AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Startled, I snap my head around to see Mathias leaning against his truck with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Sorry about last night.”
“Humph.” I pull the duffel tighter over my shoulder. My throat is so tight right now, I don’t know what to do. I know my cheeks are burning, and unfortunately, I didn’t get the luscious, toasty-brown skin of my cousins, thanks to my mom’s extremely light skin. So, he can clearly see my cheeks burning with anger and embarrassment.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not,” I mutter, ducking my head, going over to my car that he’s blocked in. That is, unless I want to ruin the beautiful flower beds I have bordering the house. I’ve been keeping them up just like his gran had them.
“I am, though.” He cuts me off just as I reach the door of my car.
“Umm, don’t be.” I press my lips together in a smile, trying to convey despite my hurt that it’s no big deal. Because, really, should it be?He’s not yours, screams my mind. It’s the constant reminder I’ve given myself from the moment I saw that ring.
He looksdown somberly at the beautiful sapphire that seems to have more than a dozen diamonds surrounding it.
“What’s that?” I ask, sitting quietly beside him. He’s quiet for a long time, just looking at it, the muscle ticking in his jaw. Finally, he cuts his eyes over to me. They are so cold for a moment, I edge back a little. He looks as if he hates me. Then he squeezes his eyes closed really hard. When he looks back at me, the hate is gone but sadness, so much sadness, replaces it.
“My mother’s engagement ring. It was my grandmother’s before her and her mother’s and so on until it can be traced back to the Portuguese aristocracy.” He sounds almost wistful, and he gazes at the ring sitting on the dark velvet of the antique box.
“Why do you have it?” I almost regret drawing his attention back to me. It’s like the ring is a talisman.
“I’m supposed to give it to the girl I love.” He snaps the lid closed with a cold finality, then tucks it into the dinner jacket he was wearing before he came over to shower and change.
It has been three weeks since he let me stay here at his gran’s house. He enrolled me in the same elite private school he’d gone to: Shelby Academy. There are like five Black kids and maybe a dozen total nonwhite. Money is what rules, and if you’re there, then you have it, no questions asked. There has never been a Love ever admitted to the school, but people just assume since I’m from out of state that the name is a coincidence, and I don’t correct them. There’s a kid, oddly named, Nebraska Soaring-Hawk, who looks at me oddly from time to, but he never says anything.
After a week or so, my life eased into normalcy. Everything seems fine. I mostly go to school, study, and keep a low profile. Mathias comes by every day. Sometimes he cooks; sometimes I do. We eat, hang out, and talk about everything going on in our lives and around the world, or he plays video games, teaching me new moves and cheat codes. He’s never gotten mad until tonight.
I swallow any questions I have. Curling my hands into my pocket, I look away from him. Worry and recrimination slide over me with unwelcome familiarity. I never should have trusted it. Since my daddy died, I realized way too quickly that I can wear out my welcome. People are cool till the money runs out or they have no use for you. Mathias is cool and all, but he’s a grown man with plans of his own. I knew sooner or later, he was going to realize I don’t fit into any of them.
He's about to start law school, and I know he has this humongous ring—
“I can already see your mind working overtime.” His dry tone cuts into my thoughts.
My head snaps around, snagging on the molten silver gaze I’m still not used to. I keep seeming to get lost in its depths.
“Sorry?” I press back in the corner, needing to create some distance even though I’m the one who sat beside him.
“What’s got you ready to pack and leave for the fiftieth time?” Sighing, he stands, buttoning his jacket. He looks so classy in the navy blazer, tan slacks, and crisp white shirt. He looks the part of the scion of a billion-dollar sugar fortune. Which is why he’s right. I am looking to get out of his hair before he realizes the huge mistake he’s made.
“I’m not trying to leave for the fiftieth time.” Standing to face him, I rock back on the balls of my feet.
“But you are thinking about leaving?” A shadow falls over his eyes. “We promised no secrets, no lies.” His mouth sets in a grim line. His gaze strips away all pretense as it bores into me, daring me to lie, daring me to say I want to leave him.
“You have your own life to think about. You’re doing all this stuff for me.” I wave crazily at the space. “You can’t keep it up. Running back and forth trying to take care of stuff for me, it’s—it’s not right, okay? You don’t owe me anything.” I’m trying to get him to understand I won’t be mad if he changes his mind, that I have options. Before he can deny it or say anything about the car incident, I hurry to add, “I can go to the Loves.”
Immediately I regret saying it. Real anger lights his features. He stares at me for a full minute and nods. “If that’s what you want to do.” Color rises high on his cheeks.
I swallow back the knot in my throat. I wasn’t thinking. He said yes so quick, it’s like I backed us both in a corner.
My tummy starts to ache. I nod, not knowing what else to do. “Okay, umm…”
“What about school? You’re already enrolled up here,” he asks, using the term to describe the Shelby side when the Love side in on the southern portion of the county and referred to asdown there.
“I can still go. I can say my daddy enrolled me.” Mathias paid my tuition two years in advance. “I still can come hang out if you let me know when you’re in town visiting from law school.”
He looks at me as if I am naïve. “The only reason I’m here is because you’re here. You’re out of your mind if you think they will ever let you see me.” His low, thunderous words drop in the room between us.
“A twenty-three-year-old man spending time with a sixteen-year-old kid ain’t gone over well down here since the seventies.” Looking down, he sighs so deeply, his whole body moves with it. “Look, I know I was acting fucked up a little while ago. It’s this dinner I’ve got to go to tonight, the one I told you about. I know what’s expected of me. I was all set to do it the night I hit you with my car. I don’t even know what’s making me feel so weird about it now.” He looks at me for a long time, then shakes his head. “I’ve been promised to marry this girl, Natalie Spencer, since I was your age. That’s where I’m going after I leave here tonight. And—and I don’t know, darling…” He looks out the picture window he tells me to keep closed unless he’s here.
“You don’t know what, Thi?” Calling him the little nickname I gave him the third day makes him smile.
