by Clara Kensie
I’d asked Tristan to say one word. One word, one time. I’d told him the word to say, and it shot up like a bullet into the cold November air, then came careening back to earth.
But it didn’t explode upon impact.
Tristan only gazed at me, then caressed my cheek with such tenderness I barely felt it. “Tessa,” he whispered.
He had just spoken my name. My real name. He said Tessa. Except for my family, no one had said it in over eight years. It sounded so right, so perfect, coming from his lips.
But that was it. Once would have to be enough.
“Who—” he started.
Taking his face in my hands, I silenced him with a kiss. “It’s freezing,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
With me tucked safely under Tristan’s arm, we squeezed our way back through the party. It had become even more crowded, and Ethan’s entire house vibrated with the booming bass. I needed to find Jillian and get her out, now, before the cops came, and before I left with Tristan.
We finally found her teetering in the kitchen near the keg and surrounded by a small group, her blond hair and yellow top making her the sun in the center of the planets. A spoon rested in her open palm. “Shelby,” I shouted. “We have to go.”
A girl who was wearing a skirt even shorter than Jillian’s waved us away. “Hold on. She says she can move things with her mind. She’s gonna show us with that spoon.”
Stone. That’s what my body turned into. A block of solid stone. Muscles immobilized. Lungs paralyzed. I tried to speak, to shout, to do anything to stop her, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out but a panicked little squeak.
Tristan tensed up beside me. “How much has she had to drink?”
My sister stared at the spoon in her palm.
It didn’t move.
She shifted and stared again at the spoon, furrowing her brow.
Nothing.
“Ji—” I stammered, until some tiny part of my brain reminded me to use her alias. “Shelby!”
Face contorting, she grunted with effort, and when the spoon didn’t float or wiggle or even vibrate, she squealed and flung it to the ground as her friends burst out laughing.
I could have fallen to the floor right along with that spoon. It was the beer. My parents never drank alcohol, not even on holidays or their anniversary. Alcohol inhibited their powers. Thank God. “Tristan, I have to get her home.”
Chuckling, Tristan scooped the spoon up. “I think your career as a magician is over, Shelby,” he said. “Time to go.” She laughed along with her friends but glanced at me as Tristan pulled her away, with just enough sobriety behind those unfocused eyes to show me her horrified guilt.
Tristan and I drove Jillian home, then he waited in the driveway while I helped her from the car. “I’m sorry,” she cried over and over. “I’m so sorry. Please, please, you can’t tell Mom and Dad.”
She was right. If our parents found out she was drunk, Dad would start watching us again, making his headaches worse and probably blowing out his mobile eye completely. And if they found out she’d tried to show her friends that little magic trick, our time in Twelve Lakes, and my time with Tristan—the boy I loved, the boy who loved me—would be only a memory by morning.
I helped Jillian inside and brought her up to her room, where she fell asleep before I even shut the door. As I told our parents she must be sick with some kind of stomach virus, I stared at an old stain on the carpet. I couldn’t look them in the eye.
I hated how easy it was to lie to them.
* * *
An hour later Tristan and I lay, curled up together, in the backseat of his car. Not wanting his aunt and uncle to disturb us, we’d parked at the end of the road under a streetlight that didn’t work, the darkness broken only by the glow of the dashboard and the occasional passing vehicle. Our fiery kisses had slowed to grazing lips and gentle caresses. The car windows were steamy, and he’d never even crossed the Borderline. We didn’t need the heat on anymore, but he left the battery running so his iPod would play in the speakers.
Eyes closed, I snuggled into him, sated and sleepy. I loved him, and he loved me. One day my family was going to leave, which made it even more important to enjoy the time we had left together. One month, one week, one day. However long we had, we would love each other until the end.
He stroked my arm with one hand, and with the other he played with my hair. “Clockwise.”
“Hmm.”
“Who is Tessa?”
My eyes opened, and I was no longer sleepy. But I didn’t gasp, I didn’t run. My lungs stayed open. I’d expected this. I wouldn’t have asked him to say it if I didn’t want him to know.
So I whispered, “Me.”
Read on for an excerpt from another
fabulous and unforgettable
Harlequin TEEN digital-first novel:
ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE OF MY HEART
by Tracey Martin
Available now!
Copyright © 2014 by Kara Schein Critzer
What if your devastating breakup became this summer’s hit single? In this rock-and-roll retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, music can either bring you together or tear you apart.
At her dying mother’s request, Claire dumped Jared, the only boy she ever loved. Left with a broken family and a broken heart, Claire was furious when she discovered that her biggest regret had become Jared’s big break. While Jared catapulted into rock-star status, another piece of Claire’s heart crumbled every time his song played on the radio.
Now, Claire is trying to keep her head down and make it through a tense trip to the beach with her family. But when Jared shows up and old feelings reignite, Claire realizes that perhaps the past isn’t so over and done after all....
I meander through the rest of the store on my way to the registers: there’s six aisles of food and paper goods, plus the dairy and frozen-food cases and another half aisle devoted to books, magazines and beach toys.
I don’t pay much attention to magazines usually, but one photo snags my eye. Jared’s made the cover of Entertainment Weekly. I scowl at his smiling face.
Even after all this time, a hollowness opens in my gut when I see his picture. It’s not because I miss him. All the lies he sings about me have made it clear that dumping him was the best decision I ever made, despite what it felt like at the time. But there’s something else I miss—the happiness. We were insanely happy together, and I haven’t felt that sort of happiness since.
The cover photo is a good one. Jared looks hot with strands of hair falling over his face and a half smile stuck to his lips. Never mind that the critics love his album; I’m convinced that half of Jared’s popularity is simply because he’s good-looking.
Lost in these thoughts, I’m only vaguely aware of footsteps approaching until someone addresses me.
“Hey, ‘scuse me,” says a guy. “You work here, right? Can you tell me where’s the sunblock?”
Oh yeah, the blazer. Guess I do work here now.
“Uh.” I spin around, certain I saw it during my self-guided tour. Before I can conjure where, though, all words vanish from my mouth. Possibly from my brain.
I’m looking past the guy who was speaking to the person behind him. A person with the same pair of beautiful blue eyes that I’ve just been scowling at. I blink, and my brain argues with me because I totally cannot be seeing what I think I’m seeing. My heart lurches.
Then those blue eyes lock on to my gaze, opening wide with recognition, and an expression of panic spreads across their owner’s familiar face.
I stare. I can’t help it. How is it possible that almost exactly two years to the day after I made the hardest decision of my life, I’m here locking eyes with Jared in an aisle of a tiny grocery store in a town I’d never he
ard of in a state I’d never been to until yesterday?
Is it a wild coincidence, or did the alien gods think it would be funny to give me a metaphorical ass kicking? I sure know which of the two it feels like.
Jared’s face suggests he’s pondering the same question. He’s got his sunglasses perched on his head, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. I remember every pore in his chin. I can tell he hasn’t shaved since yesterday morning—that’s how well I remember. He still wears that plain silver band on his right thumb, and that black leather cord around his neck. Only now the cord has a small leaf on it. Once, he wore a silver Buddha, a charm I gave him for his birthday. Guess he got rid of it when I got rid of him.
I jab my nails into my palms until the pain clears my head.
“Sunblock?” I repeat. I wait for the floor to swallow me up. For the ceiling to part and a thousand angels to point and snicker. Any of it seems about as likely as this.
The guy who asked the question glances between me and Jared. He thinks he’s had an epiphany.
“He’s not who you think he is.” The guy punches Jared in the arm. “They just look alike.”
It’s not a bad attempt on the guy’s part. If I was merely some crazy fan girl, maybe it would even work. But I’m not. I’m inhaling Jared even now. I spent enough time with my face pressed into that soft spot of skin where his neck meets his shoulder, enough time wrapped in his sweatshirts or my face buried in his pillow that his Jared-scent is unmistakable. I’m having a hard time breathing because of it.
It’s the shock, I tell myself. It’s only the shock of running into him this way. It’ll pass. My lungs will reinflate.
“Sorry, I’m new. I think I saw it—”
“Claire?” Jared’s staring at me.
I cross my arms. “Jared.”
A dumbfounded expression sweeps across question-boy’s face. “Oh, so you guys know each other?”
“Knew each other,” I say pointedly.
ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE OF MY HEART
by Tracey Martin
Available now at your favorite e-tailer!
Copyright © 2013 by Tracey Martin
ISBN-13: 9781460326756
RUN TO YOU PART ONE: FIRST SIGHT
Copyright © 2014 by Kara Schein Critzer
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