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He was protecting me? That would have been endearing, if it hadn’t been crazy. “You know, I don’t think I have any social cred for you to damage.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Don’t be so stubborn.”
We were quiet together for a while. Moonlight filtered down between the leaves of ivy, and Lucas was close enough that I could recognize his scent—something that reminded me of cedar and pine, like the woods that surrounded us, as if he were somehow a part of this dark place.
“I’ve kinda messed things up, haven’t I?” Lucas sounded almost as bashful as I felt. “I’m not used to this.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Talking to girls?” Looking the way Lucas did, I doubted that.
However, there was no mistaking his sincerity when he nodded. The devilish glint had faded from his eyes. “I’ve spent a lot of years moving around. Traveling from place to place. Anybody I cared about—it seemed like they were gone too soon. I guess I learned to keep people at a distance.”
“You made me feel like I’d been stupid to trust you.”
“Don’t feel that way. This is my problem. I’d hate for it to be yours.”
My whole life had been spent in a small town, and I’d always thought that made me worse at meeting strangers. But now that Lucas said it, I could see that a peripatetic existence might have the same effect: isolate you, turn your thoughts inward, so that reaching out to others was the hardest thing in the world.
So perhaps his anger was a lot like my shyness. It was a sign that we were each lonely. Maybe we didn’t have to stay lonely too much longer.
Quietly, I said, “Aren’t you tired of running and hiding? I know I am.”
“I don’t run and hide,” Lucas retorted. Then he was silent for a second, considering. “Well, damn.”
“I could be wrong.”
“You’re not.” Lucas watched me for a while longer, and just when I was starting to feel like I’d been too open, he said, “I shouldn’t do this.”
“This?” My heart began to thump a little faster.
Lucas just shook his head and grinned. The devilish look was back. “When it gets complicated later on, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Maybe I’m the complicated one.”
He smiled even more broadly. “I can see it’s going to take us a while to settle this.” I loved it when he smiled at me that way, and I hoped we’d hang out at the gazebo for hours. But at that moment, Lucas cocked his head. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” But then I did hear it: the faraway sound of the school’s front door opening repeatedly and footsteps on the front walk. “They’re coming out to bust the party!”
“Sucks to be Courtney,” Lucas said. “And it gives us a chance to get back inside.”
We ran across the grounds, listening to the sounds of the party being broken up, and gave each other big smiles as we sailed through the front door, home free.
“See you soon,” Lucas whispered as he let my arm go and headed toward his hall. And as I ran back to my own room and my own bed, that one word kept ringing in my ears: soon.
Chapter Four
I REACHED MY ROOM JUST IN TIME TO JUMP under the covers before Patrice walked in, accompanied by Mrs. Bethany. Pale light from the hallway outlined the headmistress, so that all I could see was her silhouette.
“You know why we have rules here, Patrice.” Her voice was soft, but there was no mistaking that she was serious. It was more than a little intimidating, and I wasn’t even the one she was scolding. “You should understand that those rules need to be obeyed. We can’t go running across the countryside at night. People would talk. Students would lose control. The result could be tragedy. Am I clear?”
Patrice nodded, and then the door swung shut. I sat up in bed and whispered, “Was it awful?”
“No, just a mess,” Patrice grumbled as she started stripping off her clothes. We’d been changing in the same room together for more than a week now, but I was still kind of embarrassed by it. She wasn’t. Even as she yanked off her shirt, she was staring at me. “You’re still dressed!”
“Um, yeah.”
“I thought you left the party early.”
