by Brenda Drake
He unscrewed the thermos and poured a brown liquid into the cap. “Hot cocoa?” he asked, and passed the cap to her.
“Obviously,” she said, taking a sip. Because cream puffs tasted best with hot chocolate. It was sweet that he’d taken the time to find out what she liked.
They ate in silence, but it wasn’t boring. It was more like…comfortable. When they finished, Reese screwed the cap back onto the thermos and placed the used napkins in the box. He scooted as close as he could get to her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he slid his arm behind her back. They watched the sun set on the ocean and listened to the waves clap against the beach.
“It’s beautiful here,” Reese said, finally.
She raised her head to look into his eyes. “This is the best date ever.”
He smiled, brushing crumbs away from the corner of her mouth. Her heart shivered as his fingers moved to her chin and lifted her mouth to his. The kiss was soft and gentle, and way too short for Aster. He pulled away, a serious expression on his face.
“Do you believe in fate?” he said softly.
Aster swallowed back her surprise.
“I think I do,” she said, recovering. It was a lame response. Before meeting Miri, she probably would have said she did right off. It used to be just a word without meaning. But now, it held a power beyond that of a simple definition in a dictionary. She had looked the word up. Fate was unavoidable. Something that couldn’t be measured. Yet she had the ability to shift it. She worried she didn’t have the maturity to know when to let sleeping fates lie.
“I believe in it,” Reese said with a nod. “We were to go straight to Florida, but I had an urge to stop in Ocean City. I felt you. Fate brought us together.”
“I thought it was an ice cream cone.” She giggled.
Oh God, Aster, stop giggling, already.
He touched her cheek. “I’m being serious here. I don’t want to hesitate anymore. There isn’t much time. I’ll only be here a few months.”
Wait. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
She moved away from him. “What? You want me to drop my panties right here and now because you don’t have time? I don’t even know you.”
“No, of course not. You misunderstand me.” Reese grabbed her hand. “I just wish to spend as much time as possible with you. Get to know you and enjoy the romance. Can you let your walls down and trust me?”
“Oh.” She relaxed. “I thought that’s what I was doing tonight.”
“I wasn’t certain. I’d like to see more of you. Any spare time you have, I want to fill it.”
He massaged her fingers, and she felt her body tingle.
“Okay, I’d like that.” She focused on the silvery waves hitting the beach.
“Splendid.” He stood. “It’s getting late. We should go.”
He offered her his hand. She took it, and he helped her to her feet. He cradled her face in his hands. His strikingly blue eyes studied her face for what seemed like a lifetime. The anticipation was so intense, she felt weak and almost stumbled back before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
“Steady there,” he whispered against her ear.
She glanced up at him, noticing a tiny scar just below his lip, and she wondered how he’d gotten it. There was a thumping sound, and she wasn’t sure where it was coming from until she realized it was her heart. His sweater was soft against her skin as she ran her hands up his chest. She touched the scar, and he kissed her fingertip. She swallowed back her nerves.
And when she thought she couldn’t take the delay any longer, when she thought her heart might just break out of her chest, his lips found hers. His mouth was warm, and it sent shivers rippling through her body. He tasted like cream puffs and promises. The promise that she was safe in his arms. A tear left her eye and ran between their lips.
Reese pulled away, a concerned look on his face. “You’re crying?” He wiped her eyes with his thumbs.
“I’m sorry.” She turned her back to him. “This place just holds a lot of memories.” It was a good excuse. There was no way she’d let on that he’d caused her tears.
He hugged her from behind. “Your grandfather?”
She nodded. And now you.
He rested his chin on her head and said, “Will you give me a chance?”
“Yes,” she said, her answer softly rolling out with the tide.
As they walked hand in hand back to her house, she wished she could keep that night forever. Lock it up somewhere and visit it whenever she wanted. He’d only be here a few months. What then? No matter what a person did, no relationship lasted forever. People left. People died. Relationships were uncertain, and she didn’t do well with the unknown.
Besides, she wasn’t sure how he felt about her. The theory behind the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is that no one particle has a definite position or momentum, and trying to pin down the measurement of one will make the other uncertain. That’s how guys were to Aster—the more she tried to figure out a guy’s position on his feelings and the momentum of their relationship, the more uncertain his feelings became.
Reese squeezed her hand and flashed his dazzling smile, making her stomach tingly. “Thank you for a wonderful evening.”
Man, he’s gorgeous.
She lowered her gaze and smirked, sand squishing between her toes. “It was nice,” she whispered, then glanced back at him. He was still watching her with those eyes. Those eyes so blue, they were lighter than the ocean and deeper than the sky.
Maybe a little uncertainty wouldn’t be so bad.
Chapter Ten
Reese
Reese stomped into the flat and slammed the door, startling Jan, who was on the sofa watching a reality TV show.
“What’s got your goat?” Jan said, rubbing at his eyes. “She didn’t like the surprise dessert picnic?”
“It went splendidly.” He tossed the keys on the desk. “Bugger! I can’t do it. I’m not a monster.”
Jan stood and stretched. “You’re fancying her. That’s why you’re upset. You feel guilty. I think you need reminding—the plan was to make her fall for you, not the other way around.”
“Sod off,” Reese snapped, opening the refrigerator and grabbing a beer. “She’s a nice girl, that’s all. I’d hate to hurt her.”
The thing was, he did fancy Aster. He enjoyed the feel of her against his body. He liked the way she’d shuddered at his touch. But it was more than just the physical side of it all. There was her wit. Her laugh. The perfect way her lips pressed together in a rosebud smirk. He couldn’t blame her for building walls, since he wished he could erect his own. It was as if he were on a pleasure cruise headed for a Titanic disaster. Though he knew the tragic ending, he was powerless to stop it.
“Are you just going to stare at that beer or get to know it?” Jan grabbed a bottle for himself, popped the top, and leaned against the counter across from Reese. “Completely botched it, haven’t you?”
“Won’t you be sad to leave Leah?” Reese decided it was best to move away from the subject of Aster.
Jan took a swig of his beer. “No matter the outcome, I’ll be sticking around here. Sorry to say, but you’ll have to learn to get along without me…in death or life, wherever your fate lies.”
“Just give it to me straight, you cock-up.” Reese chuckled, then slugged down a considerable portion of his drink. “I’m sorry I won’t be around to give you away.”
“Sod off, she wasn’t serious about the wedding invitations.”
Reese laughed louder. “Are you quite certain?”
“You wanker.” He threw his bottle cap at Reese. “If I were you, I’d guard that weak, slow-beating heart of yours. I’m retiring to my room. I’ve got a paper to write.”
Guard his heart. How did one do that? Reese was certain he didn’t have the gear for it. He could tell Aster the truth. He dismissed that thought right away. It was too late for that. She would think he romanced her with ulterior motive
s, and she could quite possibly despise him for it. Though he hated deceiving her, his very life depended upon doing just that. Besides, heartbreak was a teen’s rite of passage, wasn’t it?
He chugged the rest of his beer and headed for bed, tossing around all the possible outcomes in his head, pondering how he could avoid the disaster he saw looming.
…
Reese spotted Aster down the hall standing in front of her locker, just staring at its contents. It had been a few weeks since their romantic dessert on the beach. They’d had a pizza and movie night with Jan and Leah at the condo, coffee alone at her favorite café, and walks on the beach outside her house, and shared many lunches at school, but still, he never seemed to get enough of her. He’d almost forgotten about his approaching birthday. A month and a half seemed like ages away.
He was reminded of his mission when he received a text from Miri. Aster hadn’t been to her shop for some time. The callings Miri had sent out were unanswered. Miri needed the tarot deck she gave Aster to perform a stronger invocation, and she wanted him to find it.
He’d searched her room during their study nights together when she’d gone to the restroom, but it wasn’t there. The only place he hadn’t inspected was her locker.
Reese adjusted his backpack before hugging her from behind. She gasped and dropped her books. Papers slid out from a folder as it fell to the floor. Dropping to her knees, she began gathering the notes.
“Bloody hell! I’m sorry.” On his way down to help her, he tugged on a precariously placed book sticking partly out of the locker, causing more items to fall out and offering a bigger diversion so he could complete his task. “It’s an avalanche. You need some organization there.” He laughed, gathering up books.
“It’s not funny.” She glared at him, but the corners of her mouth gave her away. Not able to hold a straight face any longer, she giggled.
As she finished arranging the papers in her folder, Reese stood with an armful of books. After a quick search of the locker, he glimpsed the box of tarot cards in the back. Reese quickly slipped them into his jacket pocket, then stacked her books on the wire-shelf insert.
She sprang to her feet beside him. “Thanks. I really do need to get organized.”
“You have all the gadgets for it.” Owls decorated the inside of her locker with holders and a mirror attached to the door. He lifted notebooks and folders. “You have any snacks in here?”
“Didn’t you have enough to eat at lunch?”
“I’m a growing boy. Snacks are required every hour.” He tapped her nose. “No kiss hello?”
She gave him a quick kiss and pulled out one of the books Reese had put away.
With the first task of snatching the box of tarot cards completed, Reese struggled with how to handle the next one. In a few weeks, the American teen mating ritual they called prom was approaching. But he wasn’t certain if she was into that sort of thing. Would she want him to make a big display of asking her like some poor clods had to endure? Or would she simply want an invite? He felt on unstable ground.
Just as he was contemplating the thought, about twenty or so students walked single-file down the hall, each carrying a red balloon with a black letter painted on it. Jan followed them holding a dozen red roses.
Aster slammed her locker shut and watched as each student handed his or her balloon off to Leah.
“Yes!” Leah squealed and hugged Jan.
“Oh, please,” Aster droned. “Don’t tell me he drank the Kool-Aid.”
Reese shot her a puzzled look. “What does that mean?”
“Just that he’s bought into the pompass prom invite thing, where all the guys try to outdo one another,” she said, stuffing a book into her backpack.
“So you don’t like that sort of thing?”
“God, no.”
“I see.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
She eyed him suspiciously. “Were you going to ask me?”
“It might have crossed my mind.” He looked down the hall at Jan kissing Leah.
“Well, I’ll make it easy on you.” She grabbed his forearm, batted her eyelashes, and said in some sort of accent, “Why, Mr. Van Buren, will you go to prom with me?”
He smirked. “Why, Miss Layne, I’d love to.”
“That was a horrible Southern accent.”
He laughed. “Oh, that’s what you were going for.”
Leah rocketed down the hall to them, hugging the roses to her chest and trailing the balloons behind her. “Did you see? Jan asked me to prom.”
Aster rolled her eyes. “Who didn’t see? Obviously, you gave him instructions, didn’t you?”
“I gave him several ideas, and he picked my favorite one.” She smelled the roses. “I made sure he bought them from your mother’s shop.”
“Now that’s a positive,” Reese said, looking to Aster. “We’re going to the prom as well.”
“Really?” Leah said. The squeal had returned. “How did you ask her?”
“I asked him,” Aster said, stifling a yawn.
Leah’s mouth dropped open, and it took her a bit to recover. “Well, it doesn’t matter how, just that you’re going. In fact, we can all go together. I must get to class. We’ll discuss details later. Bye.” And she was gone in a rustling of balloons.
Aster faced him. “I don’t want any flowers or corsages. No matter what my mom offers. Okay? I just want to go to a quiet dinner and the dance. Oh, and a hotel room.”
“Why would we need a hotel when I have a flat? Without parents.” The importance of the request suddenly hit him. “And why do you want a hotel room?”
“Because there will be the whole lose-your-virginity-on-prom-night cliché thing,” she said, and walked off.
Stunned, Reese watched her departure. When he’d recovered, he rushed after her. “Did you just say what I think you said?”
“If you mean the sex part, yes.”
“Aster, will you please stop?”
She did.
He took her hand. “I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing something you don’t want to do.”
“It’s something I want to do.”
Reese studied her face. Unfortunately, it didn’t give him any clue at how she really felt about it. “Prom’s a few weeks away. Why don’t we wait until it gets closer?”
Resting her palm on his cheek, she smiled up at him. “You’re the best, you know that?”
He bent and kissed her. “Thank you for taking it easy on me. I’m not sure I could have pulled off what Jan just did.”
“It was my pleasure, trust me—” she said, then paused as something on Reese’s shirt caught her eye. At the same time he looked down, she touched the object of her distraction.
“Oh, that. It’s my family’s crest. Another item my mother sent.”
“What do the initials stand for?” she asked.
“My full name. Reese Armand Van Buren.”
“Oh.” A strange expression flashed on her face while she examined it. “Um…we better hurry before the next bell rings.”
He moved to kiss her, but she was already turning to leave. “I’ll see you after school,” she said.
“All right,” he said uncertainly.
And she was off, jogging down the hall.
Her reaction to his pin was puzzling, but her rush to leave was typical. She disliked being late to anything. Scratching at his collar, he walked in the opposite direction, passed his class, and went out the exit. There wasn’t time to wonder about what Aster could be thinking, or the stirrings of real feelings he had brewing for her. He had a mission, and he couldn’t give up now.
Miri was waiting for him to bring the box of tarot cards. She’d do whatever needed to be done to the cards to add a stronger calling. Then all Reese had to do was find a way to get them back to Aster.
…
When he returned to school, classes hadn’t let out yet. He kicked back against Aster’s locker and waited for her. He was encouraged to see a bright
smile on her face as she approached.
“Wow, impressive,” she said, “you beat me here. Did Paxton let you out early?” She dropped her bag on the floor beside the lockers.
He opened his mouth to affirm her guess, but thought better of it. If he lied and said his teacher released class early, she’d find out. “No, just excited to see you,” he opted.
“What’s the plan tonight?” she said, lowering her head to work the dial to her combination lock. Her auburn hair fell like a silky curtain, blocking his view of her face.
“No plans.”
“You want to come over for dinner? Gram doesn’t like the fact that there isn’t parental supervision at your apartment and wants us to hang at our house.”
He waited for her to put away the books she didn’t need and grab the ones she did. The calling wouldn’t work unless the cards were with her. After she had snapped the lock in place, he tapped her arm with the box of tarot cards. “Found these on the floor. Are they yours?”
Aster jerked her head up, her eyes zeroing in on the box.
“Yes.” She snatched the box from him.
“Easy there. I wasn’t going to keep them from you.”
While darting glances around the hall, she shoved them into her bag. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…well…I’m not allowed to have tarot cards. If I’m caught with them, my mom will ground me for life, and we’d never see each other again.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”
“You don’t know drama,” she said, slipping on her backpack. “My family is full of it.”
I’d bet the castle that my family has more drama than yours does. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her down the hall. “That makes me want to go to dinner all the more,” he jested.
The guilt overtook him on the way to her vehicle. He didn’t want to deceive her any longer, and he had decided to tell her everything. Besides, the curse wouldn’t touch her. The consequences of changing a curse were clear in the chronicles. A firstborn son for a firstborn son. There were only girls in Aster’s family. He’d asked about her father. She had told him he was the second son. His older brother had drowned in a lake when the boy was seven.