by Kat Colmer
It wasn’t like it mattered; I would have boarded a jumbo jet heading for home the day I turned eighteen three weeks from now anyway. Whether she liked it or not.
I’d told the twins I wouldn’t make it back for their eighteenth, but my bags had been packed, waiting only for that email from the university admissions center. I made it back just in time. Beth was stoked. That only left Jonas.
Holding my Sprite can halfway to my lips, I paused and gave myself a mental frisking at the mention of his name. Annoying rush of butterflies? None. Abnormal hitch in pulse rate? Negative.
But just to be certain, I tested again:
Jonas.
Jonas Leander…
Nothing. Well, maybe… Ah, crap. There was a bit of tightness across my chest. And a vague tingling in my fingers. But nothing earth-shattering. It was really no different to the reaction I’d had earlier when I’d seen Beth for the first time.
And it wasn’t like we hadn’t talked all year. Okay, that first month of complete silence had me convinced he’d never speak to me again, but then one morning a second chat box popped up next to Beth’s. No mention of that awkward night, just some stupid question about Manhattan sub-zero temperatures. Yep, the genius asked about the weather, but I could live with that if it meant he was talking to me again.
After that, his chat box popped up most mornings beside Beth’s. It became part of my before-school routine: alarm at six, a quick shower, then chat with the twins while I wolfed down breakfast. And the incident? There was no mention of it; sucked into a black hole like it never happened.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop the mental image of that night forming in my mind. The utter stupidity of what I’d done was simply breathtaking. A shudder rolled through me as I thought about how close I’d come to incinerating our friendship with one impulsive act. I blamed it on the grenade Mom and Dad had dropped at my feet that night. But that was last year. I’d put it behind me. I only hoped Jonas had, too.
“I found him.” Beth’s voice came from behind.
I turned, and…there he was.
Hands shoved deep into the pockets of his Mambo shorts, Jonas stood there, an animal-caught-in-headlights glaze cling-wrapping his gray-blue eyes.
“You’re back early.”
“Yep. Surprise!” I aimed for an over-the-top grin, trying to mask the onslaught of uncomfortable emotions pummeling me that moment. I hated this part of human biology, the inability to control the body’s chemically driven responses in situations like this.
His lips twitched in an attempt at a smile, but he didn’t quite get there. Then he speared his fingers into his dark blond hair and tugged then released—a dead giveaway he was nervous.
I stole a glance at Beth to see if she’d picked up on the weirdness between us. Nothing yet, but it was only a matter of time. I had to fix this. How on earth did I fix this?
“I have a confession to make.”
He paled, mouth pressing microscope-slide thin.
Brilliant, Cora! Way to ease his mind.
“I never FedExed your present,” I rushed on.
One of his brows arched. “You didn’t?”
I shook my head. “Couldn’t trust the postal service, too valuable, not too many signed copies of Bradbury around anymore.” My words spilled out in a flood of verbal diarrhea.
His eyes widened. “You didn’t!”
“I did. Rare collection of short stories, personally autographed.”
That was when he smiled.
Now, I’d never thought of Jonas as the type of guy who stopped traffic at first sight. In fact, an initial inspection left him looking deceptively boy-next-door. Okay, so thanks to all his hours in the pool he was reasonably built, if you liked your guys with broad shoulders and lean hips. But his hair had an annoying habit of falling into his eyes, which to some might be appealing, but to me just meant he needed a decent haircut. And his bottom lip? A fraction too big to be masculine. In my opinion, anyway.
But then he’d smile, and all those features somehow morphed into a whole that was way greater than the sum of its parts. I’d seen girls act like they’d swallowed a stupid pill after seeing that smile. I’d never understood it.
Until that night a year ago.
I took a gulp of my Sprite…minus the stupid pill.
Face still lit up if a little wary, Jonas slipped his hands back into his pockets. “That’s… I don’t know what to say.” The tension had almost melted from his body, but not enough to relax me.
“Thanks will do.” Oh, and maybe you could stop acting like I’m about to stick you with a contaminated needle? Because Beth was right there, and her narrowed eyes told me she was catching the weird nonverbal communication bouncing back and forth between her brother and me.
“Yeah, thanks. So where is it?” Despite the undercurrent zapping between us, he was all kid-in-a-toy-store all of a sudden. It made me smile.
“Next door. I assumed you wouldn’t want to be bothered with it tonight.”
“Right.” He nodded, but the light in his eyes dimmed with disappointment.
My smile widened. “I’ll bring it round tomorrow.”
“But I get mine tonight, right?” Beth looked at me expectantly. “You promised.”
I didn’t get a chance to answer, because the music was suddenly cut and replaced by the clanging of spoon against glass.
For a petite woman, Helena Leander knew how to command attention. The room had been bouncing only a second ago, and now everyone stood dead still, all eyes on the stylish blonde lady with the threatening dessert spoon in her hand. Even in casual gear, she had don’t-mess-with-me stamped all over her pastel summer dress. Maybe they taught that kind of composure at law school: pay-attention-or-I’ll-slap-you-with-a-court-order 101. She was as much no-nonsense as Mom was off with the fairies. I liked Helena.
She swapped her spoon for what looked like a remote control and motioned for Beth and Jonas to come stand next to her.
“Here we go.” Beth’s shoulders sagged. “This is going to suck bad.” The way the twins trudged off you’d think they were headed toward their execution. I got it, no one liked speeches, but how bad could it get?
Then Helena pointed the remote control at something across the room, and the wall behind her flickered to life with a recent picture of Beth and Jonas at what looked like their last swimming carnival. Beth was holding up her brother’s place-getter ribbon, her face painted green in support of their school house, a comical grin sending cracks across the paintwork on her cheeks and forehead. The room erupted in a chorus of hoots and whistles, but the twins’ aunt shut them down with a lift of her hand just as the next image, one of Beth’s seventeenth birthday, flashed up on the wall.
A slideshow. Priceless. Beth was right; this was going to be bad. I pressed my lips together, holding back a laugh.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming,” Helena started. “Some of you have known Jonas and Beth since they came to live with me six years ago…”
A photo of the twins as twelve-year-olds flashed up on the wall. All gangly limbs and jutting elbows, their faces yet to grow into their teeth. More hoots, as well as some aws and ahs. Beth looked ready to die, and based on available evidence, I’d say Jonas was grinding his molars.
“…and despite the unfortunate circumstances that brought them to live with me, they have grown into remarkable young adults…”
Photo after photo flashed across the wall as the twins’ aunt delivered her speech. I cringed when some of the photos showed me: Beth and me at our first sleepover shortly after they moved in next door. Me and Jonas at our black belt grading a year and a half ago.
But on the whole, the speech wasn’t awful. Helena’s words weren’t sickly sentimental. She was factual, to the point. And she gave compelling arguments as to why her niece and nephew were the wonderful people s
he thought them to be. Very courtroom. That was why she needed the photos; they provided the emotional element her words lacked.
I gave up trying not to smile. The slideshow was corny, but it showed the unbreakable bond between the twins. A bond made that much stronger by the very tragedy that had sent them into their aunt’s care.
Sometimes I envied their closeness. It would have been nice to have had a brother or sister to share the aftermath of Mom and Dad’s grenade blast last year. But then again, I was thankful I’d only had to deal with a grenade—Beth and Jonas had to deal with fate bombing the crap out of life as they knew it.
As soon as the speech was over, Beth came to find me. “God, shoot me now. If I knew I had a hope of winning, I’d sue her.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said, but my tone had a touch too much cringe to be convincing. “At least she didn’t show any full frontal baby photos.”
Beth groaned. “Don’t even joke.”
Someone turned the music back on, so loud the walls vibrated.
“Come on.” Beth hooked her arm through mine and winked. “Let’s ditch this party so we can talk.”
The music coming from the stereo was a shocker, so I had no problem getting out of there. I glanced around. Where had Jonas got to? There was no sign of his dark blond head anywhere. Unsure if I was relieved or disappointed, I weaved through the crowd after Beth, dodging elbows on the dance floor and couples performing exploratory tongue and tonsil procedures in the hallway.
When we slipped through the front door, Beth pulled it shut behind us, leaving most of the noise and DNA swapping on the other side. As soon as my palms brushed the smooth sandstone of the veranda stairs, a sense of home washed over me.
Beth and I had spent many hours sitting here, sharing our deepest and darkest. This was where I’d unloaded to her about overhearing Mom whisper the words “I love you” to a man who wasn’t Dad, and where she’d told me how her and Jonas’s life had come to a crushing standstill that day six years ago. Somehow the cool sandstone made it safe to say such things out loud. It was solid, unchangeable, unlike the shaky realities spoken of by the two girls sitting on it.
“So, spill, when did you fly in?” Beth tightened the arm still looped through mine, pulling me closer.
“After lunch.”
“After lunch?” Her gaze drilled bullet-size holes into me. “You mean you were here the entire time I stressed over what to wear tonight?”
“Yep, right next door.” Deliberately avoiding her bedroom until she’d decided on her outfit. Beth’s habit of trying on every item of clothing in her wardrobe only to come back to the first piece she’d put on was mind numbing. That turquoise halter-neck top she was wearing? Guaranteed to have been the first thing she’d tugged off its hanger earlier tonight.
She scowled. “For that you can give me my present right now.”
My lips twitched. “I wondered how long it’d take you.” I pulled out the envelope from my skirt pocket and handed it to her.
She made short work of ripping it open, then beamed when she spotted the tickets inside. “Giselle?” She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed. “I love it!”
I squeezed back, still not quite believing I was here, with her.
Back home.
“It includes post-performance drinks with the cast and a signed pair of pointe shoes by your favorite female principal dancer.”
She wriggled her eyebrows at me. “You think I can trade the signed pointe shoes for a pair of tights from one of my favorite male principal dancers?”
I couldn’t contain my grin; she hadn’t changed a bit. She grinned right back at me, fingers playing with the emerald pendant hanging around her neck. The veranda light was just bright enough for me to make out the delicate white gold casing surrounding the stone as she ran it back and forth on its gold chain.
I nodded at the gemstone. “Did your aunt get you that?”
“This?” She angled her head down to look at the pendant. “No. Jonas did. It used to be our mother’s engagement ring. He had it made into a necklace for me.” When she looked back up, her blue eyes glistened almost as much as the green emerald.
Wow. Were we talking about the same Jonas who churned through girlfriends quicker than Dad’s old VW Beetle guzzled a tank of gas? But then he could be thoughtful when he put his mind to it. Like that time he took the blame when I smashed the Beetle’s windshield. Or the day he held my hand and told bad jokes—his attempt to distract me from the pain of my broken leg while Master Wei organized an ambulance. And then there was that night a year ago…
I shifted on the sandstone.
Behind us, the front door opened, flooding the veranda with stoner rock and light.
Beth threw a glance over her shoulder. “Private conversation, Leo.”
Leo? Didn’t Beth mention a Leo in some of her messages?
“How was I supposed to know you were out here?”
His American accent registered straight away, although I couldn’t place where exactly he was from.
Leo closed the front door, then propped himself against the balustrade on my side of the stairs and smiled at me. “You must be Cora.”
“Which part of private do you not understand?” Beth glared at him. It didn’t faze him in the least.
“Hey, I just want to meet the famous Cora. You and Jonas talk about her enough.”
Nice to know I hadn’t been completely out of mind while out of sight last year.
I leaned back slightly so I could read the slogan on Leo’s T-shirt: I want to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code. Underneath the slogan he was tall and solid without being bulky. Messy dark curls fell across his brow, bringing out the earthy color of his eyes. He gave me another smile, open and unassuming, as he brought a can of soft drink to his lips. The T-shirt, coupled with the quarterback body, would have earned him the label nerd-jock in Manhattan. Here in Sydney we didn’t draw our social lines as clear-cut as all that. My friendship with the twins was proof of the fact.
Beside me, Beth huffed but turned to face us. “Cora Hammond, meet Leo Tarsicio.” She gestured back and forth between us. “Other than interrupting other people’s private conversations, and being a pain in the backside by tripping over his own feet all the time, he’s harmless.”
As though to prove Beth’s point, the poor guy’s arm slipped from the balustrade when he leaned forward to look at her, and he almost tripped and stumbled down the stairs.
He recovered and narrowed his eyes at my friend. “Harmless, am I?”
Beth shook her head. “Actually, no. Make that annoying. Like those stupid pop-up viruses you accidentally download off the net.”
Okay, what wasn’t she telling me here? Her mouth might be spitting daggers, but the way her eyes lingered on the guy had less to do with the slogan on his T-shirt and more with the way the cotton stretched across muscle in all the right places.
I swallowed my grin. “So how do you know Jonas and Beth?”
Leo dragged his eyes away from my best friend to look at me. “Jonas was in my AP English class last year.”
“That’d be Extension English, brainiac,” Beth said.
“Sorry. Extension English.” Leo threw Beth a plastic smile, then turned back to me. “Anyway, Jonas took pity on me and decided to play tour guide for the new kid. Wasn’t long before we were at his place, talking music and gaming. A year later we’re still hanging out.” He shrugged and took a sip from his can.
I glanced at his shirt again. He had to be the guy Viv had mentioned. “You’re from New York, right?”
He nodded. “Brooklyn. You were in Manhattan, West Side?”
“Correct.” The twins really had been talking about me. “So what else do you have on me?”
He threw Beth a glance. “According to Beth, you’re her BFF, you’re about to
start a med science degree at college, and you kick butt in tae kwon do, especially Jonas’s. According to Jonas, you’re Beth’s BFF, you’re about to start a med science degree at college, and you kick butt in tae kwon do, except Jonas’s. How am I doing?”
“I’d say Beth about has it right.”
“Except it’s ‘university,’ not ‘college,’” Beth said.
Her comment earned her another narrow-eyed glare.
“What about you? How did you end up in Sydney?” I asked him.
Leo pushed away from the balustrade, this time without incident, and sat down beside Beth. “Followed my father out here after Christmas last year.”
I pointed at his T-shirt. “Do you actually code?”
He glanced down at his chest. “Yeah. I design—”
“Game apps mostly,” Beth cut in. “So nothing to get excited about.”
Another glare from Leo. “You wouldn’t know excited if it danced naked on your front lawn.”
What was going on with these two? I so wanted answers, but now wasn’t the right time. At least they were talking, which was more than I could say for Jonas and me. Where had the guy got to anyway? Was he avoiding me?
A rumbly laugh drew my eyes to the path at the side of the house. A messy dark blond head came around the building, a giggly companion in tow. My throat tightened but…no, not Jonas. Some other guy. The relief that washed through me annoyed me to no end.
Chapter Three
Jonas
After Aunt Helena’s speech, I did what any other guy in my situation would have done: I hid in the bathroom. My motivator wasn’t embarrassment—although some of those slideshow photos had a date with the delete button. No, I needed space to think. And the bathroom was the only room in the house with a lock.