Then the pressure on my wrist was gone. Gone forever.
CHAPTER 1
MALERIE
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
“How she looks to the stars, each and every night. Praying for a love returned, a wish granted, a nightmare ended. How she dreams it with all her might.” ~ Jelly Bean Queen
Eighteen birthday candles does not a bonfire make. If I had a bonfire, I’d burn the fatal acceptance letter from MIT.
Bring on the matches. Burn, baby, burn.
I sit across from Uncle JT in Alessandro’s Restaurant thinking pyro thoughts about the letter in my hand. The letter threatens to ruin the life I’ve carefully protected. A life where I rarely leave home and always, always know the plan. Plans are important for people like me. I know who I’ll see, where I’ll be, so I can be sure I have limited exposure to any danger.
I don’t do adventure.
“You can’t force me to go to college a thousand miles away.” My voice strains like a sapling about to snap in a hundred-mile-an-hour wind.
“Then why did you apply?” JT takes a sip of red wine and relaxes into his you’re-being-unreasonable smile.
“You asked me to apply.”
“And the problem is?”
“I thought I’d have a better chance of marrying the lead singer of Jelly Bean Queen than getting accepted into MIT.”
His brows bunch together. “I don’t know about this singer, but I do know you can go to the best school for computer science. You’ll be fine. It’s natural to be nervous.” JT reads the cell phone he’s hidden to the left of his plate.
But I won’t go. He’s dead wrong.
I chew the inside of my mouth and beg him with my eyes to understand. “You know I want to go to college. But I can live at home. Technology is crazy-good these days. I can attend classes online for a computer science degree and never leave home.”
He doesn’t even look up.
He types something into his Blackberry.
I squirm in my seat, willing him to look at me. “It’s a dangerous world. That’s why I’ve been homeschooled. Right? I’ll be safer right here. And won’t you miss me?” I fight the urge to jump out of my seat, grab the cell phone, and fling it across the room.
“Um hmm.” JT listens to a voicemail.
“You do know MIT is made up of programmers who build sexbots.”
He doesn’t make eye contact and I study how much gray streaks his hair. It’s something I haven’t noticed before today.
“They test the sexbots on freshmen virgins.”
He looks up with the phone at his ear, his attention caught. “What about freshmen?”
“Nothing.” He’s not listening because he thinks this deal is sealed. An elderly man sits at the next table in my direct line of vision and stares as only the elderly and babies can, bold and curious. Unblinking and unapologetic. I don’t want to feel sorry for him at his table for one, napkin tucked into his shirt collar and leaning forward in eavesdrop mode.
Uncle JT and I eat at Alessandro’s Restaurant every Sunday night. It isn’t the type where wait staff surround the table and deliver birthday wishes in a rowdy sing-along. Here, the waiters deliver $500 bottles of wine to customers with too much money and too little sense.
I’m not legal for the wine, but I’m old enough to be embarrassed over the cake.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he says without looking at me and moves his thumbs over the Blackberry keypad.
“Excuse me. Going to the ladies room.” My voice is steady, but I’m trying hard not to cry. He makes eye contact for a second, nods, and returns to his phone. I swear that phone’s my nemesis.
The restrooms are at the far end of the restaurant. I ignore the waiter watching me weave around tables. I thought JT understood what a big deal the college thing is going to be. I try to be normal, but we both know I’m not and never will be. He’s accepted that for all these years, so why is he pushing me out now? Living at home is the most logical solution. It’s not like I get in his way.
I’m lost in thought when I round the corner to the restrooms and plow into a body. A phone crashes to the tile floor and a guy takes a step back.
“Oh, so sorry.” I grimace. “Really sorry.” I bend to grab the phone that’s slid across the corridor and now sits at the door of the men’s room. I also see a large envelope on the floor.
The restroom door opens and a person barrels into my bent head, knocking me flat on my behind. The sensation of being pushed sends me into a paralysis. An explosion of irrational fear invades every cell of my body, and I recognize it immediately. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. I squeeze my eyes shut to block out anything but the mantra.
Hey, there’s a kid in there. We’ve got a survivor. She’s alive. The voices in my head are loud, but I mentally chant harder. I’ll be okay.
I’m sprawled against the wall with the stranger’s cell phone in one hand. Hands grab my arms to help me stand. I jerk my arms from them in a quick, panicky motion I can’t control.
“Please don’t touch me.” I take a deep breath. “I’m fine.”
I get up off the floor with one hand on the wall and feel the heat on my face, the temperature of hot asphalt.
The older man who exited the men’s room gives me the she-must-be-on-drugs look, mumbles apologies, and walks off. The younger guy stands unmoving, staring at me.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“You should watch where you’re lurking. That’s dangerous. To stand there.” I try to slow my breathing and refuse to take his extended hand. My back hits the wall and I run out of space.
“Lurk?” One corner of his mouth tips up.
I take in his smile and narrow my eyes. He thinks it’s funny? My heart is still racing from his touch.
“Yeah, lurk.” I take a step and he grabs my arm.
“Can I have my phone?” The other corner of his mouth joins the party and it’s a full-on grin. Dimples appear and they’re not the cute, little innocent boy kind.
My stomach flutters like a moth caught in a jar.
His gaze sweeps down my body. Those twin dimples of danger match eyes that I swear can see through my clothes.
And I almost melt into a pool of girly goo. Jerk. Totally gorgeous-beyond-words jerk.
I shove the phone into his hand, and he releases me. When I make it into the restroom, I press my hands against the counter and stare at myself in the gold, gilded mirror. I expect my tan face to look pale, shaken, freaked. But I look normal. The outside me never matches the inside me. I look confident, from my smooth dark hair to my perfect red dress.
Good. Running into someone doesn’t qualify as an earth-shattering and traumatic experience. Get a grip.
A few minutes later, I return to the table and JT is still working on his phone. When he does lift his gaze, he motions at the cake in front of me.
There’s no way I’m telling him what just happened because he’ll tell me it’s the very reason I should go away to college. He’ll argue that I need to be socializing with other people.
The waiter appears out of nowhere to light the candles. “Happy Birthday,” he says, giving me this look he must think is sexy before he disappears to wait on the next table. I suppress an eye-roll.
Eighteen candles on a small cake make for quite a spectacle. Not as suitable as a bonfire for letter burning but it would do the job.
I lean forward, ready to blow out the candles.
“Make a wish,” JT demands in his no-argument CEO voice.
I shift uneasily. “No wish.” I’ve already told him my wish—a safe life where I continue going to school at home.
“Malerie Toombs.” He makes a tsking sound and reaches over to pull the cake back. “You will not blow those out without a wish. Don’t you want your wish to come true?”