Maybe Kimberly McEntire had felt like that, too. Sure, she lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town and seemed to have everything going for her. Good grades, pretty face and Skye Bartlett. But clearly something had been pulling her beyond the city limits. She’d taken off over six months ago, and other than a note left on her pillow, no one had heard from her since. I found myself hoping the future I’d told Momma to make up for her was close to the truth.
Momma got up from the table, and I trailed after her back into the living room. Milly was still standing hesitantly by the couch while Skye stood near the front window. Momma looked back and forth between them. “Will both of you be sitting for the reading, or—”
“Just her,” Skye said, inclining his head toward Milly. “No offense, but this kind of thing freaks me out.” He grinned at Momma and she practically giggled. Behind her back, I rolled my eyes, and Skye’s grin widened.
“Very well, then.” Momma held her hand out to Milly, who glanced over at Skye, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.
“So you’ll just...wait out here, right?”
He gave an easy roll of his shoulders. “Sure. Laura here can keep me company.”
“Lana,” I corrected, my lips twitching in a smile.
He snapped his fingers, nodding. “Right, right. Lana.”
It was a little too much, and just for a moment, Milly’s brow wrinkled with something like confusion. Or maybe suspicion. But then Momma was taking her hand and guiding her toward her studio.
The moment the curtain twitched closed behind Milly, Skye’s hands grabbed my waist, tugging me close to him. He ducked his head to kiss my neck, but I spun away from him, swatting at his hands. “What are you doing?” I hissed.
His bright blue eyes sparkled as he leaned closer and he whispered, “I was trying to kiss you.”
For a second, I nearly wavered. It was hard to be mad at him when he was looking at me like that.
Shooting a glance at the curtain, I grabbed Skye’s hand and tugged him out onto the porch, closing the door softly behind me. Once we were down in the yard by his truck, I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked up at him. “I wasn’t talking about the kissing. I mean why did you bring Milly here?”
Skye sighed. “She’s been wanting to come out here for months. Pretty much ever since Kimberly bailed. When she said she’d made the appointment, I offered to drive her.”
In the sunlight, his black hair glinted nearly as blue as his truck. Skye was beautiful in that way that is almost girlie. Only the dark stubble lining his jaw, the veins in his forearms, the blunt width of his hands saved him from looking too pretty. He smiled at me, leaning back against his truck. The move did nice things for his arms. It also showed off the tattoo inked on the inside of his forearm. It was a key, one of those big ornate kinds you sometimes see in old movies. I’d asked him once why a key, but he’d only kissed the tip of my nose and said, “Why not?”
“I wanted to see you today,” he said now, looking at me over the tops of his sunglasses. “And I figured this would kill two birds with one stone. Keep Milly and your mom occupied for an hour. So.” He reached out, his hand closing around my wrist, and pulled me to him. “Can we please get to occupying that time?”
My palm pressed flat against his chest. “Not here,” I told him, looking around.
Our trailer was at the very back of the park, and just beyond was the thick pine forest that gave Woodland Hills its name. Skye followed my gaze, squeezing my hand. “She paid for the whole hour,” he murmured low in my ear, and I shivered.
With one more quick glance at the trailer, I wrapped my fingers tighter around Skye’s and pulled. “Come on.”
The woods were thick and smelled like pine, dirt and that mossy, green scent of things growing. They were also cooler, the thick branches nearly blotting out the sun. We walked hand in hand until I couldn’t see the trailer anymore, and then, finally, I turned and let Skye wrap me up in his arms.
We hadn’t had a chance to be alone in over a week, and as Skye kissed me, I felt like I was melting into him, like there was nothing else in the world except me, him and the forest around us, the sound of birds in the trees, the distant burble of the creek. His lips moved over mine, and my fingers twisted in his shirt.
“I missed you,” he breathed when we pulled apart, and I smiled against his collarbone.
“I missed you, too.”
I always missed him. Even though I saw him every day at school, it wasn’t the same as this, being alone with him, kissing him, feeling his arms around me.
Looking down at me, Skye pushed my hair away from my face. “Admit this was a good idea.”
When he was holding me, everything seemed like a good idea, but I still wasn’t exactly thrilled that he’d come out here. Or, really, that he’d brought Milly out here.
With that in mind, I stepped away from him, walking a little farther into the woods. He followed, and while I let him link his fingers with mine, I didn’t say anything until we were even deeper into the trees, the ground underneath growing harder to navigate. Vines and low bushes pushed against the trees here, and even though I could hear the distant hum of I-85, it was like being in the middle of nowhere.
Once we’d reached the edge of the creek, I turned back to Skye and asked, “Why are we still sneaking around?”
He raised his dark eyebrows, blowing out a long breath. “Wow. Okay. What brought that on?”
There was a clump of dandelions at my feet, and I bent down to pick one. Twirling it between my fingers, I watched the fluff take to the air. “It’s just... Skye, are you ashamed of me? Of all this?” I flung the headless dandelion out in the direction of the trailer, and Skye immediately stepped forward, holding my arms with both hands.
“No,” he said, looking into my eyes. “God, no, Lana. Never.” Skye’s fingers dug into the flesh of my biceps, almost a little too hard.
“Then why?” I asked, hating the whiny note in my voice but unable to stop it.
He pulled away, rubbing one hand up and down the back of his neck. He always did that. He’d done it the first day I’d noticed him in French class, back at the beginning of the school year. Skye had been new, and in a county where everyone knew everyone, that had been enough to make him exotic. And then of course there was the unusual name, the blue-black hair, that beautiful, golden key covering the pale skin of his forearm. I was hardly the only girl who’d fallen in love with Skye Bartlett back in August. But he’d fallen for Kimberly McEntire, and that had been that.
Or so I’d thought.
After Kimberly had skipped town, things had changed. Skye had started sitting next to me in class, and even though he spent every lunch period with Milly and the rest of Kimberly’s friends, he had always smiled at me. Then one day after French, he’d asked if I’d help him study at the library. He’d kissed me that night up against a shelf of reference books.
Now I looked at Skye in the late-morning light and asked, “Is it Milly? Is there...? You spend a lot of time with her.” In front of people. In public.
Skye dropped his hand. “We’re friends, Lan. I only drove her out here today because I wanted to see you.” He stepped closer and I backed up until my elbows dug into the bark of the pine tree behind me. It wasn’t that he scared me. It was that I was afraid if he stood too close, I’d once again forget to be angry, forget how crappy this whole situation made me feel.