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Suddenly, I realized Kota might not know the truth. I stared at the floor, afraid that Gabriel might reveal some hint of we’d been caught kissing or something else. Kota may not be ready for that. I hadn’t been ready…
“Don’t talk like that,” North said, spraying sunscreen into a paper towel and using it to wipe closer to my eyes. The cool spray wetted my skin, and my eyes watered at the strong smell. I wanted to wipe at them, but knew better, as I’d probably get ink and sunscreen in my eyes.
“I can talk how I want, North,” Gabriel said in a deeper tone.
I gritted my teeth. Was everyone grumpy?
“Guys,” Kota said with his eternally patient tone. “Back to Luke. Is he okay? The last time he ran off like this was when we were talking about starting up at the high school and he wasn’t really into the idea. Is he upset with something?”
I turned to look at Gabriel, who was still on his side, facing the wall, but he didn’t say anything. There was a heaviness in the silence, and while I couldn’t confirm his feelings, I could only assume we were thinking the same thing. If Luke was upset about anything, it must have been the recent discovery he, Gabriel and I had made.
Luke was the one who had discovered North had been having secret conversations with someone about me joining the team. He’d found Lily and her team, and had invited Gabriel and I along to find out what they were up to.
Unfortunately, the answer was something we hadn’t expected at all. I wasn’t even sure I understood how their plan would work. To keep the team together, we all needed to stay together. For Lily’s team, that meant she and the four guys on her team got married. They’d fallen in love and lived together in a house in the middle of nowhere without neighbors.
It might not be the only way, but it was their way, and from what we’d heard, the only real way it worked out for the long term. After talking it over with Mr. Blackbourne later, we learned other teams had tried it, but hadn’t been successful.
Lily kept in contact with me, but I didn’t know what to say to her. I wasn’t really sure I had processed the idea. Gabriel and I talked about it on occasion, but we hadn’t broken off to talk to anyone else yet. I think we were still trying to get used to the idea, and what it meant to us. Luke hadn’t talked too much about the encounter since it happened, although he was always nice to me when we did talk, like today.
The silence continued. Kota went on. “If we don’t know, maybe one of us should ask him.”
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me right now,” Gabriel said. “I’ve tried a couple of times, but whatever he’s got bottled up, he’s keeping to himself.”
“He sure as hell won’t talk to me,” North said and then sighed. “I’ve been pushing at him to get his head together and he’s been fighting back, like how he fights me on everything lately.”
“You may need to back off for a while,” Kota said. “Whatever he’s going through, you don’t want to push him too far.”
The problem was, without North being able to talk to him and Gabriel bowing out, I wasn’t sure who else could get through to him. I didn’t have a chance to talk to anyone personally about where everyone else stood on this. Maybe Victor, although he’d had to spend more time at home in the last week, with an upcoming concert happening for a charity event.
It couldn’t be Kota, and I wasn’t totally sure how the others would talk to him about the issue. It left only one person, and since Luke hadn’t talked to me about it yet, I wasn’t sure he would. “Maybe...I should talk to him,” I said.
North made a last swipe at my face with a dry paper towel. “That might be a good idea.”
“I just worry if it’s a guy problem, that he’s not going to explain it to her,” Kota said. “Or he’s just going to tell her it’s no big deal when it really is. Or maybe it’s some assignment in the Academy he’s not sure about and doesn’t know how to refuse.”
“It’s either her or Mr. Blackbourne,” North said. “Personally, I think she should give it a go first. Mr. Blackbourne’s busy.”
Out there somewhere was a fake Sang in a blond wig, along with another Academy guy, sometimes it was Nathan or Kota, and sometimes it was someone else, running around ahead of Mr. Morris and other teachers, and Mr. Blackbourne followed them for extra protection. This was to keep Mr. Hendricks’s spies busy while Mr. McCoy was scouting a fake Academy school. It was meant to distract them all and allow Mr. Hendricks to feel like he had an advantage over us now.
Mr. Blackbourne had to stay away from the real me and the rest of us, though. We were lucky we hadn’t had any unusual cars or any other activity for the past week. All of the spies were in downtown Charleston with the fake Sang and Mr. Blackbourne.
We couldn’t keep up this charade forever. Tomorrow, I’d be back at school, and so would Mr. Blackbourne.
If we couldn’t subtly draw them out, we’d do it loudly, according to Kota, relaying what Mr. Blackbourne had told him. If this was the subtle part, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about the louder version. I didn’t even know what it really meant, but whenever I heard a door open or a car passing by, my heart raced. Kota watched the street, as did the other guys, and we waited, either for orders as to what to do, or a sign that Mr. Morris or someone else had returned and had given up the chase.
Until then, we had a bit of breathing room, but it was like waiting in the lounge right before you went in to see a doctor, on the edge and uncomfortable.
Kota sighed, sitting back as he touched the corner of his glasses. He corrected one of his sleeves of his sweater, which had fallen around his wrist, and adjusted it back up his arm. His eyes shifted back and forth, probably calculating a plan of some sort. “Sang might be the best one for this, at least for now.”
There didn’t seem to be an alternative. I was pretty sure I knew the reason Luke was so distant. In a way, it was my fault. I was the one caught in the middle. We’d gone out to look for answers, answers North had already sought out, only to find more problems. Problems we weren’t ready to face.
“I can do it,” I said quietly, not totally confident, but not having much choice, either. “Let me get some time with him alone. He might open up.”
Kota smiled a little. “You’re getting more Academy every day.”
“Isn’t she?” North said with a proud spark in his dark eyes.
My cheeks radiated with heat. I wasn’t sure how to respond. It was odd that Kota seemed oblivious to what was going on, and guilt threaded its way into the center of my heart. I wasn’t sure how to talk to him lately. It was odd to know what I knew and not talk to him about it. I didn’t like keeping the secret but the others thought it best to wait a little. Victor especially thought I should wait, and perhaps let them explain it to him instead.
However, they were hesitating and I thought they were waiting for me. They wanted to know how I felt about it. I didn’t really have an answer for them. Could I even start to consider this? What if I tried, and they all didn’t want to? Could I bear to lose any of them at this point?
The other thing on my mind was how I was going to bring up the topic to Luke. I hadn’t really noticed anything wrong with him earlier when we were talking. If he’d been taking off to think, was it wrong? Maybe that was what he needed.
Kota and North were concerned, though, and they’d known him longer. I checked on Gabriel, who appeared to be really asleep now. I thought if I got a chance later, I’d talk to him and get his real opinion. After jumping ahead last time, I was hesitant to be the one trying to help.
North passed me the spray sunscreen. I took my time working on his face, all except a small heart on his cheek, real close to his hair line, which I pretended not to notice. I wasn’t sure if he’d be mad about it later, but I couldn’t bring myself to wash it away.
After I was finished with him, he stood up and stretched. As he lifted his arms up, the black T-shirt he wore shifted, revealing his stomach. My eyes went to the dips and lines in his hips, and I absently stared
, curious about how male hips did that. Mine didn’t look like that.
There was a gentle hand on the top of my head, causing me to pull myself out of my daze and look up. North smirked at me.
My cheeks heated, embarrassed to have been caught staring...down there.
“I’m going back to the diner,” North said, looking at me as he said it, but seeming to be talking to everyone. He held on to his smirk as he did so.
“You should take the rest of the day off,” Kota said. He had turned toward his computer, looking over some files and emails. “We’ve got a lot to do this week, and it might be your only chance.”
“I’m just going to check the schedule,” North said. “I might give Luke a bit of time off.” He released my head but still looked at me. “Maybe you can get him alone this week.”
I nodded. That sounded like a good idea. Maybe he was like Gabriel, and needed time off to figure things out. I’d have to figure out how to approach him. What does Luke like to do when he has time off? “I could take him to the grocery store and get some snacks he likes,” I said. “And maybe a movie night in?”
North had a funny look on his face for a moment, a little pained. Was it the suggestion about letting Luke buy snacks? Did he not want to encourage his junk food habit? I considered it a nice way to get him to relax and then ask him things.
“I guess,” he said. “Whatever you think will work.”
“It’s a great idea,” Kota said. He turned in his chair, looking at me. “If he agrees, you can borrow my car to go.”
“He’ll probably want to take the Jeep instead,” North said with a small smile.
Kota’s lips dipped slightly and he touched the corner of his glasses. “What’s wrong with my car?”
