“Truce?” I offered my pinkie.
“Truce.” He linked his with mine then pulled it close to his body, wrapping his other hand behind my head to force my face against his chest. “Come here, you.”
“Yeah. I missed you, too.” I patted his back a few times then stepped away.
“So”—he looked from one door to another—“which one’s my room?”
I pointed to the spare room.
“Which one’s yours?”
I nodded to the one behind him. He took a look, then hobbled over to his door, his hand firmly on his thigh like a wounded soldier.
“Oh, grow up, Mike. I didn’t even draw blood.”
“How do you know?” He dropped the act. “I might need a tetanus shot.”
I wanted to whack him, but knew it would start the war all over again. So I took the moral high road instead, and opened his door for him, ruffling his hair as the light from his room swept the carpet by my feet. “Does poor baby need a cuddle?”
“Quiet, you,” he said playfully, and then his eyes widened as he looked into his room. “Ooh. Nice.”
“Yep. And you can thank David for putting the bed up,” I said, crossing the room to close the window. “Dad was trying to put the foot at the head.”
“David, huh?”
“Yes.” I pushed the curtains further apart to allow for more light, then turned around and opened the door adjacent to the window. “So, there’s a bathroom here.”
“Wow, my own bathroom. Nice.” Mike leaned his head around the bathroom door, then smiled back at me.
“And you have a TV.” I walked to the wardrobe—the door on the left of his bed—and rolled out one corner of the LCD. “We usually roll it away to make more space.”
“Great.” He grinned. “I’ve got a stack of our favorite movies on my hard drive.”
“Awesome.” I nodded, pressing my lips into a thin line.
Mike stared down at me with a half-lit smile, his hands on his hips like he was questioning a suspect, and a narrowed look in his eyes that made me clear my throat.
“Why do you keep staring at me funny, Mike?”
“I’m sorry. There’s just… Never mind.” He went to walk away, but stopped and gave that same look again. “Did you dye your hair or something?”
“Why?” I toyed with the ends. “Does it look different?”
“Not sure.”
“Okay.” I laughed. “That makes perfect sense.”
“Sorry.” He hooked his fingers under the handle of his suitcase. “I just haven’t seen you in so long. I think I forgot how you looked.”
“Oh. Well, didn’t you have a picture?”
He shrugged dismissively, placing his suitcase on the end of the bed. “Probably somewhere. Why?”
“You could’ve referred back to that.”
“I s’pose I could. Guess I just didn’t think of it.”
“Oh.” I nodded solemnly.
“What?” he said, looking up from the padlock on his bag. “What’s with the long face?”
“Um… well, it’s just David,” I said, instead of blubbering that he clearly didn’t miss me like I missed him. I’d looked at his picture a million times since I left, and he hadn’t even thought of looking at mine. “I told you he has to go away for a few weeks before he leaves indefinitely, and—”
“You’ll miss him?”
“Mm-hm.” I nodded.
Mike softened then and grabbed my wrist, pulling me into his chest for another way-too-tight hug. “It’s all right, kid, you got me. I’ll keep ya company.”
“I know.” I pushed out from his arms. “But I’ve relied on him so much to get me through. I just don’t know how I’ll cope now.”
“Well, what was I, if not the one who helped you get through things before you came here?” he said. “You’ll be fine, Ara. It’s not the end of the world. And he’ll be back for the whole long goodbye thing, right?”
I nodded. It was all I could do for fear of crying hysterically.
“Good.” He patted my arm. “So just… cheer up and enjoy this time with me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And sit down. You’re making me nervous just standing there hovering by the door.” He motioned to his bed.
I looked at it for a long moment. It didn’t seem right to sit on his bed—now that I had a boyfriend.
Mike looked at the bed too, then smiled. “What? Did you booby-trap it?”
“No,” I said swiftly, then wandered over and slumped down in the center with my feet dangling off the side. “I just… I don’t know if I’m comfortable being in your room now, is all.”
“Right.” Mike nodded, letting his gaze slip past me to the window.
I rolled onto my side and propped my head up with the heel of my palm. “So, what’s the plan today?”
“Well, a change of shirt’s first on the list.” He unzipped his suitcase. “Then I wanna hear all about this boyfriend of yours.”
I grinned at the sound of his accent; how, alone in a quiet space, the Aussie in him became more prominent, more noticeable. Not a strong accent, just enough to surprise me.
“What?” He frowned.
“Oh, um. It’s the accent,” I said. “It sounds so foreign.”
“Have you heard yourself? You’re all American.” He put on a mock American accent, but it sounded more Canadian.
“Hey, don’t knock the accent.” I rolled onto my back and looked up at the ceiling. “Took me weeks to get it right.”
“Well, it sounds very authentic,” he said warmly.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He chatted away then, zipping and unzipping pockets in his suitcase, laying things in the drawers across from the bed then closing them gently, while I watched in a sort of dream-like state. He still didn’t seem real. I half-wondered when I was going to wake up.
When the suitcase scuffed along the floor, I looked at Mike as he kicked it under the bed and laid a clean shirt on the blanket. “Hey, wanna see what I’ve been doing lately?”
“What?” I pushed up on my elbows.
He yanked his shirt from the back of the neck and pulled it over his head, and my mouth dropped.
“You like?” he asked, spreading his arms to show off his body.
“Looks like you’ve been working hard for your new job.” I smiled at him one last time before a shiver ran down my spine, forcing me to look at the roof again. “There’s no way not to appreciate that kind of workmanship.”
“They expect a certain level of fitness,” he said, ruffling about at the foot of the bed. “It’s my duty to exceed that.”
“Well, you certainly didn’t look like that the last time you took your shirt off, so… duty fulfilled,” I scoffed, and everything went dark with the strong scent of Mike. “Ew. Wash this thing. It stinks,” I joked, peeling his shirt off my face then tossing it back at him.
He caught it, held it to his nose, then shrugged and threw it behind him. “Come on, move over.”
“Make me.”
“Fine.” The giant jumped onto the queen-sized bed and sunk his elbows heavily into the softness beside me, making me roll slightly into him.
I shoved my palm against his arm and rolled onto my back. “God, you take up so much space.”
“If you don’t like it, you could just get off my bed.”
I smiled as he shoved me gently. “Like I said, make me.”
“If anyone could make you do anything, Ara-Rose, my life would’ve been much easier.”
“Ha-ha.” I flicked his earlobe.
“Ouch.” He laughed, cupping it. “That actually hurt.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, right.” He pretended to flick mine, pressing the tip of my nose when I shied away. “Pain.”
“Wide load.”
“Meany.”
“You know I’m joking,” I said softly.
“I know.” He inhaled slowly through his nose,
his gaze tracing circles over my features.
I smiled back up at him, seeing the fine lines I’d memorized and the little pupil-sized scar on the bridge of his nose that he got when I threw a rock at him one day. I felt at home in the comfortable silence—the kind we were used to.
“Know what?” he said in that husky whisper.
“What?”
When his face came closer to mine, I held my breath, thinking he was going to kiss my head, but he rolled onto his back with a rather large huff and linked his fingers behind his head. “I’m tired.”
“Yeah. Long trip, isn’t it?”
“Especially changing over at LAX. I was stuck at customs for an hour.”
“An hour?” I blew my fringe off my face. “They must’ve had lots of extra staff on.”
Mike laughed softly and grabbed a pillow from the top of the bed, stuffing it under his head. And as his breathing slowed and the noise in the house died down after Dad and Sam went off to school, and Vicki started the car up then drove down the street, I looked out at the clouds through the top of the window, just happy to be by Mike’s side again. Mostly, I could only see the eaves of the roof jutting out above the glass, but beyond that, the summer sky went on forever, leading to the place, to the world David was living in today. Even though I knew he was a fast runner, part of me wondered how he was going to get all the way back here from New York every night and still be back there in the morning to start work. Then I wondered what he actually did while ‘operating the Set’.
As the shadows and the yellow glow of the sun moved across the floor and to the wall, I rolled onto my side and watched Mike’s chest rise and fall with his quiet breath, the vein on his neck pulsing lightly on each heartbeat. It was something so small—seeing someone’s body live, function—but until I’d spent so long with a vampire, who didn’t need a heart, I’d never really appreciated the miracle in our design. I wanted to reach inside his chest and feel the blood pulse through his heart, feel it full and fat and living, feel the life in his veins—the life David took from others. And looking at my best friend sleeping so peacefully, so trusting, a small occurrence crept up: how could I ever take that? How could I reach into a person’s life and take them from the world, destroy their family? Destroy their future, their hopes and dreams. What if it were Mike? Or my dad?
It was all very easy to brush it off and think, “Well, I don’t know this person,” but at the end of the day, how would I feel if a vampire killed Mike?
“What you thinkin’ ’bout?” Mike’s voice startled me.
“Oh, hi, I thought you were asleep.” I tried to smile; it was a pathetic effort.
“Clearly.” He sat up and shuffled to the edge of the bed. “What was on your mind?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I stated.
He sighed and dragged me by the hand to sit beside him. As the weight of his heavy arm fell around my shoulder, I nestled my brow under his jaw, the deep, almost candy-musk scent of his cologne taking me back home to his bedroom for a moment.
“You smell good,” I noted, then It growled.
“Ha!” Mike poked my belly. “The ogre! I see some things haven’t changed at all.”
“Nothing’s changed, Mike—not really,” I hinted, wishing I hadn’t done that.
His eyes narrowed, boring into mine. “What do you mean by that, Ar?”
“Um…” A novelty-sized baseball bat of the imaginary kind came down and struck me across the head. “Nothing. Why would I have meant anything by that?”
Mike stopped halfway between getting up and sitting back down, then shook his head and pulled me off the bed. “Come on, let’s just feed the beast.”
“Okay. Then I’ll take you across to the school so you can meet my friends.”
“Friends, hey?”
“Yup. I’ve made this whole new life for myself, Mike. I’m almost totally normal now.”
“You’ll never be normal, Ara. You’ve always been… special.”
I waited for the head-tilt-eye-wink combo that usually followed those kinds of comments, but instead his gaze held onto mine, like he wanted me to understand something deeper than what he said.
“I hope you don’t mean that in a derogatory sense,” I said.
He rolled his eyes, groaning. “Come on, I need food—it’s past lunchtime already.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” I ran down the stairs ahead of him.
And everything was just the same as before—before all the tragedy and the awkward I-don’t-love-you-the-way-you-love-me stuff. Mike stood chopping onions and coriander at the counter, his sleeves rolled up, looking so tall and so grown up that I tried not to look at him. Tried not to feel anything. But the strange thing was that, no matter how much I loved David, I’d loved Mike first, and that feeling was still there. Still just as strong. I wasn’t and probably never would be wholeheartedly decided about staying here or going with David, but I knew now that if I could feel love for Mike still, then maybe I could love someone else again after David. It wasn’t my final decision, but it gave me something deeper to reflect on.
When the plates no longer contained food and the last of the enthusiastic catch-up wore down to more planned questions, Mike shook his head and smiled. “Know what I found the other day?”
“What?”
“Remember that picture we took at the golf course?”
“Oh, when you tried to teach me how to swing?” I started laughing, already replaying the tragic ending to that day in my mind—tragic for the window of a golf cart, that is.
“Yeah.” Mike laughed. “I couldn’t believe how small you were then, and you still had that gap.” He pointed to his front teeth.
I ran my tongue over my gums. “I thought you said you didn’t look at any pictures of me over the last few months?”
Mike looked down at his hands, smiling under reddening cheeks. “Well, maybe a few.”
I shook my head. “Then how did you forget what I looked like?”
“I guess I didn’t, really. You’ve just… you know? You’ve grown up so much while we were apart.”
“Of course I have. Did you think I’d stay a little girl forever?” Although, that was a likely possibility if I became immortal.
“I just never expected time would change you so much while I wasn’t around to see it. You’re”—he considered me carefully—“I guess… you’re a woman now.”
“A woman? Mike, I’m seventeen. No older than when I left.” I laughed.
He shook his head. “It’s not your age, it’s something else. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that you’ve been through a lot. Guess it’s bound to leave its mark.”
“You mean scar.”
He reached across the table for my hand. I reluctantly placed it in his.
“I’m here now, baby. I didn’t know how much I was missing you until I saw you. Now it feels almost like my heart might quit on me if I have to leave you again.”
“I’m sure you’ll change your mind after two weeks with me. Then you can go back and get on with your life,” I said, laughing to change the energy in the room, since it suddenly got very intense.
He nodded as he said, “I’m beginning to rethink that.”
“Rethink it? Rethink what?”
“I miss you, Ara. You belong in my life, you always have. I… look… I have to tell you something.” His shoulders lifted a little. “Please don’t get mad, okay?”
“Okay?” The lack of air in here made my lungs weak.
He looked down at our hands for a second, those caramel eyes coming back all warmed with a smile but infused with anxiety. “The truth is, I came here to say goodbye—one final goodbye before I let you go for good. You seemed to be getting on with your life. But now I’m here, I can’t do it.” He shrugged and one corner of his lip turned up. “So, I’m going with plan B.”
“What’s plan B? Hire a time-machine for the week and change the past?”
“Ara.” He groaned, giving an
intense stare that pleaded with me to take this seriously. “I… on the plane over here, I was sitting next to two old ladies, and I was so stuck in this cage of uncertainty that I actually talked their ears off.”
“Oh dear.”
“I don’t know the best way to say this, and I don’t know when’s the right time, so I’m just gonna come out with it.”
“Wait.” I pushed my chair out a bit so I could run if I needed to, terrified that he’d say exactly what I’d wanted to hear.
He shook his head, already decided. “Baby, I love you.”
My heart imploded, but I pulled myself together quickly, opting for ignorance, hoping he’d do the same. “I know you do, Mike, and I know you’ll always be my bestie.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
I felt instantly sick. One half of me wanted to kiss him and tell him I love him too, while the other just burst into tears. It was exactly what I wanted to hear and yet it was the last thing I needed to hear. I needed more time. Why couldn’t he have told me this in two weeks? Why couldn’t he have waited until David left for good? He’d never stay now that Mike’s feelings were out in the open, and I couldn’t keep it from him. It was fine while it was just a suspicion, a fear, but not as a cold hard fact. David would read my mind and he’d know instantly, and then he’d leave.
And that was worst part: it was for my own good. Because it would be better for me to stay human and live out my life with Mike. Fate agreed. Fate gave me the sign I asked for. But I needed to hold onto the hope that I might change my mind before the ball because, without that hope, I felt like I had no control over anything; like I was hanging upside-down in a car wreck with no one to hear me scream.
“You know, you’re not supposed to cry when a guy says he loves you,” Mike said.
I sobbed into my hand. “Tell me you don’t mean it.”
His upturned palm appeared under my cave of asylum. I ignored it, looking away. “I do mean it, baby. And I want you to come home with me when I go.”
“No!” I shot up out of my seat. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that.”
“Are you serious?” He stood up.
I pointed a stern finger toward him. “Take it back.”
“What! Why?”
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 48