Unmistakable

  I’m not stupid, and I know what could have happened after the night with Luke. I could have sunk into a pit of self-pity and unrequited love. It’s happened before, to me and to people who have much more strength than I do.

  But it didn’t. Thanks to Iz, to some show about duck people, and to Holden’s incessant good cheer, I’m back, better than I’ve ever been in my life, stronger even than the little girl version of Stella who sewed dresses and did some time as the mean girl queen of Amity High. I should thank Luke, really, for the wake-up call. And I should thank Holden for a lot of things.

  I like this version of myself.

  My hair is blond again.

  I’ve finally managed to clear out some of the black from my closet, although I’ve vowed never to return to the cardigans.

  I think I might even look like a normal girl. I’ll never be a supermodel, and I can’t possibly hope to possess Iz’s flawlessness, but I think I clean up pretty nicely sometimes. I could be cute, even.

  I hardly ever think about Luke.

  Once a day.

  Okay. Twice a day.

  If it’s a really bad day, maybe seven times. Or eight. Or eighty.

  It’s still a massive achievement.

  And it’s mostly, if not all, thanks to Holden and his preternatural ability to make me smile.

  “Stella?” Holden asks, his eyes twinkling. “Still having trouble with those compliments?”

  I don’t stop to think about the repercussions. I just stand up from the chair, throw my arms around his neck and wrap him in a tight embrace that lasts longer than it should and not as long as I want it to.

  When I hear his awkward cough, I stumble backwards and give him a sheepish smile.

  “Sorry about that. I’m normally not much of a hugger, but honestly, I needed to thank you. I mean, first of all, you didn’t even hold the douchebag comment against me, which is kind of a remarkable thing, and you let me prattle on about the annoyances of dealing with psych subjects, and you even listened to my bad jokes and naïve theories about personality and behavior, which has to count for something. I really appreciate it. All of it. And I just needed for you to know that.”

  He furrows his brow, and for once, he doesn’t look amused. “Look, Stella…”

  Holden’s speech is interrupted by a hard knock on the door. With an apologetic groan, he takes a step back from me.

  “I should get that.”

  “Yeah, and I should get out of here. I have a flight to catch and I didn’t mean to get all mushy on you.”

  No. What I did was practically assault him. I suck at life.

  “Maybe you can drop by sometime,” he offers.

  His voice is unnaturally strangled. I’ve never heard him sound like that before, and it allows me to hope that maybe this isn’t just a professional thing. I mean, it’s not like I want to be his girlfriend or anything. That wouldn’t really be so crazy, especially when I consider the fact that he happens to be a super genius who graduated college at the age of nineteen, and is actually, honestly, only three and a half years older than me.

  But…I haven’t felt fireworks, not during any of the late nights we’ve worked together, or in any of the back and forth tongue-lashings I’ve unleashed on him.

  On the other hand, I’m through with fireworks. We would be good together. He would make me forget the darkness.

  Get a grip, Stella. None of that nonsense.

  Still. Maybe we can keep being friends.

  “Sure.” I cover up my meandering thoughts and return to his query. “Maybe we could get a coffee or something after break. You can tell me horror stories about the new research assistant.”

  His smile is beatific. “I would really like that.”

  The knock comes again, more urgent this time.

  “Okay. I really should get that.”

  “You really should.”

  Neither of us moves a muscle.

  “Hol-den,” a teasing, familiar voice calls out. “Open the door, man.”

  Jesus Christ.

  I’ve seen him walking around campus, usually with his arm slung around some impossibly beautiful girl. Thankfully, Greenview is classified as an arboretum, which means it contains a plentiful array of lush tress, where are perfect for ducking behind when you’re trying to avoid someone. Luke may have been the catalyst for my seemingly stable grip on life, but that doesn’t mean I need to see him on a regular basis. Or ever. No more fireworks. No more Luke. It’s good for me.

  Holden looks pained. “I can tell him to come back,” he offers.

  My response is swift. “Don’t bother.”

  I can only be hurt if I give someone the power to cause pain. I refuse to allow Luke Dixon to hold that power. Not this time.

  Still, my hand hovers on the doorknob for a little longer than is strictly necessary.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Stella,” Holden says softly.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” I whisper.

  Luke is turned away from the door, his back against the wall, and I’m grateful that I don’t have to see his face. Maybe I can slip out the other way. Maybe…

  “Finally,” he drawls. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you had a girl in there.”

  I’m gratified to see that his mouth falls open when he sees me standing in the doorframe.

  I’m also a coward, so I don’t meet his eyes or offer a joke to ease the tension. Let him think that I was that girl. Technically, I was her, I suppose. I adjust my bag on my shoulder, and as I march down the hall, I congratulate myself on my minor accomplishment.

  As it turns out, it’s premature.

  I’m halfway outside the building when he catches my arm from behind. He needn’t have bothered with touching me, because the little current of electricity sparks, kindles, then explodes, even before he lays a hand on my skin.

  Freaking fireworks.

  I so do not need this in my life. Warm and steady. Amber instead of blue. Safe instead of danger.

  I manage to wriggle myself free of his tight grasp, but I don’t escape the fleeting thought—I wish he would touch me again.

  He does. His lips brush my hair as he whispers softly into my ear. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  That conjures up a thousand fractured images of him and Jack and me and my parents around a table filled with burned potatoes and sad jello salad.

  I spin around and face him head-on, no longer willing to be a victim of my own cowardice. What I find rips the air from my lungs.

  If anything, he’s gotten more beautiful and more dangerous, all lean muscle and sharp angles and silken jet-black hair. But, as always, it’s the eyes that devastate me. They hold none of his typical sarcasm. Just an ocean of regret. I’m confused, disoriented, and I open my mouth to say something, anything.

  And then I remember: “Forget that ever happened.”

  I turn on my heels and I’m outside before starting my five second countdown.

  It only takes three. I should get a medal or something. Really.

  Chapter 15

  Major achievement of the day number two—I get to the airport in time to make my flight. As a reward, I decide to treat myself to a broad sampling of reading material. I pick up every single one of the weekly tabloids, which all feature the same starlet. However, each has a different headline—engaged, pregnant, in rehab, teaching orphans in Africa.

  I shove the one about African orphans back on the shelf. I don’t need to read about all of her good deeds, because that would just make me feel like a terrible person, and I already feel that way most of the time. Then, I spend a long time debating whether to pick up the National Book Award winner or one with the half-naked man on the cover.

  Screw it.

  It’s not like I’m going to see anyone I know. That’s the beauty of airplanes. You can read what you want, drink what you want, and say what you want. No one will ever be the wiser. And the half-naked man on the cover is far more tempting than the maudlin description of one ma
n’s journey from a wheelchair to long-distance running.

  I settle into a leather armchair at the gate, and twenty minutes later, I’m already pretty pissed at Armando, the stable hand. If he doesn’t have the nerve to tell Felicia, the duke’s daughter, that he loves her, then how the hell does he think he’s going to win over her family? I’m about thirty pages in, and the most exciting thing that’s happened is a “clandestine” touch of her bare arm. Lame. I’m thumbing through to see if it picks up any speed when someone coughs conspicuously.

  Holden, a cup of coffee in hand, smiles down at me.

  “Miss Walton,” he says, adding a boyish wink.

  He hasn’t called me that since our first meeting that day in the lecture hall, and I’m wondering what kind of massive mistake I’ve made on one observation form or another when I realize, with no small degree of horrified embarrassment, that his eyes are resting on the book in my lap. I shove Unforgettable Love into my bag. There’s got to be some chance that he hasn’t seen the cover.

  His quick, easy grin tells me that I wasn’t fast enough.

  I really need to get myself a Kindle.

  “I see that you’re planning on doing a lot of studying this trip.”

  I scowl. “We all have our guilty little pleasures.”

  His eyes gleam with laughter, and I melt. Staying pissed would be a lot easier if he wasn’t so goddamn attractive.

  “I love Journey,” he whispers conspiratorially. “I can’t get enough of them.”

  That is not even close to a guilty pleasure. Everyone loves Journey. I shake my head in disgust.

  “Weak. That doesn’t count.”

  “Fine. That was a half-truth, as you call it. It’s Star Trek, actually. All of it. The TV shows, the movies, the terrible serialized novels. I even have the action figures.”

  I would never have guessed. “Slightly better,” I concede.

  He’s forgiven—as if that were ever really in question. I shift my belongings and pat the seat next to me.

  “San Francisco, huh?” he says, glancing down at my ticket.

  I nod. “You?”

  “Yeah. One of my old friends just started a post-doc in China, so I figured I would take advantage of his empty house, maybe see some old friends who are still finishing up their doctorates. I expect lots of talk about dissertations and advisors. Should be fun.”

  I grin when I see his eyes roll. “I think my sarcasm just might be rubbing off on you.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  I realize then that he didn’t mention Thanksgiving. Family. Turkey dinners and canned cranberry sauce. “Does your family live in San Francisco, too?”

  His face darkens precipitously.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,” I murmur hastily.

  “No. No family. You?”

  “My parents live there.”

  I want to ask about his response to my mention of the f-word, but I don’t. My laundry list of faults, so clearly and concisely laid out by Luke on multiple occasions, don’t normally include prying into other people’s business.

  “If I had realized that you were headed to the airport, and to San Francisco, we could have shared a cab here.” He purses his lips and gives me a curious stare. “I thought you were from Madison.”

  I panic. Stella Walton is from Madison, Wisconsin. How could I have forgotten?

  Before I first got to Greenview, I scoured the internet for pictures of Wisconsin and studied them for hours and days and weeks, under the guise of being able to tell a convincing cover story. It became more than that—I created a whole existence. I lived on a farm outside the city. We owned cows.

  I told that story to myself so many times that I could almost believe that it was true.

  Stella Walton doesn’t really exist, and Stella Granger is from San Francisco. She’s also the daughter of Holden’s psychology hero, something that became increasingly hard to cover up as the semester went on. He thinks my mother is a genius. He’s read her work so many times that he’s even picked up on the expressions she uses, the only parts of her writing that sound like her.

  His little unconscious reminders of her make my heart ache. It’s a big part of the reason why I’ve made it as far as the airport this time, and it’s another debt to Holden that needs to be added to the ledger.

  Holden asks again.

  “Stella? Your family is in San Francisco?”

  “My parents moved,” I mutter.

  “Must be a big change from the farm to the Bay area,” he remarks.

  The idea of my egghead mother milking cows on a farm makes me laugh out loud.

  “Huge change.”

  “Still. It’s a great town. I’m sure you really enjoy going back for breaks. Have you seen many of the sights yet, or is this a recent move?”

  It’s a scarcely concealed ploy for more information, and it’s obvious that he was listening to my earlier conversation with Izzy. He’s clearly picked up on my uneasiness, and he can’t leave well enough alone. His relentless curiosity is one of traits that I like most about him, but right now, I’m wishing he would take his stupid questions elsewhere.

  “Yeah,” I say flatly. “A recent move.”

  I wait for the predictable questions. To my surprise, he looks uncomfortable and rushes to fill the silence with uncharacteristic chatter.

  “Listen, there are a couple of things I wanted to ask you about the project. I’ll probably shoot you an e-mail once we’re both back on campus, but maybe you could stop by for a quick meeting before finals.”

  “Or we could sit together on the plane.”

  I don’t even know why I said that. I want to dodge questions, not fall into them. Plus, I’m curious about whether or not Armando and Felicia will ever find true love. I mean, my money’s on yes, but you never know.

  However, I’ve been overtaken by the plague of his unfettered inquisitiveness. I want to know why he’s really going to San Francisco, and I’m willing to fend off his attempts to get me to answer that same question. Unforgettable Love can wait.

  “We could, but then we would have to deal with the aftermath of airplane questions,” he says, with an overdramatic sigh.

  I’m confused. “What are airplane questions?”

  He levies the full power of that amber stare on me. “When you’re on an airplane, you ask yourself questions that you wouldn’t normally even think of. Clinically, it has something to do with the fact that you’re neither here nor there, but somewhere in between reality and the sky. But instead of asking ourselves those things, we’d be asking each other, and I’m not sure if I want you to know the answers to my airplane questions.”

  His voice is matter-of-fact, but he punctuates the works with another wink. Underestimation wins again. He’s definitely read my mind. I’m starting to believe that he’s a mutant. Or a superhero. Maybe both.

  “I don’t want you to know the answers to my airplane questions, either,” I say finally.

  He tilts his head to the side, studying me. “Also, it looks like you might be in first class. That’s too rich for my blood.”

  I glance at the ticket. Crap. How had I missed that?

  “That’s um…My mother…She’s ridiculous, really, I didn’t even know that…Thousands of dollars for some hot towels. Seriously.”

  “You don’t need to apologize, Stella. If you can steal me one of the little bottles of whiskey, I’ll even be grateful. You can deliver it to the back of the plane, because that’s where I’ll be sitting.”

  I’m exceedingly curious about these so-called airplane questions, but his face relaxes into a bland mask and I know I’ve missed my chance. An intercom voice drones: “Group 4 boarding to San Francisco.”

  Holden slings his bag over his shoulder and grins at me. “You’ll have to regale me with stories of life in the front of the plane sometime. We coach-dwellers live for hot towels.”

  He disappears before I can think of an appropriate response. I’m not that eager to jo
in the mad rush, so I sit in the chair, lost in thought, until the line thins out. As it turns out, I’m the last person to get on the plane, which is less than half-full, and kind of a miracle, given that it is Thanksgiving weekend. I glance back and spot Holden sitting in the last row, all by himself, and instead of shoving my bag under the seat, I fling it over my shoulder.

  “Hot towel, miss?” the flight attendant asks, holding out silver tongs.

  “Um, no. Actually, is it okay if I switch seats?” I ask. “I see a friend back there.”

  She gives me a strange look and takes a moment to confer with another flight attendant. I can tell that they’re about to ask questions, but luckily, I spot a muscular guy in army fatigues crammed into one of the seats in the third row of coach.

  “If you can, offer him my seat, please,” I tell them, motioning to the guy. Then, I remember something. “I know the answer is probably no, but is there any way I can get a couple bottles of booze for the flight?”

  The second flight attendant beams and leans down to whisper something to the man I pointed to, and they both shoot me a grateful look. The first one, whose name is Sarah, at least according to her little gold-plated nametag, gives my cheek an impromptu kiss before disappearing into the galley.

  Great. This is not at all what I wanted. It’s not like I’m teaching African orphans here. Nope. Just being a selfish brat. Unwilling to deal with any more cheek kisses or smiles, I start moving towards the back of the plane, but Sarah manages to catch me when I’m about halfway there. She hands me a little basket filled with assorted bottles of liquor.

  “You are just the sweetest thing,” she says, grinning. “Sit wherever you like, dear. How patriotic of you.”

  She’s gotten the wrong impression. I try to say something to convince her that I’m not exactly the patriot she thinks I am, but it’s already gone too far. The guy in fatigues sends me another appreciative smile and then Sarah is hugging me and I’m stuck in the middle of a commotion I neither want nor deserve. After a few more seconds of humiliation, I manage to make my way to the back of the plane, painfully aware that Holden has been watching the entire scene play out.