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He was only cruel out of necessity. He didn’t take joy in causing pain when it wasn’t justified…
Or perhaps he did, sometimes. Zayde was so complicated, and he’d been through so much. He’d experienced loyalty from his closest friends, but love?
Sometimes I felt like we were the only two people in the world. How could anyone else feel the way we did?
“Fallon,” he murmured, pulling me down to him.
“Zayde…” My voice was so quiet because I didn’t want to break the mood, but there was a niggling thought at the back of my mind that had been there ever since Joe and Tim had mentioned their weekend plans.
“Yeah?” His hand splayed across the small of my back, a hot brand against my skin.
It was hard to concentrate with the way he was touching me. “Um. Can you promise me something?”
His fingers stilled, and his gaze met mine again. “What?”
“Tonight. I…I know it’s Halloween, and I know that something’s going to happen between you and your friends and my brothers and their friends.” I wasn’t stupid; I could read between the lines, and even if Tim and Joseph hadn’t said anything, I knew that Halloween would be a night that they’d all want to take advantage of. “Please…please, can you promise me one thing?”
His gaze shuttered, making it impossible to read him. It was difficult to read him most of the time, unless he let his guard down, which he so rarely did. On the rare occasions it happened, I felt so privileged because he showed himself to so few people, and somehow, I was one of them.
“What?” he eventually said.
“Promise me that whatever happens tonight, you won’t hurt my brothers.Please.”
His gaze softened almost imperceptibly, but I was good at reading him now, and I caught it.
“I’ll do my best to stay away from them, but I can’t promise the same for the others. And they might not stay away from me.”
I reached out and grasped his free hand. “I know, and I don’t expect you to speak for anyone else. But thank you. It…it means a lot to me.”
He didn’t reply, but his fingers stroked across my lower back, and that was enough for me.
* * *
After Zayde had dropped me off at the entrance to the pub car park, I saw Hailey getting out of her car. She eyed me with curiosity as she locked the doors. “Was that you that just turned up on a motorbike?”
Oh, shit. Lowering my gaze, I bit down on my lip. What should I tell her? Eventually, I gave a small shrug. “If I say yes, will you promise not to tell anyone?”
Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open as the realisation hit. “Wait, was thatZayde Lowry’smotorbike? Fallon!”
I swallowed hard, staring at her, pleading with my gaze. “You can’t tell anyone, Hails. Please.”
She immediately rounded the car, coming up next to me and placing a hand on my arm. “I won’t, but you’d better make sure your brothers don’t find out. They’ll kill you.”
“I know,” I whispered, and she sighed, slipping her arm around me as she steered us towards the pub.
“I promise I won’t say anything, but I hope you know what you’re doing.” Thankfully, she seemed to sense that I couldn’t explain myself…wouldn’t even know where to start, and she changed the subject. “I have some news that might cheer you up. I finally have a buyer for my grandmother’s house.”
I shot her a grateful look, latching on to the new subject with relief. “Tell me everything.”
FIVE
“Perfect timing.” Tim grinned at me from his spot on the reclining leather sofa in our theatre room. The scent of hot, buttery popcorn hung in the air, making my stomach rumble, even though it hadn’t been long since my lunch with Hailey.
I flopped down next to him, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl between us. Tim leaned forwards, pouring us glasses of Coke from the bottle that was sitting on the coffee table. When he was finished, he slid one of the glasses in front of me and pointed the TV remote at the huge flat-screen TV that took up most of one wall. The opening credits ofHocus Pocusbegan playing, and I settled back in my seat with a smile. I was so glad I’d decided to come back home this weekend. Even though it meant that I’d have to see my dad at some point—unless I somehow managed to get lucky—I’d managed to spend the whole of last night with the boy I loved, and now I got to spend time with my other favourite person. And I still had tomorrow to look forward to—a day with both of my brothers.
“Hey, Fal. I was thinking.” Tim helped himself to the popcorn, crunching for a minute before he continued. “How would you feel about me coming to pick you up from school at Christmas instead of you getting the train? We could go to Bath for the Christmas markets.”
“IloveBath. That would be great.”
