“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to say.”
Jen peeled a strip of bark from a nearby tree. “I can’t believe I’m even asking this, but … do you think Mr. Love is a brain limpet?”
I could almost resent how well their brains worked, considering how naturally pretty they were, too. “Yeah. It sounds crazy, I know.”
Davina shook her head. “Nothing has been right since school started. Russ changed as soon as we hit Blackbriar.”
“All I know is, I don’t want anything happening to the two of you” I said. “If there’s any way you can get out of Boston—”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Davina didn’t look hopeful, though. Given her scholarship, her parents would probably feel as if leaving would be the same as throwing away her future.
Jen said, “I might be able to convince my parents to let me visit my grandmother in Thailand, especially if I claim I had a dream about her. My mom’s a hardass but she’s really into signs and omens.”
“If you can’t get away, just … be careful, okay?”
“Definitely. I’ll keep an eye on Mr. Love, too.” Stepping out from the trees, Davina shaded her eyes with one hand. “It looks like we’ve got company.”
I saw him, too. The groundskeeper turned us over to the teacher in charge of miscreants, who then escorted us to see the headmaster. I couldn’t muster up a smidge of regret for missing class, however, as this had been a matter of life and death. We all listened to the lecture, but he went easy on us because it was a first offense, and he allowed that we were probably upset.
“Very,” Davina said with tearful eyes, and she wasn’t faking.
He dismissed us in time for last period, along with an admonishment not to let it happen again. I worried through my last class and practically sprinted to my locker to get my stuff. It felt like ages since Kian had picked me up after school last week, but there had been no date this weekend since I was grounded. The joint hug from my parents had been startling; my punishment was not. For good measure, they’d confiscated my computer and my phone, so I hadn’t heard from him either.
Today, Kian was waiting as close to the gate as he could without being on school property. Two strides carried him to my side and he pulled me into his arms. Burying my face in his chest, I breathed him in, lemons and spice from his soap. He kissed the top of my head and then we moved toward his car.
“Missed you,” he said.
“I’m still on restriction for another week,” I said.
His gaze ran over me like it had been much longer than a weekend. “I can take you straight home … or I can show you my new place.”
Temptation sashayed toward me and flashed a come-hither look. It was so easy to give in, such a relief from the relentless awful of my life otherwise. “I can realistically claim about an hour before my parents guess we took a detour. Will it take long?”
“Not if I leave the car here. We can swing by the condo and then I’ll take you home via Express Way.” The faint smile curving his mouth told me he was proud of that pun. Better yet, anyone who overheard us wouldn’t think it was a weird thing to say.
Luckily, showing me his new apartment fell under the heading of company business. I imagined Wedderburn rasping a cold chuckle as Kian charmed me according to instructions. But that’s exactly what’s happening. God, I hated myself for each little pinprick of doubt. Kian had taken so many risks for me over the past weeks and had never shown a hint that he was on anyone’s side but mine. I pushed all of the bad feelings out on a long breath.
“Let’s go.”
For the sake of appearances, he moved the car away from the school and parked on a residential street a few blocks away. Then he took my hand and pressed a button on his watch. We ported immediately, the world zooming out of focus in a stutter-skip that always unbalanced me. I stumbled a few steps, my head spinning as I took in pale walls and hardwood floors. A glance out the window told me I wasn’t far from Fenway.
“You got a place in my neighborhood?”
“I want to be nearby.” The ache in his voice made me want to kiss him.
Kian walked me through; it was a two bedrooms with a galley kitchen—nothing remarkable, but less isolated than the cabin. The furniture looked as if he’d bought someone’s rental property, including all contents. I supposed that made sense. But the result was another impersonal place, nothing unique to Kian.
“It needs some color. And some clutter. You need to set out your trophies and hang up your certificates. Put your books on the shelves. Dump your poetry journal on the end table. Start writing again. In other words, stop hiding who you are in a storage unit.”
He went to the window and leaned his head against the glass. I could taste the sadness in him, heavy and rolling like the sea. “If I do, then the next time something awful happens, I lose everything. I’m not as strong as you seem to think.”
Neither of us is unbreakable. We shattered, but we put the pieces back together, and I love the way your fractures shine. I came up behind him and put my palm between his shoulder blades. A quiver ran through him at my touch; sometimes I felt as if he were a piano tuned to my hands.
“I don’t think you’re a superhero or anything. But … sometimes you have to draw the line and fight for your ground. Fight, Kian. Take something for your own.”
He whirled then, lightning in his eyes. “You’re the only ground I won’t yield, Edie. Everything else is dust, and each time I walk away from you, I’m afraid it’s the last. You don’t know the deals I’ve made, the—” Swallowing hard, he clenched a fist. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I think you’d better tell me exactly what you mean.”
He stepped into my space and tangled his hands in my hair, tipping my face up. I should’ve insisted on an answer, but when he looked at me like that it was impossible for me to think. “You’re mine. How’s that?”
“It’s good,” I whispered.
“I’ll fight for you. I’ll draw all the lines around you. I’ve”—he brushed his lips teasingly, delicately, across mine—“never felt this way before.”
When I went up on tiptoe to kiss him back, kiss him more, he spun me and pressed me against the window. I twined my arms around his neck and held on; the longing was honey sweet and ferocious like a storm. He tasted me and I ran my hands over his shoulders and down his back, digging in with my fingers, because this feeling just couldn’t be real. Kian made a soft sound against my mouth, a growl or a whimper, and I shivered against him.
“I should take you home,” he whispered. “Or I won’t at all. I want you to stay.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“I know. Your life is complicated enough.”
Shaky nod, as I reached for him. He claimed my hand and whooshed us to the alley we’d used to depart for the SSP. “I’ll never get used to that.”
“And I’ll never get enough of you.” Kian devoured another kiss and another, until my knees went weak. Until meeting him, I hadn’t known longing for another person could come as a physical ache.
“Wow.” I swallowed hard and then hurried away before I begged him to take me back to his apartment.
It was crazy that I had to weigh everything now in terms of cause and effect. A night with Kian would be amazing, but I had enough stress in my life. When we slept together, I wanted the timing to be right. After waiting this long, sex shouldn’t be one of my regrets.
NORMAL IS ANOTHER COUNTRY
Blackbriar might be under a cloud, but for the rest of my imprisonment, it didn’t storm. The silence made me uneasy, however, and things were lonely at school, as Davina and Jen were MIA. I hoped that meant they’d persuaded their parents to send them elsewhere, at least for a while. I checked my messages, but there was nothing in my inbox.