I just held him tighter and buried my face in his chest. "I'm okay." My muffled words were barely audible over the din of the crowd. Apparently, a big play had occurred. "I'm more than okay. I'm wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
How long we stood like that, with arms wrapped around each other, I don't know. An impression of the edge of his shoulder pads was etching itself into my cheek and I didn't care. The hug didn't end until someone ripped Keagan away from me.
I looked up to see Liam, his face contorted in a fury like I'd never seen from him before.
"What the hell is going on?" He threw his helmet down and it spiked once off the ground before tumbling to a stop. Liam's hand bunched into a fist. He pulled it back and threw a haymaker into his brother's chin. Keagan didn't defend himself. He just went down.
"Stop it." Screaming I knelt beside Keagan, looking up at Liam. "Just stop."
"I should hit you too," Liam said, puffing with exertion and anger.
"Look, dude," Keagan said. "This has all been a mistake. Tara thought she was saving your sorry ass because of her premonition. She didn't want to go out with me. It's you she loves."
"That vision stuff again?" Liam yelled.
"No," I contradicted him. "I mean yes. I did have a vision that you'd die in this game during a play where Keagan was on the defensive line. I did want to save your life, Liam. Whether you believe it or not, I had a vision."
"So you went out with him because you thought you were helping me?"
"Yes."
Liam's breath began to calm and his features untwisted. As he stared at me his anger drained away into wariness. He held out a hand to me and helped me up.
At his touch, the vision of Liam dying at an old age in a hospital bed came to me. Happiness filled me. I'd done it. I'd saved him. But my happiness must have invaded my expression and encouraged Liam.
"I'll forget about you and Keagan and we'll start over," he said.
"No." I shook my head and pulled out of his hold. "We can't go back because I've realized I love you like a brother. It's Keagan I'm in love with."
"Tara?" Keagan leaped up off the ground. He turned me to him and searched my face with his eyes. "Do you mean it?"
I gave a smile and a shrug. "Yes. That's what I've been trying to tell you but couldn't say with all this other stuff going on."
"So you lied to me last night when you said you weren't into him," Liam said.
"Yes. But not intentionally. I did it because I was lying to myself about my feelings. Hurting you was the last thing I wanted. But I can't help loving Keagan."
A red fury returned to Liam and crept up his neck and into his cheeks. Liam snatched his helmet from the ground. "I'll never forgive you for this."
The way he looked at me, as if I were the dirtiest piece of trash in the landfill, made me want to hunch over with pain, but I forced myself to straighten. Better he live hating me than die loving me.
"I'll never forgive either of you." With that he turned and marched back across the field.
"He'll be fine," I said, trying to convince myself as well as Keagan. Liam would live to an old age and I had to be satisfied with that.
"I need you more than he does." Keagan's arms came around my midsection to embrace me from the back.
As his arms wound around me, I saw again his death in the park. The same scene as before played itself out in my head, complete with the old man clutching his chest and the woman's startled cry. But this time I realized something new: the woman was me.
I twisted in his arms as he leaned down to brush his mouth against mine with a kiss. An electric spark sizzled from my lips to my toes. I was out on a limb without a safety net. But that was finally okay. Life wasn't meant to be safe.
"I need you." Keagan nuzzled my neck.
"Yeah." With deliberation I made my tone teasing. "And don't you forget it."
"Oh I won't." He gave my neck a nip— something between a bite and a kiss. "And I won't let you forget I love you."
As emotion filled my heart and sensations coursed through my body, I choked out, "Love is all I can ask."
# # #
Fated Hearts
Copyright 2012
Patricia Mason writing as P.R. Mason
Chapter One
"Let's go behind the bleachers and do the nasty, Eve." Hot breath tinged with spittle sprayed against my neck as Quinn shouted in my ear to be heard over the booming throb of the music.
My date was ruining the song—one of my favorites by Kanye.
Quinn sidled closer, pulling at the open collar of his white dress shirt as if to give me a view of the expanse of his hairy chest. He pressed against my side, making me cringe. Inching backward, my spine met the cold concrete block of the gym wall.
Almost the entire high school might be here at the Fall Fling dance, but it wasn't so crowded that he needed to invade my personal space. Bad enough the perennial dirty-sock smell of the gym threatened to overcome me, but Quinn and his liberally applied cologne made me want to gag.
Oh why had I agreed to go on this date? Just because Lashonda pushed me?
"He's popular," she'd said. "And your school rep could use a infusion of popular."
A small bit of help with my social standing at Richard Johnson Academy— known to students as Double Dick—now didn't seem any kind of inducement. Heck, being voted home coming queen wouldn't be worth this horrid date.
"Come on, Eve. I'll play Adam," Quinn said with a chuckle. "Get it? You're Eve and I'm Adam? Adam and Eve?"
"Yeah," I drawled. "Hilarious. I've never heard that one before."
He hooted a laugh, grabbed my upper arm and tried to pull me into an embrace. In response, I twisted out of his grasp.
"Back off, buddy."
"Okay," Quinn said. "You don't wanna do the full tilt boogie. We can just go make-out a little. We gotta capitalize on this sitch, ya know? No one'll notice if we sneak away." He paused for effect before continuing. "I'll even let you touch it."
Eww. That was supposed to be an enticement?
Before I could even flinch, Quinn's hand shot toward me and he molested my breast.
"Hey, stop it." I twisted and stepped way from the wall pushing against his chest with both hands. His big body barely moved. My strength was puny against his two hundred pounds, but I slapped at him anyway. The impact on his rock hard bicep had no more effect than would a gnat wing. "Do I have to scream?"
His eyes widened and his mouth opened. Of course Quinn had a slack-jawed expression even at the best of times, but I detected genuine surprise at my rejection. Why did most of the girls at school think he was so handsome?
"Wha'sup?" He demanded. "Riding the red dragon?"
"What?"
"Your period."
"No, you jerktard," I shouted.
At the moment I flung the insult, my eyes collided with a gaze from a few feet away. A guy I'd never seen at school before was staring at me with a scary intensity, but at the same time I found his gaze exciting. With furrowed brows, the guy turned an angry glare on Quinn, which gave me a chance to appraise his looks without being too obvious.
I couldn't find anything to criticize. His blond hair had a slight wave to it and when combined with his high cheekbones and full lips, the effect was definitely hot. Something about the guy was so familiar, but I couldn't place him.
Just then his eyes returned to me. The word Holden drifted into my head almost as if I knew his name. We'd never spoken...had we?
I would have thought I knew the guy from elementary or middle school but my family had only moved to Savannah, Georgia, in the last year.
Dragging my attention from the hottie, I turned back to my date. "I don't have a red dragon. And I find you extremely gross."
Mrs. Gazardi, the school's guidance counselor who was chaperoning the dance, approached us and spoke.
"Everything okay here, Eve?"
Wanting with every fiber of my being to rat out Quinn for his bad behavior, I n
evertheless said "I'm fine, Ma'am."
My date examined his feet and mumbled something unintelligible.
Mrs. Garzardi must be old— at least fifty by my estimation— and she didn't possess particularly beautiful features. But she was striking and unusually graceful. The way she wore her silvery hair pulled back into a chignon and the long flowing robe dresses she favored, accentuated the fluidity with which she moved.
For a few moments she examined me with a penetrating thoroughness. Her perusal gave me the feeling she could see the handprints on my dress from Quinn's groping. Mrs. Gazardi's lips compressed in an angry line and her brows knitted as she turned to cast a disapproving glare on Quinn.
What I saw next caused me to start in surprise. It was as if a light bulb switched on inside her, illuminating her skull so that it became faintly visible under her skin.
The spotlights in the otherwise dark gym must be shining on her face in a funky way to cause such an eerie effect, I thought.
After a few rapid blinks, the illusion faded as quickly as it had come.
Mrs. Gazardi turned back to me with a placid smile. "Have fun you two." Then she addressed Quinn. "But not too much fun."
She spun on her heel and started away and as she moved the lighting had more tricks for me. Along her shoulder blades there seemed to be a ripple of movement under her dress, as if she'd trapped birds in that voluminous garment and they were struggling to break free.
Ridiculous. Could someone have slipped me a roofie? No. Impossible. Not that I'd put it past Quinn, but I hadn't had anything to drink that night.
Quinn muttered, "Nosey biddie."
"She's very nice," I defended. "And if you pull any more crap on me, I'll report it to her."
"Whatever." With a pfffffffft sound Quinn waved a hand and rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna go get some punch and give you time to remember you're here with a star of the football team. Maybe when I get back you'll be less agro and more with the gratitude and appreciatin'."
"Starting your Christmas wish list early, are you?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Go get the punch."
As soon as he walked away, Lashonda hurried over from across the dance floor. Well, she hurried as fast as someone could as she teetered on six-inch stiletto heels.
"How's it going?" she asked, clapping her hands and giving an excited wiggle in her skin-tight, spandex, purple mini-dress.
I wasn't the DUFF in our friendship, but Lashonda was definitely the more gorgeous of the two of us with her cocoa skin and dark eyes. By contrast my skin was pale and my hair a feathery, flyaway brown mess unless trapped in a ponytail. My frame was slight where Lashonda had curves in all the right places. I was a pre-makeover version of Cinderella to her Nubian princess or a wren to her peacock. Like tonight for instance. My flouncy-skirted cream dress paired with ballet slippers washed out in comparison to her flamboyance.
I'd long ago gotten used to the way guys drifted from me to her almost as if I'd turned invisible.
So when she wiggled, Lashonda drew the lustful gaze of every guy within fifty feet—and some gals—except, that is, the gaze of the guy I thought of as Holden. He still had his attention firmly on me.
A zing of pleasure began as a spot in my stomach, then blossomed into a warm blush up my neck and into my face.
"You're having a great time. Admit it," she said.
Fixing her with my most dagger-like, arch-browed, condemning expression possible, I answered, "I can't believe I let you talk me into this date. Quinn's a creep."
"He's a running back," she defended.
"The two aren't mutually exclusive," I observed.
"I can't believe it," Lashonda said. "Quinn told Billy, and Billy told Juliette, and Juliette told me that he really likes you. And she wouldn't lie to me. Cheerleading sisters' code."
"Yeah, he really likes me all right. He's used all fifty snaky hands on me plus his forked tongue to prove it."
"Snakes have no hands, Eve."
"Okay, but he has no neck just like a snake and—anyway, you get my point. Besides, I could be studying like my dad wanted. Then at least one of us would be happy tonight."
I had the SATs tomorrow and Dad was so not happy I'd decided to go to this dance.
"Ackk," Lashonda said. "The dance is so dismal that studying would be better?"
When I nodded, she put an arm around my shoulder. "Sorry, sweetie. But at least you gave it a try. You've acted like you were afraid to try romance. It's unnatural."
"Afraid?" I scoffed. "Hardly." Even as the words escaped I knew I was lying.
"Really? 'Cause this is the first date you've had since I've known you."
"And it might be my last, girlfriend, if this is what I've got to look forward to."
"I told you a million times, don't call me girlfriend," Lashonda said. "It just sounds so damn lame when a white girl uses it. You make my ears bleed." Lashonda always seemed to sound more urban when riled.
"Okay," I said, conceding with a toss of my hands into the air. "I don't want to render you deaf."
She chuckled. "You gotta put yourself out there. Life is short."
That's what everybody at Double Dick had been saying ever since little Franky Abbot died so suddenly just a month before.
"Just ditch Quinn and go after someone else at the dance," Lashonda said.
My eyes darted to Holden and then back to my friend. "I can't do that." Could I?
"Yes you can. I'm going to," she said. "My 'date' may be Ronny but I'm going home with someone else if I have anything to say about it."
She tilted her head toward the dance floor where the object of her nod— Chase —was doing a variation of the white guy overbite moves.
"Ooooh, girl. He has a great booty." Lashonda held up two hands grasping mounds of air. "Chase's butt looks like two hard, denim-encased cantaloupes in those jeans."
She made a smacking sound with her mouth. "I could just take a bite outa those delicious melons."
A laugh burst from me.
"What can I say," she continued. "My heart hums when I see yummy buns."
"You should put those lyrics to music."
She licked her lips. "I'm gonna ask Chase to dance."
Just then Chase, the epitome of surfer-dude, scuttled to the side and gave me a view of his dance partner.
"I don't think you wanna do that," I told her. "He's with Petra."
Lashonda's face fell into a pout. "Petra's a witch. She tried to tear out my hair last week."
"Understandable since you are trying to steal her boyfriend."
"You can't steal something that don't want to get taken."
"That's ridiculous." My eyes went to the corner again where Holden hid a smirk almost as if he heard us talking.
"No it's not. It's Zen."
"That's you. Lashonda. The second coming of Confucius."
"Zen is Buddhism, not Confucianism."
"Oh," I said. "Excuuuuuse me for mistaking the philosophical basis for your psychological rationalization."
"Whatever," Lashonda said with a wave of her hand. "I'm gonna ask Chase to dance and really freak Petra."
"That's not smart."
"To hell with smart. Touching a black girl's hair is like launching a nuclear bomb. It takes the warfare to a whole new level."
"Good to know," I muttered.
"Anyway, pick out somebody and go for them, just like I'm gonna go for Chase."
My eyes flickered and found Holden again.
"How about the guy you can't keep your eyes off," Lashonda continued.
"What?" I sputtered, blinking.
"Yeah. I've conducted this entire conversation to the side of your face." She frowned putting a hand on one hip. "I hope he's cute, at least."
Trying to keep myself from gushing, I left it at, "He's kinda Nordic looking."
Lashonda smiled knowingly.
"I gotta see this Viking God." She made a move to glance to her right.
"Don't look." I
leaned forward, stopping her with a hand on her arm. Mortified, my whisper was furious. "He'll know I'm talking about him."
"Shocker!" My friend said slapping her hands against both cheeks mimicking a famous movie moment. "Like he won't know by the way you're staring at him."
"He's the one staring at me," I defended in my best impression of affronted pride. "I'm just noticing that he's staring. I'm not doing any staring of my own."
"Uh huh." Lashonda's lips twisted in smirk.
Just then Quinn returned with Ronny tagging along behind him.
"Girls," Quinn greeted us. He took a sip from his glass.
"I thought you were getting punch," I said.
"I did." He held up the glass....the one glass.
Not that I trusted him to get me a drink but he could have had the courtesy to try.
Quinn ogled my friend up and down and then issued a long wolf whistle while shaking one hand as if burned. "Lashonda, you are so smokin' hot tonight I need a fire extinguisher."
"How about using the punch instead." I swiped at the hand holding the glass, tipping it back and into his chest where the red fruity concoction spilled like blood soaking his shirtfront.
"Hey," he screeched.
Not stopping to get a further reaction, I pushed past him.
"Crazy whacked out bitch." Quinn shouted over Lashonda's laughter as I strode off.
Chapter Two
Now was the time to find out if I was, in fact, whacked out crazy or whether I did know the cute Viking.
As I walked toward him, the music changed to a slow song: "No Air." The lyrics drifted over me: Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air.
What had started as bold strides slowed to regular steps. Cowardice the size of a boulder suddenly lodged itself in my throat and I had no air to breathe. Trying to swallow it down, I forced myself forward. Holden, who'd been leaning against the wall, straightened, and a smile—or was it a smirk—turned up the right side of his lips. The boulder shifted, plopping directly into the bottom of my stomach. I had air, but vomiting seemed a distinct possibility.
What if he laughed in my face? "You?" he would say. "Why would I be looking at you? You're nothing special."
Paranormal Realities Box Set Page 32