AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shrugged, looking at me with a worried expression. “I don’t know, just…rumors. I told you about the breaking and entering over the summer, right? I also heard he got caught up on a kidnapping charge. And there was something about drugs, too…”
I cringed internally, trying to keep my eyes from straying toward my room. I prayed he couldn’t hear us in there.
Instead, I raised my eyebrows at her. “Breaking and entering, kidnapping, and drugs? That seems like a lot. Would they even let him go to school here?”
Her worried expression turned serious. “Girl, with the kind of money the people here have, they can buy their way out of anything. Remind me to tell you about Carey, from English lit sometime. She got caught in a prostitution scandal a year or two back. But her dad’s a senator. You can bet that’s not on her record.”
I blinked. Holy hell, this place really was a different world.
“Anyway,” I said, trying to get the conversation back on track. “I’m fine, I promise. Micah didn’t kidnap me or try to give me drugs, and I’m gonna go to bed.“ I gave her a quick smile. “Thanks, though, for checking up on me.”
She smiled back. “Of course. I’ll see ya in the morning.”
I waited until she was in her own room with the door firmly closed before I slipped back into mine. Micah was where I’d left him, looking sinful against my navy blue comforter.
His eyes sparkled as I took up my previous position against the window. “I didn’t know that about Carey. Very interesting.” He grinned. “Didn’t know that about myself either.”
I groaned, then eyed him. “That’s a hell of a lot of rumors for one person to have.”
“It’s the scar,” he said, doing his best to look innocent, despite the fact that nothing about him was made to look innocent. “People like to make up stories about how I got it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Any truth to any of the stories?”
He didn’t answer right away, rising from the bed instead and slowly crossing the small space toward me. The room seemed to grow smaller the closer he came, and I felt like I was frozen in place, unable to convince my limbs to move.
He stopped right in front of me, and I had to tilt my head up to meet his gaze.
“Maybe,” he said in a low voice, the teasing gleam still sparkling in his eye, though his smile had vanished and I could no longer tell if he was joking.
My breath caught as he leaned in closer, and again I flashed back to the supply closet in the art studio. Only this time, there were no shelves behind me, no supplies, no other reason for him to be leaning in and invading my space. One hand rose from his side, reaching toward me, and again I felt that live-wire connection to him, the same as I’d felt when we were together out by the lake, that despite anything else, we understood each other.
I stopped breathing entirely as his fingers made contact with my waist, tracing the sliver of bare skin between my jeans and Frank’s ruined halter top. All my nerve endings were on fire, and heat flooded through me as he ran his fingertips back and forth, teasing me. His eyes, when they locked with mine, were dark and unfathomable.
He moved forward another inch, and I could feel the heat of his skin, so close to mine. Then his other hand came up as well, moving around the back of my head. My heart stuttered in my chest.
A click sounded loud in the quiet space, and in one swift movement he pushed and the window swung open behind me, the cool air shocking my system as it flowed into the room. But before I could react, he closed that last inch and slid his lips over mine, the lightest contact. It wasn’t a kiss, only the barest brush of lips. Then he was moving to the side, swinging himself over the sill, and—what the fuck?—out the window. His taunting grin was the last thing I saw before he was gone, swallowed by the night.
I stood there gaping at the window for a long moment, still feeling the heat on my lips from that almost kiss. It was only later, after I’d shut the window and was curled under my navy comforter that, inexplicably, smelled like Micah—like fresh air after a summer rain—that it occurred to me to wonder exactly what kind of high school student carries lock picking equipment in his pocket and chooses to scale buildings rather than use doors.
14
The following week was strange. It seemed as if some kind of switch had been flipped, and any friendships I thought might have been forming between myself and the guys disappeared like puffs of smoke.
Despite whatever had happened between Micah and me in my room—it may not have been a kiss, but it was definitely a something—he surprised me by completely ignoring me in art class on Monday morning. He didn’t even respond to my greeting.
Devan, ever the model lab partner, was perfectly polite in chemistry, but there were no bad science jokes, no hidden candy, none of the playful banter I’d grown used to. He didn’t say a word beyond what was necessary, and throughout the whole period I felt Garrett’s glaring eyes burning a hole in my back. I supposed that part wasn’t too unusual, but there was none of the softness I sometimes caught from him out of the corner of my eye.
But all three of them disappeared the second class was over. There was no mention of my stab wound, or my burn scars, or the drive home, or anything. If it hadn’t been for the bandage still chafing at my arm under my sleeve, I would’ve thought I’d imagined the whole thing.
I knew of one person who wouldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened, even if he didn’t acknowledge my role in it all, and I was decidedly nervous for European history on Wednesday, where I would have to sit next to Drew. But to my immense surprise, he wasn’t in class, and it was only then I realized I hadn’t actually seen him at all since the weekend.
Shit, I hadn’t hurt him that badly. It’d been a broken finger, at most. What the hell was going on?
For the length of a class, I let myself imagine how amazing it would be if he’d dropped out and I never had to see him again. My relief was short-lived, however, because the next day he turned up at lunch with Julie. But, despite the fact that I was so tightly wound Nora asked me twice what was wrong, Drew didn’t say a word about the incident. He smiled and joked as usual, and when the girls exclaimed over his splinted hand, he blew it off as a “soccer accident.” He was so convincing, only the menacing glance he cast my way helped remind me it hadn’t actually been a soccer accident. I almost laughed. It was no bear attack, but it was still pretty much as Devan had predicted.
Though Drew didn’t say anything about me specifically, the looks he gave me when the others weren’t watching served as a reminder that I was far from off the hook, and I grew even tenser in his presence.
It was another reason for me to keep my head down though, and I did.
