AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Every part of me is stunned.
I will never understand adults.
The backstage area is a riot of noise. There are dozens of people clustered in the wings. The more steps I take, the quieter it grows, until it feels as though literally everyone’s staring at me. There’s a wolf whistle or two, and someone shouts, “Are you off to bed?”
I hook my gaze onto Finlay, who’s quietly strumming an acoustic guitar in the corner, the noise inaudible but his lips shaped by lyrics I can’t make out. His head lifts when the silence reaches him, and he stares at me in utter astonishment.
I’m momentarily thrown because his bright eyes have been underlined by black eyeliner, and that… that does things to me.
My stomach flutters as we both stare at each other. He doesn’t really stop staring, his gaze traveling up and down my body like I’m some sort of vision.
I try to clamp down on my smug sense of victory. I haven’t evenperformedyet and already I’m making them lose their damn minds.
Luke and Rory are too busy gazing up at the ceiling near the thick stage curtains, pointing at the complex array of bars and rope. I glance up, trying to figure out what they’ve rigged. Their idiocy means all my planning could backfire horrifically.
“We can’t do it,” Rory mutters, rubbing the back of his head. “There’s no way we can take it down without anyone noticing.”
“No one will notice.” But even Luke seems skeptical at this. “So just do not use it, then.”
I cough slightly, and both of them turn to me, jumping as though they’ve been caught. Two pairs of eyes meet my gaze and then slowly, very slowly, rake my body.
Rory swallows, his eyes settling on my breasts. “What the hell are you wearing?”
“That is Freya’s,” Luke says in an instant, surprising me. His lips are quirked in confusion.
“How do you know?”
“Because I bought it for her.” His lips are still tilted, like this is far too amusing. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel all that funny to me — a prince buying a silken robe forFreya, and I’m trudging around in it like the second-hand cast-off it is. But then Luke mutters, slightly dazed, “It looks better on you.”
He stands closer to me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back. Luke is so tall, so much taller than anyone else in school. His hand gently skims the silken fabric running down my arm, and I hold back a shiver. Beside him, Rory’s eyes narrow into slits, but I’m too distracted… Luke is so very distracting…
It would be so simple to take one step closer to Luke, to slide my hands up his chest and wind them around his neck. It would be so simple to lower his mouth onto mine and kiss the hell out of him in front of the entire school.
And maybe it would be simple. Maybe in another universe it happens.
But in this universe, while our eyes are connected, Baxter’s voice says, “Everyone who isn’t performing tonight, please take your seats. The rest of you, the show is about to begin.”
