Done with being intimidated by him, I returned his gaze. All our interactions over the last few months whirred through my brain, every conversation, every look falling under a new light. Knowing he was part of my Bond had made certain things click into place—his tenderness at the hospital and his willingness to help keep an eye on me once we found out I was connected to Josh and Ethan—but it raised more questions than it answered.
“Why did your ability hurt Tyler?” It was just one of a million questions that had been running through my head when I’d opened my mouth to speak.
At his confused look, I elaborated. “When I first saw you at Bradford Hills, remember? I ran up and hugged you, and everyone freaked out because they thought you would hurt me.” I chuckled, knowing now how impossible that was, and the others laughed with me. Even Alec dropped his hands to the bench and smirked. “You got all worked up and lost control of your ability, and everyone got a headache. If Tyler is in my Bond, why was he affected?”
Tyler hummed thoughtfully around his last bite of stir-fry. “We weren’t connected yet.”
I gave him a questioning look. “I was under the impression that Bonds were a preordained kind of deal. You can’t choose who you connect with—you just hope to find the people the Light has fused you to already.”
“Well, yes. The connection is a force of nature we have little control over, but it still needs to be formed, strengthened, developed. When you first saw Alec in the square, our connection hadn’t formed yet. We hadn’t touched, you hadn’t transferred Light to me. It was an inevitability now that we were in such close proximity, but it still wasn’t an actuality at that point.”
I nodded. The Light inside me had still needed to get to know him.
“Oh shit!” Josh laughed out loud from the end of the bench. “Finally, the field is leveled.”
“Yes!” Tyler and Ethan exclaimed at the same time, turning to high-five him over my head.
“What am I missing here?” I grinned, totally lost but overjoyed at the reappearance of Ethan’s dimples.
“Every year, at Thanksgiving, we play a game of football,” Ethan explained, returning his possessive hand to my knee, “and every year Alec cheats by using his ability. Now he can’t do it anymore!” He bounced a little in his seat as he finished.
Alec leaned back, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. He was staring daggers at the other three, but there was amusement in his face too. “I do no such thing. You know my ability leaks out when I get excited. It’s a total accident.”
A chorus of skeptical remarks and teasing was thrown his way.
“This is why I didn’t tell any of you I was part of your stupid Bond! You’re just going to use it against me!” He said it jokingly, but it had a sobering effect, and everyone fell quiet again.
“Wait a minute.” Something wasn’t making sense to me. Actually, a lot wasn’t making sense to me; this just happened to pop into my mind first. “I was in the hospital. They did tests. How come they didn’t pick up that I had Variant DNA?”
Everyone turned to Alec.
“Uh, yeah. I took care of that.”
“Elaborate, please!”
“I had the tests intercepted and the results of the Variant screening falsified.” No hint of remorse. Not even a scrap of sheepishness on his face.
Overlooking the disturbing fact that this had been easy for him to do, I asked the obvious question. “Why?”
It was a heavy, loaded “why,” encompassing more than just the falsified records. It was the question I had been struggling with since the moment I realized we were connected and he had been lying for over a year.
He sighed and stood up, leaning on the counter. The posture put his head just under one of the pendant lights hanging over the island, and it cast his face into shadow.
“Look, the reasons why I did what I did are complicated, but I want you to know one thing, Evie. Your safety was always the primary concern. I suspected, from the moment I wrapped my arms around your frozen, soaking body, that you were mine. When I got a good look at your face, when I couldn’t find it in me to leave your hospital bedside, I knew who you really were. I took the necessary measures to ensure that your status as a Variant—a Vital, no less—would remain secret. To keep you from this world, to keep you safe. I know you feel betrayed, and—”
I shot out of my seat. “You have no idea how I feel. How dare you presume to know what I’m thinking or feeling when you’ve kept me at arm’s length for this long? You have no clue who I am as a person.”
“I know you better than you might think!” The declaration was heavy with bitterness, and he’d raised his voice to match mine. “What I’m trying to say is, I stayed away from you for a year and I thwarted your attempts to find me, but I didn’t abandon you. I kept tabs, I watched your grades, I vetted your foster parents, I had agents tail you when necessary. The only reason I didn’t realize you had ended up back here was because the agents were only instructed to alert me of anything dangerous or suspicious. I would have stepped in without a second thought had you needed me.”
A part of me was outraged and disturbed to know I’d been practically stalked for the past year, but a much bigger part of me latched on to his last statement: that he would have been there had I needed him. Hot tears welled up in my eyes.
“I needed you.” It came out sounding weak and vulnerable. I was so sick of crying. I swatted away the tears on my cheeks in frustration.
I heard him walk over to me, but I couldn’t look at him. All our conversations were ending in shouting or tears or both, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. After a moment, he walked away, muttering about needing a shower.
As soon as things had become difficult, once again, Alec had run.
I dropped my hands and sighed in defeat. The others all stood from their seats, but it was Tyler who pulled me into a hug. I pressed my cheek against his chest and wrapped my arms around his middle. It was unnerving how comforting his touch was, especially considering he’d kept a careful boundary between us when it came to showing affection.
I felt better, safer, and more alive with one of them near me. I positively hummed when one of them touched me. No wonder I’d descended more and more into paranoid hysteria the farther I ran away from them; I needed them as much as they needed me.
He held me for a long time, and I listened to the boys cleaning up in the kitchen, putting containers back in the fridge, doing the dishes.
After a while, he nudged my chin up until I met his gaze. His gray eyes held warmth and tenderness, but they were tired and bloodshot. Another pang of guilt shot through me for putting them through this.
“I want you to feel safe with us,” he stated firmly as his hand massaged the back of my neck, “and not just because your Light-driven instincts tell you that you belong with us. I want you to feel safe on every level, including the highly logical, questioning one you’re so good at. I know that Alec’s lies have tested your trust, but please believe me when I say we had no idea about any of this. So—”
“Wait,” I cut him off, “I need to know. When you say you had no idea, what does that mean?” How much had they all lied to me?
“It means we didn’t know you were really Evelyn Maynard.” There was a hint of bewilderment in his eyes. “I was twelve when you and your mom disappeared, and it’s not like I looked at pictures of her every day for the past decade. There was something familiar about you when we first met, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Later, when we found out we were Bonded, I put the feeling down to our connection and dismissed it. Ethan and Josh just thought they had found their Vital—it never even crossed any of our minds that you were anyone other than who you said you were.”
“So you haven’t been keeping it from me this whole time?” I needed to hear him say it again.
“Eve, no. I promise. It didn’t fall into place until this afternoon, when Josh’s book bounced off Alec and I realized he was in our Bond too. That’s when I knew who you
must be—because we always suspected you were his. He’s been keeping this from us too. But no more secrets, OK? If you want to know something, ask. If something makes you uncomfortable or unsure or worried, just tell us. I’m never letting you out of my sight again, so let’s make sure you’re comfortable where you are, OK?”
He smiled—tired but genuine—and it was infectious, pulling my own lips up at the corners.
“Bunch of stalkers,” I whispered and leaned in without thinking.
He closed the distance but, instead of kissing me, squeezed me to his chest one more time. His words had soothed my most pressing anxiety—I believed he hadn’t been lying to me. I couldn’t see him being very good at it anyway. He held truth above all else as a virtue.
“Stay the night,” he said, letting me go and turning toward the door. “I have to go deal with the lying one before I crash.”
No sooner had Tyler released me than Ethan stepped up and threaded his fingers through mine. “You’ll stay, won’t you?” he asked softly.
“Yes. I don’t want to be anywhere else right now.”
“You can take my room,” Josh piped up from the sink, where he’d just finished with the dishes.
Ethan cleared his throat. “Is it OK if I sleep in there with you? I’ll take the couch, of course. I just . . . I can’t have you out of my sight right now.”
“Of course, big guy.” I punctuated that with a wide yawn.
Turning out the lights, Josh led the way to his room, and then they left me alone to get ready for bed.
I was wrecked. The day’s events had taken a massive toll on my body. Glancing at the clock, I couldn’t believe it was only eight. After rushing through my bedtime routine, I pulled my phone out and texted the Reds.
Staying at Ethan’s tonight. See you guys tomorrow?
The reply was instant.
Zara: what? What was with them all showing up here earlier? You can’t just not explain that.
Beth: you ok?
Me: I’m fine. I promise! It was just a misunderstanding.
Understatement of the century. How was I going to explain that one?
Zara: I smell a story . . .
Beth: you can tell us all about it tomorrow. Cant’s wait to hear all about the party too! I guess it was good if it’s still going ;)
Zara: Gross . . . But you better at least be getting some if you’re ditching us again.
Me: haha!
Beth: They’re having that Variant alumni event on campus tomorrow because of the senator being in town. Maybe we could crash that and try to score some free hors d'oeuvres?
Zara: You get free food at the cafeteria every day you fruit-loop!
Beth: So? This is fancy free food.
Me: Sounds great! See you guys tomorrow. Xo
Zara: xo
Beth: *a series of sexually suggestive emojis.*
I had just snuggled in under the dark blue covers of Josh’s ridiculously big bed when there was a quiet knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Ethan walked inside, wearing nothing but boxers, with Josh hot on his heels in underwear and a tank top, both of them carrying bundles of bedding. I tried not to stare, but judging by Ethan’s dimpled smirk, I failed.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Josh said as he came to stand by the bed, “but I’m going to sleep in here too. It is my room, after all. I’ll take the floor. Can I borrow a pillow?”
Ethan was setting up on the couch by the fireplace. It occurred to me how silly it was for Josh to be asking to borrow one of his own pillows, and I laughed.
His green eyes sparkled. “So, that’s a ‘no’ on the pillow? Harsh.”
It was ridiculous for them both to sleep uncomfortably when the king-size bed could easily accommodate us all. We were all exhausted, and if I was being honest, I was craving their touch. I had expelled so much Light earlier and made such a concentrated effort to stem its flow afterward that there couldn’t possibly be any danger of levitating the bed or setting it on fire.
“Actually, no, you can’t take this pillow,” I teased, flopping back onto the item in question. “But you can still use it,” I finished quietly and flipped the corner of the blanket down in invitation.
Slowly his eyebrows rose in surprise. “You sure?”
“Yep. Get in here. I need cuddles.”
His makeshift bedding forgotten on the floor, he climbed in on my left and gave me a brilliant smile.
I hadn’t forgotten Ethan. Lifting myself up onto my elbows, I saw him standing by the couch, awkward and uncertain. One of his arms hung by his side, and he was rubbing it with the other, his eyes darting all about the room before finally meeting my gaze.
I gave him a big smile and lifted the other corner. That was all the invitation he needed. Sprinting across the room, he launched himself at the bed and landed half across me, his face buried in my hair.
After our giggles subsided, he gave me the softest kiss on the cheek, whispered “good night,” and rolled off me. I turned onto my side, toward Josh, and Ethan draped his arm over my middle, snuggling into my back. He was asleep in minutes.
Josh turned the lamp off and lay back down. The only light was moonlight streaming in through the windows, and it took my eyes a few minutes to adjust. I brushed a stray lock of blond hair off his forehead, and he captured my hand, pressing a warm kiss to my palm before resting our joined hands on the bed between us.
“Do you think Ethan’s going to be OK?” I whispered.
“Yeah.” Josh whispered back, a sad smile playing on his lips. “He just has some . . . abandonment issues. He was only nine when our parents were killed. He puts on a cocky façade, but deep down, he’s still that kid, crying for his parents. Finding you—and now, discovering who you are—it’s like finding a family all over again. To have that in his hands and then for it to slip away so suddenly . . . it just brought a lot of memories back. He’ll be fine once he wakes up and sees you’re still here.”
“I’m so sorry.” I could tell by the end he wasn’t talking only about Ethan. Josh had gone through the same things; he just wasn’t as expressive about it.
“It’s OK. I get it.” He squeezed my hand for emphasis. Of course Josh got it. Josh got everything.
“I was scared and I panicked, but I know I hurt you all by running off like that. Well, maybe not Alec. I think Alec would have preferred for me to go away.” I let that hang in the darkness between us.
Josh sighed. “He cares. Trust me. It might not seem like it, but what the four of us went through—we’re closer than family. We have no secrets. The fact that he kept this from us for so long tells me that he puts your safety even above our friendship. I believe that in his own messed-up way, he was convinced he was doing the right thing. He couldn’t have known you would be connected to all of us. We always suspected that you and Alec were, but not us. That’s why we didn’t realize who you were from the start.”
“So why is he still being . . . him, now that it’s all out in the open? He’s still acting like he wants nothing to do with me.”
“Eve, he chased you down to New York just like we did. He helped bring you back here, where you belong. He’s just . . . We all have our issues. Alec is no exception.”
He paused, pain written all over his face. I gave his hand a squeeze, just as he had mine, and he smiled sadly.
Storing the information on Alec away for another time, I leaned forward on the pillow and pressed my forehead to Josh’s, running my fingers through his dirty blond hair.
“I never even got to say goodbye,” he whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear him.
I knew exactly how he felt. “I never got to say goodbye to my mother either.”
It had been one hell of a rollercoaster of a day, and I just had no tears left. I pressed my lips to his gently, then hesitated. I didn’t want him to think I was kissing him to shut him up. But he responded immediately, placing his hand on my hip and scooting forward to deepen the kiss. I leaned into
him, but as soon as I moved, Ethan’s grip on my waist tightened, pinning me to his chest.
I chuckled against Josh’s lips. “I think someone’s not quite ready to let me go.”
He pressed another desperate kiss to my lips before pulling away. “I don’t think he ever will be. I don’t think any of us will. So don’t bother trying to leave. We’ll just keep coming after you.”
I smiled and let sleep finally take me.
At some point in the dead of night, the door creaked open, and I pushed my face farther into the pillow to shield my eyes from the light. The brightness disappeared quickly, but in its place were two hushed voices, one firm and sure, the other smooth like honey. I could have sworn they were talking about me, but I was half-asleep and couldn’t be sure I wasn’t dreaming.
Josh snuggled in closer to my front, and Ethan sighed into my hair. I felt cocooned and safe, surrounded by my Bond, and my breathing evened out again, matching theirs.
Twenty-Four
The next morning, I woke up when Ethan jostled me. I was pressed into his side, my head resting on his shoulder, with Josh spooning me. Ethan carefully eased himself out of bed, his movements slow and measured, but I was a light sleeper. I kept my eyes closed and pretended I was still asleep as he got up.
He dropped a kiss onto my head, shuffled around in the bathroom for a few minutes, and then left, probably to go for a run. That boy had more energy than I did when I had Light overflow.
As soon as the door closed, Josh nuzzled into me tighter. Apparently I wasn’t the only one pretending to be asleep. A secret smile spread over my face, but I kept my eyes closed. That is until I felt him—all of him—pressing into my ass. I don’t think he meant to do it, because he exhaled loudly and rolled away.
Variant Lost (The Evelyn Maynard Trilogy Book 1) Page 28