His expression became a little too serious, making me catch my breath. “I’m pretty sure you could pull off just about any look you wanted to.”
“Good.” I laughed, hoping he couldn’t hear the shakiness in my voice. “’Cause I seriously don’t have anything else, and I really don’t want to put my softball uniform back on again, like ever.”
I checked the time again, and it was still just before six o’clock, same as it had been a couple of minutes ago. I lifted my foot to the window ledge and held out my hand to him. I thought about leaving a note or something for my mom to let her know where I’d be, but then I figured she had my number—because she was the only one, aside from Tyler, who did—and she could call if she was worried.
Tyler’s fingers closed around mine, and it was the first really obvious difference I noticed between him and his brother. Austin’s hands had always been dry, sometimes cracked even. He’d spent years applying special creams and moisturizers to protect against all the chlorine and sun damage, but they always had this rough quality about them, like fine-grit sandpaper. He’d spent half his life in the pool, the other half in every available lake, river, and stream. He was one of those people who probably wouldn’t have minded if he’d been born with webbed toes.
Tyler’s hands were soft. Not like a girl’s or anything, but not calloused like mine—which still made absolutely no sense since, according to everyone, I hadn’t picked up a bat in five years.
But now that I stopped to think about it, there were so many things about Tyler that were different from his brother, it was hard to imagine I’d ever mistaken the two of them in the first place. His hands, and his eyes, which were green but were mossier colored than Austin’s. And the dimple that appeared once more when I bumped against him as I hopped down, making him look somewhere between gorgeous and stunning.
I blinked hard, trying to snap some sense into myself. Where the holy hell did that come from? I balked at the idea of Tyler as anything but Austin’s younger brother, because no matter what, that’s what he was—Austin’s brother—and I struck a silent deal with myself to never, ever think about him as anything other than a friend, because that is all he could ever be.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER FIVE
“OKAAAY, I GIVE UP. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?” I asked, surveying the less-than-savory alley where Tyler had parked. “Shouldn’t we be someplace a little less . . .” I raised my eyebrows. “Stabby?”
Tyler shoved open his car door in a way that made it clear his car door was the kind that needed a good shove in order to open. “Relax,” he assured me. “It’s perfectly safe.”
He smiled, and that made me feel a little happier, if not at all safer, as he got out and came around to my side, opening my door and waiting for me. No one had ever opened my car door like that, not even Austin.
I blushed and ducked my head as I eased past him, trying not to notice how tall he was or the way he smelled, which wasn’t at all like back-alley garbage. He locked the car and went to a door that was dented and painted black. He didn’t knock or anything but let himself inside. He held the door long enough for me to realize I was supposed to follow, so I trailed after him and found myself in a storage room of some sort crowded with metal shelves and stacks of cardboard boxes and plastic crates that filled every possible space. There seemed to be no order to the chaos. Mostly, it looked like books and catalogs, but there were also stacks of rolled posters and piles of photographs, and magazines and comic books.
Tyler didn’t stop, though. He slipped right past the hoarder’s haven not giving it a second glance, leading me without a single word into an even more cluttered bookstore beyond.
This wasn’t one of those chain bookstores, though, the ones where everything is perfectly aligned and tidy, and where there were tables strategically positioned to highlight this week’s hottest sellers. There was no soft jazz playing in the background or a café with easy chairs so patrons could kick back with a pastry and hang out to browse their selections. This was more like a thrift store for books, which made sense, I supposed, when I spied the bold neon sign on the other side of the plate glass window that read USED BOOKS.
It had that smell too. That musty, old-book smell. The smell you notice when you got your assigned reading in English class. The smell that wafted up from the pages of a book that’s been passed down year after year, the one with the dog-eared pages and highlighted passages, and rips and a tattered cover. And if you were really, really lucky, some kid with nothing better to do, because he for sure wasn’t going to read the book, drew pictures of ladies’ boobs at the front of each chapter.
That was how I’d forever remember Of Mice and Men—as amateur pencil porn.
The guy behind the counter was wearing a checkered shirt and black, horn-rimmed glasses, and was hunched forward on his elbow as he worked on a crossword puzzle from the newspaper. He lifted his eyes disinterestedly as we approached—a halfhearted attempt at customer service—but when he caught sight of Tyler, he dropped his pencil and hopped up from his stool.
“Hey! I was waitin’ for ya.” His grin spread wide and made his scruffy, unshaved face look more welcoming than his what-the-hell-do-you-want glance had. It was clear that when he chose to, like now, he had an infectious quality about him, as his eyes crinkled with enthusiasm.
“Okay . . .” The guy went behind the desk excitedly and reached beneath the counter. “This came in, and I immediately thought of you.”
Tyler took a step closer, and I tried to see around him. Whatever it was—and from where I stood it looked like a magazine, a really old magazine—it had Tyler’s full attention now.
Tyler leaned forward, pursing his lips. “Can you take it out?” Tyler asked, his voice low and filled with what was unmistakably awe.
“Dude, of course I can take it out. But trust me, I’ve already checked it from cover to cover. It’s practically mint. It’s exactly what you’ve been looking for.” The clerk slipped it from the plastic sleeve that protected it, and Tyler’s eyes went wide as his fingers cautiously, gingerly, reached down.
When he brushed the cover, I saw him suck in his breath and hold it.
This thing was seriously important to him.
All I could see was faded print and creased pages, and a chunk missing from the bottom-right edge of the cover.
There was clearly a discrepancy in our interpretations of “practically mint.”
But after inspecting it, neither of them even haggled over the price; Tyler just laid down several bills, way more than I thought anyone should ever pay for a relic like that.
Tyler put his prize back in its plastic covering, and the guy behind the counter double-bagged it for him, making it more than obvious that you should never be too careful when it comes to protecting your secondhand junk.
I cleared my throat, and Tyler glanced my way self-consciously, as if he’d only just remembered I’d been standing there the whole time. “Oh yeah. Hey. This is Kyra,” he told the clerk, who had also suddenly noticed me now that their transaction was coming to a close. At first he gave me a quick once-over, like he wasn’t all that interested. And then he did a double take, and his gray eyes scoured me with laser intensity. I squirmed beneath his examination.
The guy frowned then. “I know you,” he told me as if it were irrefutable. “From somewhere . . .” I could see the cogs in his head turning as he tried to nail it down. “Did you go to Emerson?”
Did? he’d asked, and I shook my head, studying him right back and wondering if I’d ever seen him at the rival high school. “No. I went to Burlington.”
He nodded as if that made sense, but he was still scowling, still trying to decipher where he knew me from. I was sure he didn’t look familiar to me, so I couldn’t help him out. I was almost positive we’d never crossed paths before.
And then he snapped his fingers. “I got it! I got it! You’re that girl! The one who went missing. I knew I recognized you. Man, your face was everywhere. Everyone knew who you were.” He grinned his infectious grin, only this time I couldn’t return his smile. “Heard you were back. What the hell happened to you anyway? Where you been all this time?”
Suddenly my legs felt wobbly, and my stomach rolled uneasily. I hadn’t considered that people might actually recognize me after all the efforts that had been made to find me five years ago. And that when they did they might ask questions I wasn’t prepared to answer—couldn’t possibly answer. I turned to Tyler. “I—I think I’ll wait outside.” I staggered away from the counter, suddenly anxious to get out from between the disordered stacks of decaying books and magazines that felt like they were closing in on me. I didn’t wait to see if Tyler was coming or not because I didn’t care.
In my rush, I crashed into someone before I could make it to the back room. I murmured an apologetic “I’m sorry.” I glanced up only briefly as I went to brush past him.
“No worries,” the dark-skinned boy mumbled as I shoved past him. I hesitated briefly as I caught his eyes, which were unusually copper colored, but then I kept going, through the storeroom and out into the alley behind the shop. That was when I realized I didn’t have the keys, and I was locked out of the car. It didn’t matter, though. I didn’t mind the garbagey stench of the alley, because it was better than the suffocating scrutiny of too many one-sided questions.
The back door of the bookstore opened, and I glanced up to find Tyler standing in the doorway, watching me with a concerned expression contorting his features.
“I’m okay,” I said before he had the chance to ask.
“I’m sorry,” he told me, his voice low and rumbly near my ear as he leaned over my shoulder to unlock the passenger side door. My heart rate tripled at having him there, at my back, so close I could smell the crisp scent of his soap.
But I didn’t want him to apologize, because none of this was his fault.
“Please. Don’t worry about it,” I begged. “It is what it is, right?” When the door opened, I collapsed into the seat. Melted into it, more like. My bones felt like liquid butter, and even shrugging was a major undertaking. “I better get used to people asking me things like that, or I’m gonna be spending a lot of time holed up in my bedroom. It just took me off guard is all. No big.” I flashed a quick smile up at him, the kind meant to reassure him, because I really wanted him to believe what I’d said. I wanted to believe it too. And then I changed the subject. “I don’t get it.” I nodded toward the Fort Knox of all bags he clutched in his hands. “All that fuss over, what, a comic book?” I bit back a teasing smile.
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, one, this is so not a comic book,” he began tolerantly, as if this wasn’t the first time he’d had to explain his hobby.
“Looks like a comic book to me.”
“This,” he said, plucking his plastic-encased treasure from the safety of its double bags. He held it up delicately so I could get a better look. On the cover was an old-fashioned red airplane with several other, smaller planes in the background. I couldn’t tell if they were chasing the red one or if it was one big, happy airplane family. The title on the cover read: Bill Barnes Air Adventurer. 10 cents. “This is a pulp magazine. A July 1934 Air Adventurer with a Frank Tinsley cover, to be exact.” He was grinning so proudly that he nearly convinced me that was something to be proud of.
“So, it’s a . . . magazine?” I prodded, intentionally needling him because I could see he was serious about this.
“Yeah. I mean, no. Not really.” Scowling over his inability to make his point, he sighed and closed the door before stomping around to the driver’s side. Inwardly I was grinning, because I’d gotten exactly the reaction I was hoping for. When he got in the car, he tried again. “It’s a pulp novel. They’re books. Some of them used to be published in serialized form, like this. A lot of the best writers wrote pulp novels in their time: Isaac Asimov, H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Jack London. Even Mark Twain. I’ve been looking for this one for a long time. That’s why Jackson called me when it came in.” He frowned, and then shrugged as if it wasn’t worth explaining.
He was right; I’d probably never understand his level of intensity. I wasn’t a huge reader, and I don’t remember ever seeing Austin read any of the required books for school. But it was downright adorable that Tyler was so passionate about this crappy, moldering old magazine that he treated like a rare and delicate treasure.
It made me wonder how he’d treat a girl. You know, if he cherished her the way he cherished that book.
I twisted in my seat so I could get a better look at him. “So, what you’re telling me is that you’re a total nerd. Is that it?”
The dimple reappeared again, digging so deep into his cheek I thought it might make a permanent groove. My heart nearly stopped.
Austin had outgrown his dimples when he hit puberty. I thought I’d been glad because he looked older without them. But now . . .
Tyler started the car and pretended he was ignoring me, concentrating instead on backing out of the alley, but I caught his sideways glances, and the dimple never really disappeared entirely. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Before long I turned to stare at the town I’d lived in my entire life as we drove. I was surprised how many changes there were, but since I hadn’t been here, the new shops, and the closed ones, were glaring and out of place. If I’d been here the whole time, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed them. The evolution of industry.
Just then we passed the high school, and a boulder settled over my chest.
But it wasn’t the school that caught my eye; it was the fields, with their big box lights shining down on them. Even from the car I could make out the chalked outlines of the infield.
The boulder threatened to crush me.
“Hey.” My hand shot out to Tyler, and I gripped his arm. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the grass and the dirt, the stands and dugouts. “Pull over, will ya?”
Without asking why or making a big deal about it, Tyler pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine. I stumbled out of the car, and I didn’t look back to see if he was behind me.
I was captivated. Enthralled. Terrified.
My vision tunneled as I approached, so that all I could see were the fields where I’d spent so much of my life.
When I reached the chain-link fencing, I curled my fingers through it, feeling light-headed and unsteady.
I would’ve been a senior if I hadn’t vanished. I should’ve had one more year—one more season—on these very fields with the rest of my team.
I hadn’t heard Tyler get out of his car, but I knew he was right behind me when I heard his voice. “It has a name now.” His breath tickled my neck. And then, before I could say anything, or breathe even, his hand was covering mine where my fingers curled through the fence. My stomach plunged.
Oh my god, what is wrong with me? Didn’t I have enough to worry about without letting myself get all gooey over a boy who was far too young for me?
And Austin’s brother no less? All at once I realized Tyler was saying something to me, and I hadn’t heard a single word of it. I felt like an idiot. I wondered what it was about him that turned me into such a girl—the kind of girl who daydreamed about things like dimples. I spun around to face him. But he was too close—we were too close. I realized that fact too late as I found myself lodged between him and the fence. I swallowed. “Wait, what did you say?”
He shook his head, and his lips were so beautiful, so full and tempting, that I swore my eyes were glued to them, and I found myself tracking them like a cat following a play toy. I blinked, hard, when I realized what I was doing, and I prayed to God he had no idea why I was so distracted.
“I was saying that the field has a name now.” He reached out and brushed a piece of hair from my forehead. “Agnew Field. They named it after you.”
<
br /> I jerked back, away from his touch, and away from his words.
Suddenly I knew—knew—it was wrong.
This.
All of it. Me and Tyler. Being here at the school. The fact that they’d named the field I’d once played on after me. In memorium . . . like I was dead.
And I had been dead in a way. For five long years everyone had mourned me. They’d let me go and “moved on,” and everything had changed.
And now I was back. A corpse with a second chance.
I slipped out from beneath his arm, from where I suddenly felt trapped, cornered by his presence. “I have to go,” I insisted, pulling out my phone and checking the time. “I need you to take me home. Now.”
There were four messages waiting for me on my bed when I got back, all written on multicolored sticky notes that were stuck together so precisely they formed a perfect neon-rainbow fan. I assumed they were also in chronological order.
Flipping through them, I noted my mom’s handwriting and was grateful she’d decided to take phone messages rather than to give out my new cell number. It wasn’t even nine o’clock when Tyler dropped me off, but my mom and her new family were already tucked away in their bedrooms for the night, so I had the house to myself.
In the kitchen there was a plate covered with plastic wrap. Through the film I could see she’d made me my favorite: spaghetti with Grandma Thelma’s homemade meatballs. I felt a stab of guilt for not being there for dinner, but the very idea of sitting through a meal with them and pretending we were an actual family made me nauseous.
Maybe if I tried harder, though, maybe if I made more of an effort to talk to my mom, she would finally say something real to me.
Taking the calendar off the wall, I carried it, along with the plate of spaghetti, to the table. I looked at the time on my phone and double-checked it against the time on the microwave. It bothered me that the two weren’t exactly in sync—they were a minute apart—and I watched until the microwave’s clock caught up to the time on my phone before turning to the calendar.
The Taking Page 7
