finished slicing up some apple for her girls, arranging it neatly on a plate and letting Seth steal a slice before walking it down to the sunken lounge. She came back, munching her own slice, before leaning against the counter and smiling at me.
“How about you, Caity? Any man in the picture?”
It took every ounce of willpower not to dissolve into a blubbering mess. My lips pinched tight and I forced a complacent smile. “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “He’s pretty annoyed at me for getting into trouble yesterday and I’m...I’m not sure where we stand. He said he was going to call me, but...” I pulled out my phone. The screen was still blank. I slid my thumb over it, like I had a hundred times that day, just to check. But my message box was empty. Empty and ominous.
“Well, you should call him.” Julia moved to the counter and started packing away apple remains.
“I’m scared if I do, it’ll be the excuse he’s been waiting for to break up with me.”
“It’s been less than twenty-four hours, would you relax?” Seth glanced up from his computer screen and received a solid glare from his wife. “What?”
“How did you ever manage to woo me?” She rolled her eyes.
He just grinned and winked, which set her cheeks blooming. I looked away with a scowl.
“It’s not that Chase loser, is it?” Seth took a swig from his beer.
“No, we broke up.” I scratched my forehead.
Man, that felt like a millennia ago. Thank God I didn’t have to deal with him anymore.
“So, who’s the new guy?” Julia rinsed out the dishcloth and wiped it over the chopping board.
I was starting to feel super uncomfortable having the conversation, especially with Seth sitting right there, but I shrugged and stupidly kept talking. “His name’s Eric. He’s a freshman at UCLA.”
“Wait. Eric from next door?” Seth’s brow furrowed as he placed his beer back on the counter. His blue eyes bore into mine. I swallowed. My brother’s eyes narrowed. “So when his car was in our drive last weekend, he was actually here, wasn’t he?”
Oh shit! Crap! Um...
“You know what.” I cleared my throat. “I think Julia’s right. I should go and find him. Talk this out.” I looked to Julia, panic no doubt cresting over my features.
Her lips pressed together as she fought a giggle.
“Caitlyn.”
I ignored Seth’s firm tone as I yanked the keys from my pocket and made a beeline for the front door. I wasn’t sure if I’d lose my nerve while driving to the UCLA campus, but it didn’t matter. Anywhere but home with Seth was preferable in that moment.
Julia’s laughter finally broke free as I reached the front door. “Chill out, Seth. She’s not twelve. You remember what we were like when we first got together.”
“That’s what worries me.”
Julia giggled again. “Honey, she’s not your daughter, so you don’t have to worry. In fact Kimber’s only eight, so you don’t have to worry about this kind of thing for a least another eight or nine years.”
“Or twenty,” Seth mumbled.
I grinned as I shut the door behind me.
When I spun around my smile disappeared. It was replaced with an open mouthed ‘oh’ that I couldn’t seem to get rid of. It stayed in place until Eric reached the bottom of our front steps.
“Hey.” He didn’t smile, doing nothing to ease my tattered nerves.
“Hi.” I stood frozen on the landing.
He shoved one hand into his jean pocket while running the other through his dark locks. “We need to talk.”
“Okay.” I swallowed.
“Walk with me?” He held out his hand and I nervously took it. His grip was a little warmer and tighter than the day before, which was encouraging, but not enough to still my erratic heartbeat. Maybe it was the calm before the storm.
We walked the streets in silence, Eric keeping his gaze high and steady. I wanted to read him so bad and was tempted when I gazed up at his still expression. I started to peel off his mask a couple of times before catching myself. My willpower was crumbling by the second and I was about to give in when he started talking.
“The thing is, Caity. I um...” He stopped in the middle of the street, scratching his bottom lip. I stood beside him, anxiety making my head pound. Eventually he sighed and locked his gaze with mine. “I’ve been let down a lot by people I care about. I find it really hard to trust, you know?” He pursed his lips, struggling over the confession. “Dad walked out on me and Mom when I was five. He stuck around, sort of. Following up one broken promise after another...and then he just disappeared altogether. Stopped calling. Stopped trying.” Eric sighed. “Then my stepdad came along and he was great. I really liked him, but Mom drove him nuts to the point where he couldn’t cope anymore.” He let out a disgusted snort. “After that it was a string of Mom’s boyfriends, always trying so hard to be nice to me and the girls in an attempt to please my mom. As soon they got what they wanted from her, they’d vanish.” His grin was hard and cynical, but eventually started to soften.
I wanted to reach for him, hold him, but was scared my touch would pull him out of his confession like trance. I held my ground, waiting.
“The only person who’s been true to their word is Gramps...and you.”
He touched my cheek, his expression finally the soft one reserved only for a select few.
“Me?” I frowned in confusion. “But I...I totally let you down.”
“No, you didn’t, Caity.” His thumb caressed my cheekbone. “You called me, just like I asked you to. And if you hadn’t, I never would have searched for Indie’s house and I never would have seen you running for your life along the beach. I couldn’t have been there for you if you hadn’t called.”
I glanced away from his sweet expression, feeling slightly undeserving of it. “I shouldn’t have hung up on you.”
He snickered. “Yeah, nearly broke my phone over that one.” He cleared his throat. “But I understand why you did. I’m sorry I was so pissed yesterday. I was just scared.” His voice nearly broke as he was talking, making me want to cry all over again. The fact that his anger was manifested by a fear of losing me was an overwhelming relief. I drew in a shaky breath as Eric brought his other hand up to rest against my cheek, gently forcing me to look at him.
His smile was sad. “You’ve got this super power and I’m the only one
that knows, right?”
I nodded. “You and Micah. Oh, and I guess your friend from college.”
He sighed. “So only a trusted few.”
I nodded again.
“Well maybe you could just try not using it then.”
Huh, that was a change. Hadn’t he been the one telling me not to deny the world my gift? Yesterday really spooked him big time.
I wanted to nod fervently. I wanted to please him.
But I couldn’t.
My forehead creased as I tried to form the right words. “It’s not like I want this ability, Eric. I mean, you’ve helped me learn to control it, but...” I pressed my lips together. “I never expected to see the Indie and Liam thing. I wasn’t searching for it at all, but I saw it and I’ll probably see other stuff in the future too. How can I turn away? I can’t... If someone’s hurting, I can’t just turn my back on that, especially if I think I can help.” My forehead was a wrinkled mess as I begged him to accept what I’d said.
His smile finally softened one degree more as his eyes gleamed with tenderness. He shook his head with a soft snicker. “That homeless guy was right. You’re a good soul, Caity. And damn it, that just makes me love you more.”
My heart jolted, my lips parting in surprise. “You love me?”
“Little bit.” His nose wrinkled.
I couldn’t help a smile. It blossomed on my face like a spring flower opening up to the sunlight. Gripping his wrists, I whispered, “So you didn’t come over to break up with me then...even though we’re not officially boyfriend and girlfriend yet?” I blushed.
He tipped his head, a smile hiding on the edges of his serious expression. “As long as you promise to call me every time you get yourself into shit, then no, I’m not breaking up with you...my girlfriend.”
My insides sizzled with giddy excitement.
“Well, as long as you answer your phone, we should be sweet.” My cheeky grin was met with an unamused glare. I winced. “Too soon?”
“Little bit.” His eyebrows rose and I giggled.
“Well maybe we should just cut this conversation short by kissing or something.”
His golden smile appeared, the one I could sink into on a daily basis. He moved toward me and pressed it against my willing lips, filling me with a secure warmth that shunted all my fears aside. I wrapped my arms around his neck as his hands moved to my waist, pulling me close and holding me against him so the world couldn’t touch me.
Epilogue
The sun was hot and luscious as I made my way across the grass and down to the sand. Eric was bobbing on his surfboard out in the water, his torso wet, shiny and delicious. I paused in the sand, watching his strong arms paddle through the water and his lean body jump into position on the board. I couldn’t take my eyes off the way his muscles curved and moved as he carved up the wave.
Damn, he was hot. And he was mine. Still.
It had been two months since the Liam incident. The Donovan boys had disappeared off the face of the earth. As each week passed, I stopped looking over my shoulder a little less. I didn’t know what had become of them and I didn’t know if they would one day resurface, but I think I’d read them right and I couldn’t help pitying them just a little. They were scared little kids who had never had the chance to grow up right. I feared for the people in their future, but it could no longer be my problem.
I couldn’t carry that. Just like I couldn’t carry the world. The whole incident had really put me off people-reading, not that I was that into it in the first place. I still did it without meaning to sometimes, but I had decided that unless I saw something dire, I wasn’t going to act. The world could survive without my meddling for a while.
My senior year at Pali High was drawing to an end and I had made it through unscathed. I couldn’t say the same for everybody. Thankfully with Liam no longer ruling the school, all problems seemed minor. But Stella and I would never be friends again, that much was clear. In fact I lost all my old friends. Chase and Stella made sure I was completely shut out. What they failed to notice was that I didn’t care. Libby had quickly become a close friend and since Indie was back in town, we were hanging out with her and Micah a bunch, too.
Stella and most of her sad-ass, cheating friends were finishing their senior year on a major downer. She was running off to Europe for the summer with a private tutor. I’d heard she’d planned to catch up on all the repeated work she had to do while checking out Tuscany. She’d probably work her way through Italy and end up on some Spanish beach by the end of the summer. I no longer cared.
The people I did care about, however, were doing great.
Libby, free from the demanding workload, had ended up flying through her last couple of months. Thanks to her, we aced our Biology assignment. She got into Princeton, just the way she’d wanted to and would be graduating with one of the highest GPAs in the school. She was hanging around L.A. for the summer and we were planning on catching up as much as we could.
Indie had spent the rest of her year on set with her father. She really didn’t want to go, but he’d insisted. She’d had a tutor to get her through and when I saw her a few days earlier, she’d managed enough credits. She was going to graduate. She and Micah were still loved up to the max and she’d managed to convince her father to let her attend U.C. Berkeley, which was where Micah had scored his basketball scholarship. Things were looking good for both of them.
And me. I was pretty happy too.
Eric made his way out of the water, a big grin on his face as he ran up the beach toward me. Dropping his surfboard to the ground, he collected me in his arms and laughed at my squeals as his wet body soaked my clothing.
“Thanks for that.” I kept my hands on his damp shoulders.
“Anytime.” He nuzzled my neck, making my skin tingle. “What are you doing here? I thought I was meeting you later.”
“I know. I just wanted to show you something.” I pulled the acceptance letter from my back pocket and tapped it against his chest.
Grabbing his towel, he dried his hands and carefully unfolded the paper. His curiosity morphed to pleasure and he leaned forward to kiss me. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” I nodded. “I’ve heard U.C.L.A. is a good school.”
“It is.” He grinned. “I know a couple of people who already go there. One in particular, who is very keen to show you around...keep you out of trouble.” He winked.
“Hey, I’ve lasted two months without trouble.” My grin faded. We both knew it was only a matter of time. I shoved the letter back into my pocket and tried not to let that thought bother me. “I figured that this was probably the best school for me. It’ll be good to have certain people nearby, you know with all the trouble I supposedly get myself into.”
“Supposedly. Mmhh.” He stepped forward, gliding his arm around my back. “I sure hope you know someone who can keep you safe, Caitlyn Davis.” His eyes danced.
I shrugged, biting back my smile. “I’m pretty tight with Hercules, so I should be sweet.”
He captured my grin with his lips, his tongue dancing with mine as he lifted me off the sand. Eric was right; I wouldn’t be able to stay out of trouble forever. There were too many screwed up people in the world and I’d be drawn to help another sooner or later, but with him by my side, I knew for sure that I could handle it.
Or can she?
Keep reading to find out more about the trouble Caitlyn will get into in Two Faced (Masks #2).
Dear reader…
Caitlyn’s new ability is a life changer and she’s going to need Eric more than ever as she enters the world of college.
But can Eric handle what Caity sees next?
When she spots something sinister about a person he’s always looked up to, Eric is thrown into turmoil. His trust in people will be put to the ultimate test as he tries to decide if dating someone who can see behind people’s masks is something he can handle.
Can Caity and Eric survive their first year at UCLA tog
ether?
Find out in Two-Faced.
Available on Amazon.
Happy reading!
xx
Melissa
www.melissapearlauthor.com
True Colors (Masks #1) Page 22
