Laurel’s eyes widened. “You talked to Aaron?”
“He told me Tamani checked in at about noon and told them you were safe with him. So I stopped worrying.”
“That was enough to make you stop worrying?”
“Well, I stopped worrying about your safety, anyway. I saw the look in that boy’s eyes the other night. There’s no way he would let anything happen to you.”
That grin she just couldn’t stop curled back onto her face.
“Don’t think that gets you off the hook though; you’re still in trouble. We’ll talk punishment when your father gets home.” She sobered now. “Seriously, Laurel. What were you thinking? Does David know where you are?”
Laurel’s face fell and she shook her head.
“Is he at home worried sick?”
“Probably.” She felt awful.
“Did you want to call him?”
She shook her head in a stiff, jerky way.
“Oh.” Then a long pause. “Come in the kitchen,” she said finally, pulling gently on Laurel’s arm. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
As far as her mom was concerned, tea fixed everything. Have a cold? Have some tea. Broken bones? There’s tea for that too. Somewhere in her mother’s pantry, Laurel suspected, was a box of tea that said, In case of Armageddon, steep three to five minutes.
Laurel sat on a barstool and watched as her mom fixed her a cup of tea, then stirred in ice cubes until it was cool.
“I noticed you losing a petal there,” her mom said conversationally. “Would you mind if I preserved a few? They really smell fantastic. I bet I could make a killer potpourri.”
“Um, sure,” Laurel said, trying not to feel too weird about her mom making something out of her petals.
“You get rained on much today?”
“A bit.”
“Well,” Laurel’s mom said after spooning some sugar into the tea, just the way Laurel liked it, “that’s all the small talk I’ve got. Are you going to tell me what happened?”
Laurel put it off just a few more seconds as she sipped her tea. “David and Tamani got in a fight at lunch. A fistfight. Over me,” she finally said.
“David? Really?”
“I know, right? But they’ve been angry and mopey lately. And there have been little confrontations the last couple weeks. I guess they just blew up today.”
Her mom was smiling now. “I never had two boys fight over me.”
“You say that like it’s fun. It’s not fun!” Laurel protested. “It was awful. I broke up the fight, but it was just too much. So I left.”
“And… Tamani followed you?”
Laurel nodded.
“Where did you go?”
“To the cabin in Orick.”
“And Tamani joined you?”
“I didn’t ask him to,” Laurel said defensively.
“But he did.”
Laurel nodded.
“And you let him.”
Another nod.
“And then…” Her mom let the question hang in the air.
“And then we went to the cabin. And hung out,” she tacked on, feeling like a moron.
“Hung out,” her mom said wryly. “Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?”
Laurel rested her face against her palms. “It wasn’t… like that,” she muttered through her fingers.
“Oh, really?”
“Okay, fine. It was kind of like that,” Laurel said.
“Laurel.” Her mom walked around the counter and put her arms around Laurel, leaning her cheek against the top of her head. “It’s all right. You don’t have to defend yourself to me. I’d be lying if I told you I was surprised.”
“Am I really so predictable?”
“Only to a mother,” her mom said, kissing the top of her head. “I have an idea. Why don’t you call Chelsea and tell her everything’s okay, and she can pass the word on to David. He’s called here twice already.”
“Good idea.” Laurel smiled up at her mom, if a little weakly. In truth Chelsea wasn’t a lot easier to face than David, but after today she’d take what she could get.
“Homigosh,” Chelsea said breathlessly before Laurel even said hello. Thank you, caller ID. “You broke up with David!”
Laurel winced. “Yeah, I guess I kind of did,” she admitted.
“In front of the whole school!”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen in front of the whole school.”
“So you meant for it to happen?”
Laurel sighed, glad she’d decided to call Chelsea from the privacy of her room instead of downstairs in front of her mom. “No, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“So are you taking it back?”
“No,” Laurel said, strangely sure of her answer, “I’m not taking it back.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. At least… for now.”
“So what does that mean? Are you with Tamani now?”
After this afternoon? “I–I don’t know,” she admitted.
“But maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Whoa.”
“I know.” Laurel toyed with a sugar-glass vial on her desk. She had no idea what to say. “I, um, I called to tell you I’m okay since I disappeared kinda fast today. And in case you were worried…” Her voice trailed off as she heard a soft tap and spun around to catch a hint of movement outside her bedroom window. Tamani raised his head and smiled. Laurel smiled back and almost let go of the phone. “Hey, Chelsea, I gotta go,” she said breathlessly. “Dinner.”
“At eight o’clock?”
“Yeah,” Laurel said, remembering the whole reason for calling in the first place. “Could you… would you mind calling him and telling him I’m safe?”
“Him? Like, David?”
“Yeah. Please?”
She heard Chelsea sigh and mutter something about shooting the messenger. “You want me to tell him anything else?”
“No. Just that I’m safe. I gotta go. Thanks, Chelsea, bye,” she said in a rush before hitting END and tossing the cordless onto her bed. She hurried over to the window seat and unlatched her window.
“May I come in?” Tamani asked, his smile gentle, eyes warm.
“Sure,” Laurel said, returning his smile. “But you’ll have to be quiet; my mom’s downstairs and my dad should be home any minute.”
“I’m good at quiet,” Tamani said, stepping silently over the windowsill in bare feet.
Laurel left the window open, enjoying the lingering scent of rain. She stared down at her carpet. Then Tamani reached over and curled his fingers around hers. He pulled her gently toward him and twined his arms around her waist. “I missed you,” he whispered in her ear.
She pulled her head back and looked up at him. “I didn’t think I’d see you till tomorrow.”
He reached up and covered her hand with his, then lifted it to his lips and slowly kissed each fingertip. “Did you really think I could stay away?”
He let go of her hand and lifted her chin. He kissed her eyelids first, one then the other, and Laurel stood very still, her breath shallow, as he kissed each cheek, then her chin, then her nose. She wanted to grab him, to pull him in and reignite the sparks that had blazed between them this afternoon, but she forced herself to hold still as he lowered his lips to hers, the sweetness of his mouth enveloping hers. So slowly, so gently.
She lifted her hands to the sides of his face when he started to pull away. She couldn’t bear for this sweet kiss to end. His arms tightened around her in response and Laurel pressed her body against him, wishing — for a moment — that she could be part of him.
She turned when a knock sounded on her door. “Yeah?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. The knob turned and before Laurel could say anything, the door opened.