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However, Ms. Wright asking questions and Hendricks looking in on Marie posed big problems. In addition, Marie probably didn’t have the grades to get into an early college program. She didn’t have a license, nothing to help her.
“I can’t make any promises,” Nathan said carefully. “But I can possibly look in on what’s happening at school and see if I can get them to stop. But even Sang will be going back tomorrow on Monday.”
“I don’t want to have to go to class,” Marie said. “That’s where they call me down to the office.”
Nathan sighed and nodded. “Show up, but don’t go to class. Actually, let us drive you in the morning. I’ll talk to Kota.” He ordered pizza, and he picked up his phone. “I’ll text him. He’s going to want to know about this.”
Danielle hovered a little too close, but when Nathan moved away, she leaned over the counter. “I thought he was mad at you. After the fight... Did you and Sang break up?”
“She’s going out with—” He suddenly realized a huge problem. At school, she went out with Silas. For a while, Danielle knew Sang slept at his house, but this week she was at Kota’s. He slowly lowered the phone and looked at her. “It’s complicated,” he said.
She smirked and shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it. That’s my favor to you. For getting me and Marie out of school.”
Uh oh. “Hang on a sec, back up. What are you doing for me?”
She shook her head, and her eyes widened to try to appear innocent. “Nothing. Haven’t done anything yet.”
He squinted at her. Danielle’s modus operandi was sometimes to rile him up about something she might be doing, just to get him agitated, when she really didn’t do anything.
Until she did. It was tricky with her.
He sent a quick message to Kota. He was probably watching and waiting like Silas, just at his own house. He made that assumption and instead of texting him what she’d said, he kept it simple.
Nathan: What do I tell them?
Kota’s message came back after a minute.
Kota: Buy time. Offer ride to school.
Nathan nodded and put the phone away in his pocket. “Kota doesn’t mind giving a ride,” he said to them. He looked at the both of them. “The rest we’ll figure out. It’s not like you just sign a form and get out of school.”
“Probably why Sang still has to show up, right?” Danielle asked.
Nathan shrugged, not ready to give them a lot of information. “You said something about knowing Sang’s real mother.”
“That’s what you get when she’s out,” Danielle said. “After Marie and I are out of school so we don’t have to go back.”
Now he understood why Marie was reluctant and Danielle’s reason for pushing her. It didn’t seem like she’d do it out of her own good heart. Marie would have never come up with this on her own. “You already told us about it, remember?” Nathan asked Marie. “After your visit with your mother.”
“But now she has more information,” Danielle said.
Nathan looked over at Marie, and she seemed to reluctantly nod.
Nathan focused on her. “What information are you leveraging for her?” He nodded toward Danielle. “You’re asking a lot.”
She glanced once at Danielle and with a twitch to her lip, lowering into a heavy frown, she spoke. “Because now I know her real name.”
Rise and Shine
Sang
I spent the rest of the day at Victor’s. I didn’t have to. I could have gone with North when he left for his shift at the diner or called Dr. Green or someone else. But Luke and Gabriel were happy to lay low at Victor’s for the night, so I joined them.
There was school tomorrow, anyway.
Victor’s bed was big enough for all of us with room to spare. During the night, people around me got up, and then someone returned. Part of me was aware of this but quickly forgot about it. I was getting used to their coming and going. They’d wake me if they needed me to do something.
Sometime near dawn, my eyes fluttered open. It had been a dreamless sleep.
I sensed the body next to me. My pillow and my skin smelled heavily of the scents from the bath bombs the night before, so I didn’t know who was next to me. I just saw the shape from the blanket over a relaxed body. With my eyes partially opened, I just knew it was one of them.
I rolled over, burying my head into whoever’s back it was. It was partial warmth stealing, partial just wanting to be close. I realized he was sleeping on top of the blanket with another blanket thrown over on top of himself. A little odd. He’d kept a good distance on the bed. Was he trying not to wake me? What time did the switch out happen?
I eased myself out slowly from under the blanket to get under the one he had. My face pressed to a soft cotton shirt. My legs cupped into his.
He breathed in heavily, sniffed and turned. I had my eyes closed and shifted enough for him to move over. He paused. I was still not entirely awake, and while my eyes tried to flutter to see a face, I could barely lift them. They were too heavy. I was still tired.
For some reason, I thought it was Victor. My brain was registering his dark eyes and wavy hair.
I gave up on trying to focus, relaxing. I probably just woke him, but I didn’t want to really get up yet either, so I just dove back into his chest once he'd turned. An arm slowly came down around me. A head turned into me, nuzzling my hair.
Returning to Ashley Waters wasn’t appealing, and even though I wasn’t going to go to classes, I didn’t want to go. Staying in bed, taking another long bath, or perhaps going with Nathan on the walk we meant to do, or anything else. I preferred anything else.
However, Luke mentioned getting to the bottom of whatever Hendricks was up to would help us in general. It may help the situation with Nathan and Kota to find a place where I could live where we wouldn’t have to worry about parents or anyone else seeing something they shouldn’t.
But something else was rousing me as well. Moments ago, when my head was pressed to the pillow, my nose took in all those scents from the bath bombs and also general Victor and his house that had its own scents, and it was all mixing together. Now with my head buried into someone cuddling me, I breathed in and out slowly, and all those scents remained, heavy, and distorting other smells.
But Victor’s was...weak. Weaker than it should be if this was him.
One scent crept into my senses, but the mix made it more difficult to isolate and figure out.
Until I realized it was soap. Spring soap.
I was suddenly very awake, my eyes flying open, but my head was pressed into a chest. I stiffened, my brain putting together information that didn’t exactly work.
Slowly, very slowly, I picked my head up, just enough to rest my chin against his chest, and fluttered my eyes to take a peek.
I
almost didn’t recognize him. With his eyes closed, without his glasses, Mr. Blackbourne’s face was relaxed, missing all properties of the strict power I’d witnessed in him from the moment we’d met.
His lips held a flicker of the millimeter smile, but a tranquil version that only emphasized a happiness I rarely saw in him.
My heart went into overdrive. I lowered my head so he couldn’t see, but my eyes widened and I couldn’t do anything but stare at his chest. I was suddenly aware of everything. The white cotton shirt he was wearing was pressed to my skin. My legs were against his, feeling something like cotton pajama bottoms.
And I was suddenly terrified, questioning what I was wearing. Memories of stripping down into underwear to jump into the bath came to me. But then I remembered right before bed getting up and putting on shorts and a tank shirt to replace the bra.
Still...
My fingers twitched, pressed against his body near his rib cage.
As moments passed, and he didn’t move and remained curled up next to me, I slowly, ever slowly, relaxed again. His perfection could intimidate me. It was my own ideals that made him seem not even human at times.
But he was Mr. Blackbourne. I had been with him through so much. And he knew things about me, had invited me to do things with him that I’d not even told the other guys about.
Maybe it’s good I didn’t wake up before realizing who he was. I’d have been way too overawed to approach him.
Moments passed with my face pressed into him. His arm was around me, with a hand at my back, holding me to him. On occasion, he lowered his head, his nose pressing against my scalp. His breath warmed my skin.
An alarm went off somewhere nearby, playing gentle guitar notes and birds tweeting in harmony with a melody. It was soft at first, but slowly rose in volume to ease those sleeping to wake.
And ever slowly, Mr. Blackbourne kept near me but twisted around. I eased back, relaxing on my side, still facing him, watching with one eye barely open.
He reached for the phone he’d placed near the bed and picked it up. He slid a finger across the surface of it, placed the phone on his chest and relaxed back on the pillow. He sat up just a little to put an arm over my head above me, looking down at my face.
