The final bell rang and I thumbed through my book, trying to find the beginning of Romeo & Juliet, the first play in our Shakespeare unit. Ashley and Emily Pearce breezed past, the scent of their flowery perfume wafting by as they took their seats.
Ms. Swann stationed herself at the front of the classroom and began her lecture on the life of Shakespeare. My note taking dwindled as I tuned in to the whispered conversation behind me.
“…saw him in Mrs. Doyle’s office. He’s totally hot.”
“Do you have any classes with him?”
The voices grew muffled. I leaned back, feigning a stretch.
“…think he’s a junior…”
“…know where he’s from?”
“Who cares? I’m just happy he’s here.”
“Girls!” Ms. Swann’s shrill voice silenced their conversation. “Do you have something to contribute to the lecture?”
The conversation ended. Moments later I heard the unmistakable sound of paper being folded. Their whispers had turned into written correspondence. It didn’t matter. I’d heard enough to realize they were talking about Noel.
Lunch was chicken Caesar salad. I grabbed my tray and looked around for Noel. Not because I wanted to see him, I told myself, but because I was curious. Who would he eat with? I didn’t see him in the crowded lunch room. I was certain Ashley would find him, lead him to her table and quickly initiate him into her all-too-perfect group. He’d fit in there. I felt a small stab of something I couldn’t identify. Sadness? Envy? I brushed it aside. I should be relieved that he’d decided to leave me alone.
I set my tray down and pulled out my book, intending to start my reading. I had just finished the first sentence of stage notes when the chair next to me moved, its legs scraping across the floor. I jumped, startled, but didn’t look up. I knew it was Noel.
“Is this seat taken?” The voice was rich and smooth. A boy’s voice. Not Noel.
I looked up from my book. Across from me, resting easily and comfortably in the chair, was a beautiful blond-haired boy.
“No.” What was up with all of these new students?
“Good,” he said. He smiled at me and I almost sighed aloud. Boys like this did not exist in northern Virginia, boys who looked as though they’d just stepped off a sandy beach after a day of surfing. This boy was gold and bronze, his hair the color of liquid sunshine, a mix of warm golds and yellows swirling in gentle waves, curling around his ears, falling across his forehead, his skin gloriously tanned, his eyes like melted chocolate.
A different voice broke through my thoughts. “Actually, I was going to sit there.”
I recognized that voice.
The new boy glanced at Noel. “It’s taken.”
Noel glared at him.
“Pull up another chair,” Golden-haired boy said. It sounded like an order.
Noel grudgingly obliged, dragging an empty seat from a nearby table. He thumped his tray down.
I sat, frozen. Why were these two new students—gorgeous new boys—fighting to sit at my table? I looked around the cafeteria and immediately spied Ashley. She leveled a furious gaze on me. There was an empty chair on either side of her. I averted my eyes and took a long sip of my drink.
“So,” Noel said flatly. “You’ve met my brother.”
I choked on my soda. “Your what?”
“Brother,” the boy said. “I’m Leo.”
And then I realized who he was, this Leo, this brother of Noel’s. I thought back to my wood-gathering trip with Geoff. The blond boy lurking in the woods had not been a figment of my imagination or a hallucination from lack of sleep. He was real and he was sitting at my lunch table.
Chapter 12
“You’re Valerie, right?” Leo’s voice was warm, caressing my name.
I nodded, at a loss for words, still trying to figure out what was going on. Did he know about the stone, too? It warmed in my pocket, uncomfortably so, like a red-hot coal from a smoldering fire.
“What year are you?” He moved his salad around with his fork but ate nothing.
“What year am I?” I squirmed in my seat, trying to shift the stone. It was burning my leg. “You mean like what grade?”
He nodded, his eyes flickering over me, assessing me.
“I’m a sophomore. Tenth grade.”
Leo and Noel exchanged knowing glances and I felt myself begin to worry. I struggled to keep the rising panic at bay. Should I mention the woods? Ask why he was here—why both of them were here? Was I prepared for them to know, for certain, what I had?
“You?” I asked instead. I took a bite of my salad.
Leo and Noel followed my lead, spearing pieces of lettuce.
“Year eleven,” Leo said. “Eleventh grade.”
I turned to Noel. “And you?”
“Eleventh, too.”
“So, what? You’re telling me you’re twins?” I didn’t bother hiding my disbelief. They were as different as night and day, Noel with his dark, cool beauty and Leo looking like the sun personified.
Leo hesitated. “Yes. Twins.”
Frustration replaced fear. “So why weren’t you here yesterday? Why didn’t you start the same day as your brother?” I should have stopped, just kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t. I had too many questions.
“I wasn’t quite…decided.” Leo tried to hold me captive with those eyes.
I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, I said, “Decided on what?”
“On coming here.”
“You mean to St. John’s?” Maybe they’d had other choices for schools.
His eyes did capture mine this time and he smiled, a smile that radiated a warmth and light that settled on my skin and seeped into my blood. “Yes,” he said simply.
The questions I’d wanted to ask slipped away. I basked in his glow, purposely tilting my head in his direction. I felt like a pool of melted butter.
“Keeping all of the new students to yourself?” Ashley’s voice broke through my trance-like state.
I looked blankly at her, disoriented. I tried to focus, to recollect my thoughts, to remember where I was. Who I was. Ashley studied me as if I’d suddenly grown horns. She looked like a movie star, I thought, in her black skinny jeans and sequined silver camisole, yet another dress code violation. Her blond hair cascaded down her back in a mass of curls.
She ignored me. “Noel, I asked you to eat lunch with me,” she pouted. Silver glitter shimmered on her cheeks like fairy dust.
“Sorry.” He sounded anything but. “My brother was sitting here.”
Ashley’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Your brother?”
“I’m Leo.” He held out his hand to her and this time she shook confidently, with enthusiasm.
“Leo.” Her eyes were glued to his and I knew he was working his warm magic on her.
“You must be Ashley.” He gently retracted his hand from her grasp. “Noel told me all about you.”
Ashley glowed. “Really? You know, you’re welcome to join me for lunch. Both of you. There’s a lot more room at my table.”
“Tomorrow,” Leo promised with a smile.
The first bell rang and she hesitated, unwilling or unable to leave the two of them with me. “Do you have art, too?” she asked Leo.
He shook his head. “No. P.E.”
“You can walk with me and Valerie,” Noel offered to Ashley.
She wrinkled her nose. “Um…I need to go grab my things. I’ll just see you in art class, OK?” She returned to her table.
“You and Ashley aren’t friends?” Noel asked.
“I don’t think she’s my biggest fan.” That was an understatement. I actually wasn’t sure she’d known I existed until yesterday.
Noel stacked the cafeteria trays and carried them to the trash can. The lunch room reverberated with noise, the sounds of chairs scraping across linoleum, kids laughing and shouting on their way out of the building.
“I wish I’d signed up for art,” L
eo said to me. He held out his hand and I took it. I couldn’t help it. Heat emanated from his palm, running like an electric current through my fingers, tingling up my arm. He’d wrapped me in his warm embrace with the simple touch of his hand and I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move.
“Come on, Valerie.” Noel’s cool hand gripped my elbow, pulling me away.
“Later.” Leo’s voice was a velvety soft promise and his eyes burned into mine. He released my hand and I stumbled.
Noel steadied me. I shook my head, trying to shake some sense back into it as Leo crossed the cafeteria. Every girl stopped to stare at him, a golden Moses parting a sea of gawking, awe-stricken females.
“What is wrong with me?” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“Leo can have that effect on people.” There was an edge to his voice.
It wasn’t as if I was immune to Noel’s charms, either. But there was something about Leo that beckoned to me, the way those eyes wrapped me up in a warm, hypnotic cocoon. I liked the way he made me feel, warm and gooey like a double-fudge brownie just out of the oven. But there was something disconcerting about him. I wasn’t me around Leo. I couldn’t be.
I felt the questions build again as we walked to art.
“Who is he?” I asked slowly. “Who are you?”
Noel smiled but said nothing.
We’d reached the chapel building but I stopped. With Leo gone, I felt my senses returning. I could think again.
“This is starting to freak me out. You and your…brother are freaking me out.”
He nudged me to keep moving. “I know,” he said finally. “And I’m sorry.”
“That’s it? Sorry is all I get?” I stood outside of the art room and waited for his response.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” I was incensed. “You showed up at the campground—a couple of times—but then conveniently disappeared into thin air whenever someone else showed up…”
“That’s not true,” he began but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.
“Then you show up at my school. But not alone. No, you bring along your brother, some dude who somehow manages to hypnotize people with his eyes, holds people captive just by touching them. What the hell is going on? What do you want from me? Is it the stone? Is that what you’re after?”
At this point, several students had stopped to listen. Noel pressed me against the wall and covered my mouth with his hand to silence me. He leaned closer and, for one panicked moment, I thought he might kiss me. But his mouth whispered past my lips, scenting the air with evergreen and peppermint, past my cheek until it rested just above my ear.
“Don’t.” His breath tickled my ear, sending shivers to the tips of my toes. “I’m telling you the truth. I can’t tell you anything yet.” He straightened slightly and uncovered my mouth.
“I’m scared.” I hated myself for admitting it. Especially to him.
Noel leaned in once again but this time his hands cradled my face, his blue eyes troubled. He studied me for a long moment.
“I know you are.” Regret flavored his voice. “But don’t be.” His lips did brush my ear this time before moving softly to my cheek, leaving a cool trail of soft, stinging kisses. “I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
I believed him. I didn’t question why he was touching me, this boy I barely knew, a boy who had followed me home from my weekend camping trip, who had shown up at my school and who, for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom, had just pledged to protect me. From what, I didn’t know. I couldn’t focus on that, not when his lips were trailing across my closed eyelids, soft as a feather. The tears that dampened my lashes turned icy, like frost, under his touch. What was I doing? What was he doing? I stood there for what seemed like an eternity, relishing the feel of his soft, cool lips, the way his hands caressed my face. With a concerted effort I forced my eyes open. Noel was gone. The second bell must have sounded. The hallway was empty.
“What are you doing?” Someone else voiced the question echoing in my mind. Ashley appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips. “Mr. Pinkney wants to know if you’re coming to class or not.”
“I’m coming,” I said. I didn’t want to go to class. I didn’t want to sit down next to the boy who only moments before had whispered promises and showered me with kisses, strangely cold kisses that stung my skin like a biting wind on a cold winter day. I didn’t want to know what he thought I needed protection from.
I needn’t have worried. After a slow, reluctant step into the classroom, I realized Noel was not there. He had disappeared again.
Chapter 13
I couldn’t get to the car fast enough after school. The passenger seat was littered with shopping bags and I tossed these into the back, clearing a spot to sit.
“How was school?” Mom asked, smiling. Shopping always put her in a good mood.
A hysterical-sounding giggle escaped before I could stop it. She had no idea what had transpired in my life over the last few days, I thought. Strangely beautiful boys following me from the campground to school—one who could hypnotize me and the other promising to protect me—and a mysterious stone that was somehow the center of it all. How could I tell her that? Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. She was the last person I would talk to about this. Or anything else, for that matter.
“Something funny happen?”
“Just something at school,” I mumbled. I didn’t elaborate.
Once home, she grabbed the shopping bags and thrust one of them in my direction. “I picked this up for you,” she said.
“What is it?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“An outfit. I stopped at Couture Closet. Look and see.”
I hesitated before opening the bag. I pushed the tissue aside and breathed a sigh of relief as my hands encountered denim. At least she’d bought me jeans, I thought. But then I pulled them out, a pair of white jeans sporting an intricate black design embroidered down the length of one leg. There was a black shirt, too, a simple black V-neck made of stretchy, clingy fabric, its sleeves shirred. I spied the price tags, did the math and cringed…another two hundred dollars down the drain. I would never wear these things, this outfit that was better suited to my glamorous mother.
I muttered a quick thanks and ran up the stairs to my bedroom, clutching the new outfit. After tossing my backpack on my bed, I threw open my closet door and shoved my new clothes in the back, next to all of the other outfits my mother had bought.
Geoff was due in ten minutes and I was grateful. Anything that would keep my mind off Noel and Leo. I hadn’t seen either of them after my last class and, judging from the searching look on Ashley’s face as I passed her on the way to the car, she hadn’t, either.
I heard the chime of the doorbell and raced back down the stairs, almost colliding with Mom in the hallway.
“It’s just Geoff,” I said. “He’s dropping off some movies.”
But it wasn’t going to be a drop and go. Geoff stood there with his mom, a small manila envelope in one hand and a bakery box in the other. If it had been any other day, I would have cringed, dreading the afternoon of forced visitation. But this day was different. The smile on my face was genuine as I threw open the door and greeted them. A diversion from the events of my afternoon, from the thoughts racing through my mind, was exactly what I needed. Even if that diversion was only Geoff.
“We brought cakes,” Mrs. D told Mom, kissing the air next to her as they embraced.
“Where do you want this?” Geoff held out the envelope. He wore jeans and a black tee emblazoned with tiny peace symbols. His hair fell forward today, framing his angular face and hiding his ears.
“I’ll take it up to my room. Watch them there,” I said. I dropped the envelope on the bottom stair as we passed by on our way to the kitchen.
Mrs. D set the bakery box on the breakfast bar counter while Mom searched for a platter. They chatted about remodeling projects while Mom brewed coffee, her one culinary accom
plishment. Mrs. D arranged the cakes on a silver platter, two dozen or so cupcake-sized cakes, some coated in buttercream frosting, others sleek and elegant in rolled fondant.
I poured two glasses of milk before turning my attention to the cakes. I selected a pink polka dot confection, white beads of frosting dotting the shiny fondant surface, and retreated to our small breakfast table. I stood there and bit into it, savoring the sweet taste of chocolate. I finished it in three bites.
Geoff lingered at the counter, eating two in quick succession before turning to me. “Your mom’s friend is coming over—Fiona someone?”
I nodded. “Fiona Michaels. She lives next door.”
He picked up another cake. “Yeah, that’s her. Mom wants to do an addition, some sun-room kind of thing, so she wants to talk to Fiona. Get some ideas.”
I nodded and finished my milk, walking to the sink as I drained my glass. Geoff followed me. I rinsed it slowly, taking my time as I loaded it and Geoff’s glass into the dishwasher. My initial euphoria at seeing him had worn off and I wished that Fiona would hurry up and make her pitch so they all could leave. I didn’t know what to do with him or what to say with him.
“So…” Geoff paused. “Well, we might be here for a little while. Did you maybe want to watch one of those movies? We could start one…”
I seized his invitation. “Sure,” I said. I wouldn’t have to make any attempts at conversation if we were parked in front of a movie. Maybe I could watch it and escape to a different fantasy land, different than the one currently occupying my reality.
We excused ourselves and went upstairs. I aimed the remote at the wall-mounted TV while Geoff fiddled with the DVD player on top of my dresser.
“Cool room.” He took in my room, staring at my walls.
“Thanks.” I pulled two beanbags—pink and fuchsia camouflage—from my closet and set them on the floor, trying to plump them back into shape. They remained limp and lifeless, the beads permanently flattened. Geoff plopped on one of the bags and tried to get comfortable, spreading his long legs in front of him. He didn’t seem to mind.
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