Earthbound e-1 Page 5

  Then, abruptly, she straightens, and looks at me and smiles. Big.

  I like Reese; I really do. But she tries so hard. Too hard, I guess. Jay takes everything more naturally, and it’s easy to sit and joke when it’s just him and me. Or even all three of us. When I’m alone with Reese, it takes effort.

  “Dinner’ll be ready in about ten minutes,” she says cheerily. “I made lasagna.”

  I grin and she interprets it as excitement for the lasagna—which is understandable. It’s great lasagna! But really I’m laughing at her use of the word made. Because in my opinion, the guy at the deli made the lasagna. All Reese can take credit for is slipping it into the oven and setting the timer.

  That might be baking, but it’s definitely not making. When Mom made lasagna, she’d spend hours rolling fresh noodles and crushing tomatoes and chopping oregano. Nothing came from a pouch or a can or a deli; for Mom, food was art. Reese’s lasagna is different—just like everything else in my new life. So different that it doesn’t seem entirely real sometimes. There are days when my life here feels like I’m at an exotic summer camp and after a few more candlelit meals and nights under my silky down comforter, I’ll go home and my parents will be waiting back in middle-class Michigan.

  Other days it feels so different that the fact that my old life is gone seems all the more real.

  And depressing.

  Luckily, most days are somewhere in the middle.

  “My favorite,” I blurt at last.

  Reese plays with the edge of her untucked blouse as her mind churns almost visibly. She’s trying to think of something else to say.

  I avoid the tension by looking out the window at the frothy Piscataqua River and almost choke in surprise, my heartbeat immediately back up to full speed. “You know what, Reese? I’m kinda hot. I’m going to go outside for a little bit.”

  I hope I sounded sufficiently casual as I squeeze past her and make it halfway down the stairs before she can respond, my leg throbbing as I nearly run.

  “Dinner in ten,” she yells after me. “You need to eat!”

  But I barely hear her.

  I burst out the back door, my eyes scanning, searching. Please don’t let me be too late, I mentally beg.

  But I’m not.

  He’s still there. Crouched on the riverbank.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  He doesn’t seem to take any notice of me as I walk up, blinking furiously and trying to make sure I actually see him. That he’s real.

  But as usual, there’s no flickering, no glowing. Not like the woman by the realty office or the triangle at the house. Just … him. Real and solid. I’m both relieved by and afraid of that.

  The jacket and hat are gone, but he hasn’t exactly replaced them with jeans and a polo. He’s wearing a linen shirt tucked loosely into brown canvas breeches and his feet are bare, toes half buried in the rocky sand. I glance around at the ground next to him and don’t see any shoes. But then, if he was crazy enough to come to my house uninvited and unannounced two days in a row, maybe he walks around barefoot, too.

  In March.

  As I watch, the air frozen in my lungs—is my heart even beating?—he lifts a hand and tucks a strand of that silken hair behind his ear. Then he bends forward, the linen straining across his shoulders, and picks up a small rock. With a leisurely motion he swings his arm around and releases the stone to go skipping over the face of the river.

  The stillness is gone.

  A hot fountain of anger and need and want and fury bubbles up in my stomach and as I cover the distance between us, I’m not sure which are stronger—the feelings holding me back or the ones propelling me forward.

  Then I’m there. Beside him.

  He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t give any indication that he knows I’m standing here at all.

  It just makes me angrier.

  “I saw you,” I say, just loud enough for him to hear—I don’t want to draw anyone’s attention, especially Reese’s. “Yesterday. Today, I mean. Two in the morning.”

  I wait for him to explain, to defend himself. To lie even. But he says nothing.

  “And then on Park Street too. I don’t like that you’re following me and I want you to stop.” My teeth nearly clamp down on the lie I didn’t know was a lie until it came out of my mouth.

  But at least I got it out. Benson would be proud.

  Still the guy says nothing. Just reaches for another stone and lets it fly, like the first one.

  “I’m serious,” I say.

  I’m not.

  “I want you to leave me alone.”

  I want you to talk to me.

  He’s still. Still and silent.

  “Hey!” I snap, folding my arms across my chest. “Are you even listening to me?”

  He reaches for another rock and I move in front of him to block his throw.

  “You can’t just—” I look down at his face and my words cut off.

  It’s the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen.

  Leaf-green eyes look up at me with a calm as deep as the waters of Lake Michigan. His jaw is angular, but the curve of his mouth softens the lines and his sooty lashes do the rest. As I drink him in, a strand of golden hair slips loose from behind his ear and casts a dark shadow across his cheek. Air hisses through my lips in a gasp, and though I’m trying to form words, my mouth doesn’t obey.

  As if sensing that he’s the source of my distress, he looks away, back over the water, and I can move again.

  “I beg your forgiveness,” he says, and his voice is deep, but soft. Dark chocolate. “I approached you badly. Botched it all up.” His words sound a little off—accented maybe, but not with any lilt I can place.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but an instant apology wasn’t it. Excuses, denials, that’s what I was ready for. I’m stunned by his admission and, for a moment, stand with my mouth slightly open.

  “I ought to have introduced myself in the traditional way.” His eyes meet mine again and I can’t look away.

  “Yeah, that would have been better than standing outside my kitchen at two in the morning,” I force myself to say.

  “I frightened you.”

  Again the bluntness. I want to deny it—to insist I wasn’t afraid at all. But I was. Terrified and exhilarated in equal measure.

  “But I am not the one whom you should fear.”

  I study him. There’s … something. Something familiar, now that I see him up close. “Do I … do I know you?”

  He grins and I have to take a step back as he pushes to his feet, the deep V of his loose shirt falling forward, and I glimpse well-defined abs. I’m not the kind of girl who goes for muscles and tans and all that—brains over brawn for me—but I find it impossible to avert my gaze. It’s as though this body was made explicitly for my adoration. As he straightens, his shirt falls flat against his chest once more. My eyes travel upward.

  And upward.

  I’m not short. I’m five eight. But this guy is a good six inches taller than me, and he stretches his lanky arms above his head in a leisurely gesture. “No,” he says, and his eyes sparkle with some kind of mischief. “But you will.”

  And then we stand.

  And stare.

  At each other.

  This isn’t me; tongue-twisted over some guy, drooling over a granite physique. It makes me feel right and wrong at once and by turns until I want to walk out of my skin to get away from the contradiction.

  “I’m Tavia,” I say, thrusting my hand out. I have to do something. The tension is killing me and I can’t figure out what I want. What I don’t want.

  They seem to be the same thing.

  He looks at my hand but ignores it. “I know who you are.”

  Of course he does. I wait.

  And wait.

  Is he going to make me ask?

  “We should talk,” he says as he stoops to grab a coat from the sand, then slips his lean arms into it. “I have things to show you and our time is short.”
>
  “I don’t know your name,” I blurt.

  He smiles all the way now, showing broad teeth and tiny crinkles on each side of his eyes. “You’re beautiful, you know that?” My legs shake as he lifts his hand to my face, his fingers just a hair’s breadth from my cheek. “I like you this way,” he whispers. I close my eyes, waiting for the touch to land.

  It doesn’t.

  After a few seconds I open my eyes, embarrassed. But he’s not looking at me. He’s turned half away and his eyebrows are folded low.

  “Why are you doing this?” I choke. “I don’t understand any of it.”

  “I wish I could explain everything right now, but it will take time. You must trust me. I know I’ve done nothing to deserve it,” he adds before I can argue. “But please, please trust me.”

  My head is nodding even as I bite my lip, letting go when my teeth touch the sore, cracked skin. Stupid ocean air. It gives me a moment of clarity and I fight the woozy, agreeable feeling that fills my head. “No offense, but why should I trust you?” I snap. “You won’t tell me anything and you keep running off. I need you to talk to me.”

  “Next time,” he says, a touch of promise in his voice. “You know I cannot linger tonight. A promise,” he adds. “I shall bring something to help you understand next we meet. Agreed?”

  “You can’t come here again,” I warn. “Not like this. You’ll get us both in trouble.”

  He nods soberly, almost as if he expected that. “Don’t look for me. I’ll find you.”

  It appears that’s the best I’m going to get. He’s right—he can’t stay. Not now. “Okay,” I concede. My whole body trembles as I say it. I’m afraid of what I’ve just agreed to.

  He turns and his long coat billows out for just a second, falling back around his legs with a whisper. “Be safe,” he says. I think he says it. But it’s so quiet I might have imagined it.

  “Wait!” I say, jumping after him.

  “Soon,” he calls without turning. “Soon.”

  “But—” I don’t even know what to say; I’m completely out of control here. Of the situation. Of him. Of myself.

  A light laugh escapes him and I start to feel angry, but he spins to walk backward and his eyes meet mine with an innocent playfulness. “Since names matter so much to you, it’s Quinn,” he says with a smile. “Quinn Avery.”

  Quinn Avery.

  Two simple words, but they mean everything.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Where are you? My fingers shake as I text Benson.

  Library. About to leave, he replies about a minute later.

  We need to talk. I feel weird texting Benson, the guy I liked last week, about Quinn, the guy I apparently like this week.

  The other guy I like this week. It’s so weird, when Quinn is around, it’s like I can’t focus on anything else. He overwhelms my senses and I float in a cloud as blissful as it is terrifying. But when he’s gone, reality creeps back in and I don’t know what to think.

  I know I should give Benson up as a lost cause, but he’s like a forest fire—everything started off with a spark too small to even notice until it blazed into something more. I couldn’t simply douse those feelings even if I wanted to.

  And now I’m going to tell him about Quinn? What am I doing?

  But I’m bursting with this new revelation—he has a name and he wants to see me again! And who else can I tell? I’m not about to call my therapist—again—at almost eight o’clock at night.

  I try not to think about his other words. I am not the one whom you should fear. I’ve spent the entire day being afraid. Right now I want a few minutes, an hour maybe, to just be happy.

  After pleading a forgotten homework assignment to Reese, I get her to let me borrow her car to run to the library. I’ve got less than half an hour before it closes. When I get there, I park and walk through the front doors as fast as my sore leg will let me, looking for Benson. I don’t care if he doesn’t understand. I’ve listened to him practically compose sonnets about Dana McCraven for the last two months and dealt with it; he can listen to me now.

  It’s better this way, I tell myself. Now we’ll both have someone. But the thought makes me feel strangely hollow.

  He’s leaning over the counter, talking softly with Marie. My heart gives a funny leap as my eyes skim him from head to toe—taking advantage of the moment before he realizes I’m there. He’s still wearing the soft gray sweater-vest over a light green button-up shirt from earlier, but now the sleeves are rolled up, emphasizing the definition of his forearms. As I watch, he pushes his glasses up his nose a little and makes a face at Marie.

  He looks totally at home among the stacks of books.

  And totally charming.

  I swallow, remembering the reason I’m here.

  As soon as Benson sees me, his mouth closes and I catch a strange, melancholy look in his eyes before his lopsided smile erases it. I need to remember that he’s worried about me. That I’m giving him even more reasons to worry about me. Benson is so constant, so mellow, it’s hard to remember that he’s one of those guys whose emotional river runs deep.

  I walk over, trying to avoid eye contact with Marie before she can give me a chirrupy greeting and start asking about my day. I don’t have time for her tonight.

  “Hi, Marie,” I toss off quickly without looking directly at her, then turn to Benson. “I really need to find that book before the library closes. It’s in the back, right?” I add meaningfully.

  “Yeah, I’ll show you,” Benson says, eyeing me quizzically. He puts one hand on my shoulder and steers me toward the far end of the library, where no one hangs out—not that there’s more than a handful of people here now anyway. And most of them are preteens crowded around the computers.

  I head to the middle of a shadowy aisle—after checking that no one is browsing—and run my fingers along a variety of spines—newish paperbacks, crumbly ancient hardcovers. I don’t think this library ever gets rid of their books. Any of them. There’s a single-bulb light fixture above us and it illuminates dust motes swirling in a tiny breeze from the heater.

  I feel fluttery now that the nerves are starting to wear off, and I attempt to cover up my awkwardness by pulling a tube of ChapStick from my pocket and reapplying it.

  “Oh, hey, that reminds me,” Benson says, digging into his own pocket. “I remembered to bring your other one.”

  I look up into Benson’s face. “What?”

  “Your ChapStick. I found it in my car after I took you home the other day. I brought it for you. Now you’ll have two.” He holds out a tube of cherry-flavored ChapStick, identical to the one in my hand, and grins. “Double your pleasure, double your fun.”

  “Not mine. I need to get a new one, but I haven’t yet.” I look up at him with one eyebrow raised. “Must belong to one of your girlfriends,” I add, trying to sound cheerful while wondering if Dana finally succumbed to Benson’s many charms.

  Not that it matters.

  I don’t care.

  I don’t care.

  “No, it was on the seat after you left,” he insists, still holding it out. “It must have fallen out of your pocket.”

  I don’t know why he’s pushing this. “Benson, I’m not going to take some other girl’s ChapStick; that’s gross. This one’s mine.”

  He’s looking at me funny. “But—”

  “It really doesn’t matter, Benson. Just throw it away; I have to talk to you now.”

  “Your loss,” he says, and tosses it in the air. It spins several times before he catches it. “You should switch to a new brand anyway. You’ve been complaining this stuff doesn’t work anymore.”

  “It’s just the salt in the air,” I say, putting the cap back on my ChapStick. The one from my pocket. The one I know hasn’t touched anyone’s lips but mine.

  Technically, if he made out with her before she put some on, Benson’s germs could be on there too. It makes my stomach feel funny, and I don’t like the simmering feeling. I tw
ist the ChapStick in my fingers just to have something to do.

  And maybe so I don’t have to look at Benson.

  My fingers clench around the plastic tube for an instant, then the space where it had been is empty and my fingers touch together. “Holy crap!” I jerk my hand back.

  “What?” Benson asks without looking at me, tossing the ChapStick again.

  “It’s gone!”

  “What’s gone?”

  “The ChapStick!”

  There’s a slight hesitation before he shrugs. “Look on the floor.”

  “Benson!”

  “What?”

  I wait for him to look at me. “I was holding the ChapStick, and then it was gone.”

  His face is a mask of confusion and he opens his mouth to speak, then closes it and just stares at me. Looking for something in my eyes.

  “It disappeared, Benson,” I say, struggling to keep my breaths from turning into ragged gasps. “I was holding it and it literally disappeared.”

  Another few seconds of silence pass before Benson swallows and holds the other tube out to me with a half grin. “Well, now you have another one.”

  “Benson—”

  “Jeez, Tave,” he snaps. “It’s just ChapStick. Take it or don’t, but it’s not mine.”

  His sudden flare of temper shocks my thoughts and a second later I realize my cheeks are wet. It’s not crying exactly, but the tears are pouring from my eyes as though my emotions are leaking out. Good, bad, terrifying, exhilarating. I’ve just had too much today and now I’m overflowing.

  And embarrassed. I’m completely out of whack.

  I snatch the stupid ChapStick from Benson—I’ll throw it away later—then open my purse, looking for one of the many packs of tissues I keep in there. Since my parents died, I cry randomly in public on a pitifully frequent basis.

  When I sniff, Benson looks up and his whole face crumples in regret. He reaches out, hands finding my shoulders. “Aw, Tave, I’m so sorry. I’m a total jerk. I—”

  But I cut his words off with a sharp wave of my hand. I reach into my purse and pull out a tube of ChapStick. Then, just to make sure, I lift my hand and uncurl my fingers to reveal the one Benson just gave me.