“Logan.” I swat him over the stomach.
“I’m going to ditch out the back gate. Why don’t you head inside and find that morose nephew of mine. Tell him to stop moping around like he’s got a communicable disease.”
“Got it.” I pinch his hand as our fingers lose their grasp and watch as he melts into the dismal fog. “I’ll always be your zombie girlfriend!” I shout after him.
“And I’ll…”—he holds out his hands considering it for a moment—“always be your dead boyfriend.”
A bubbling laugh rides through me as I head inside to find Gage.
Marathon kissing session. I huff a laugh at the idea.
Although, I did kiss Marshall earlier, and, God knows, I just kissed Logan.
Two down—one to go.
22
The Marriage Mirage
The clouds erupt in a roiling boil, regurgitating and pulling back into themselves in rounded, fluid movements. Paragon quivers, waiting for the rain to give, but the sky holds back its affection demanding that the soil, the rocky crags that make up her borders cry out for its attention. There was a ransom to be paid before the weather would release to a climax. A wicked wind brewed from the south—foreign and heated, it held the slight scent that I had never bore witness too, it left the aftertaste of sorrow and destruction eroding my palate, and I knew—I knew right then, every word Marshall spoke tonight was true.
My life had already changed. I just didn’t know how. I had become a blind man groping in the dark, feeling my way to a destiny that would certainly bring me grief.
Once Logan leaves, I make my way back inside Demetri’s supernatural social dysfunction and swim through a sea of bodies while keeping an eye out for Gage.
A bell goes off in the main hall to my left, so I head over to find out what the ruckus is about.
I take in an ever-expanding breath as I spot not one, not two, or even twenty—but an entire plethora of Marshall’s seventeenth-century slutty sweethearts. Gah! They’ve all migrated over to the Fem’s haunted ball. God forbid Marshall lost his harem due to the fact he was tied up quite literally, by the Chloe lookalike running amuck in his bedroom. Damn Bishops.
“May I have your attention, please!” Demetri floats up into the air, and, for a moment, I feel like passing out at the sight of his brazen act of levitation. Doesn’t he realize this is a rather human environment? Someone should pull him to the side and let him in on the fact his dime store illusions aren’t welcome on planet Earth, not even on Halloween night.
A light kiss lands on my cheek, and I jump right out of my skin half expecting a clown Fem to attack, but it’s not a clown Fem, it’s my sweet boyfriend Gage.
I take his arms and wrap them around my waist like a seatbelt.
“Did Logan take off?”
“Yup.” I wrinkle my nose. “It’s up to you to make this a Halloween to remember.”
“It’s on.” His dimples dig in, deep as oil wells. Gage rubs his warm hands up and down my back as Demetri beats a glass to death with a knife.
“Attention.” The room quiets down to acknowledge the unholy host. “Brothers and sisters of the night, welcome.”
The room erupts with cheers as if he actually said something of value, such as I’m about to tie a noose around my neck and hang myself for all to witness. But I’m not that lucky.
“This lovely lady…” He pulls Darlene up next to him, and only then do I realize they’ve hoisted themselves onto the piano.
I glance over at Mom with her top hanging low on one side, the baby happily suckling away, and I cringe because I know what’s coming next.
“Darla Marie Johnson Nee Paul,” Demetri gets down on one knee.
“God”—I whisper to Gage—“it sounds like he just cast a spell.” And knowing Demetri, he did. Although, to be honest, I think the only thing he’s casting is bullshit aimed right at my mother.
Giselle waddles over to us in her ridiculous slutty mermaid attire and claps quietly—thrilled she didn’t miss the romantic proclamation.
Demetri pulls out a crimson velvet box, although from here it sort of looks like a giant blood clot.
“Darla dear, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Mom’s face bleeds out all color. The smile she was so desperately trying to manufacture has turned into a ghastly grimace.
Darla lets out an obscene series of whoops, stomping up and down on the piano like she trying to kill a cockroach. If she moves her feet a few inches to her left she will. Although Demetri, much like a cockroach, is near impossible to extinguish.
My heart breaks for Mom.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, speeding across the room.
Mom snaps out of her stupor as soon as she sees me coming. I can tell by the look on her face she doesn’t want me to say a single word.
Demetri jumps in our midst before I can open my mouth.
“Mr. Edinger is getting married, Skyla,” Mom’s eyes gloss over, wet and wild, never a good combination. “Isn’t that exciting?” She grits it through her teeth.
“Mr. Edinger?” Demetri scoffs with that I’m-going-to-drive-you-insane-with-jealousy smirk on his face. He so knows what he’s doing. In an attempt to take himself off the market, he’s somehow managed to up his value with my mother. Maybe he’s not such a dime store magician after all? More like a grade-A con.
“Congratulations, Darla.” Mom briefly ignores the lying Fem and his juvenile scare tactics. Everyone with half a brain realizes the only woman he’s after is my poor, unfortunate mother.
“Oh, hon!” Darla holds out her sparkler—momentarily blinding everyone in the vicinity. “You’ll have to do up our wedding. I bet that party store of yours has a whole shitload of good stuff to make my big day shine.”
“Oh.” Mom nods with that false sense of congratulatory joy plastered on her face. “You’ll shine, Darla. You’ll shine just like pyrite.”
Pyrite? That’s fool’s gold. Mom just took Darla down a notch, and Darla doesn’t even realize it.
“Brielle!” Darla screeches before taking off to share the bad news.
“So a wedding, huh?” I sneer at the snake hiding out in vampire garb. Demetri gives both snakes and vampires a bad name.
A pair of warm arms encircle me from behind, followed by the clean scent of Gage’s cologne.
“Perhaps a wedding of your own is not far off in the future?” Demetri nods into me.
Mom makes a face. “Skyla and Gage are, unfortunately, ‘just friends.’” Mom bites the air with her words. “Marriage isn’t meant for everyone. Some people should just do without it.”
Geez. Mom is seething, pissed to high heaven that Demetri had the nerve to ask his girlfriend to marry him in such a quasi-romantic way and with a hood ornament to grace her finger no less.
“We’re just taking a break,” Gage corrects, and my stomach pinches when he says it. I hate this. I hate breaks. And I hate the fact I can feel the marathon kissing session about to come to a close because I so badly want to press my lips against his.
“Considering your options, I see.” Demetri bows into me like a geisha. “Perhaps you’re wishing you had a glimpse into the impending years ahead?” He gives a little wink.
My body explodes with a bite of perspiration.
He so knows I’m dying to sneak a glimpse into the future.
“Perhaps a little alone time is all the two of you need to figure things out?” He waves a finger in the air just past my shoulder. “There’s a viewing room in the basement. Rumor has it it’s a personal favorite of yours, Skyla.”
I suck in a quick breath. There is a viewing room down in the basement. It’s the same room in which Chloe saw her future dissolve to nothing. The same room that Logan and I saw a future for Gage and me last spring. My heart oscillates unnaturally. God, maybe that’s what’s playing on a loop down in the paranormal playhouse?
I shake my head at the idea.
“We’ll see you later,” I say
, taking Gage by the hand and leading him toward the hall.
I bump into Bree.
“Hey, you!” I say, pulling her back by the hatchet embedded in her back. “Would you mind hanging out with Emerson?”
“No, why?” Brielle glances past me at the aquatic siren.
“Just—she looks lonely,” I whisper, gliding past her.
Lonely has been a foreign concept to me this entire last year on Paragon. Ironic because all of this indecision has made me exactly that—lonely.
***
I offer Gage a tour of the basement, or at least of the wing I’ve traversed through a time or two. It’s cold down here, damp, the scent of fresh popcorn infiltrates the air. It’s as if Demetri is still trying to mask an odor, as if death lurked here, lived here.
A large framed picture of a necrotic looking tree hangs outside of the viewing room, right beside a giant red popcorn stand filled to the brim and steaming with scrumptious golden kernels.
“That tree…” I examine the navy sky, the dark, floor of the forest, snaking with roots. “That’s the Tenebrous Woods.” I huff a dry laugh. “Figures. Leave it to Demetri to have a picture of the Celestra tunnels decorating his home.”
“So that’s it, huh?” Gage leans in and examines it. His face bleaches out at the sight as if just this myopic view made him sick to his stomach. He takes a deep breath before opening the door for me.
It’s pitch black inside—a darkness so thick you could ax your way through it if you had to. Then, like a shooting star, a gentle light glimmers at the far end of the hall.
“You’re such an gentleman, Gage Oliver. That’s what I like about you best.”
“Really?” He ticks his head back as if I had just shot him down. “Sounds vanilla.” He pulls his lips to the side. “I promise to give you something other than being nice to like about me.”
Gage says nice like it’s a four letter word, and, technically, I guess it is.
I pull him in before we hit the other side of the narrow hall and witness whatever’s playing on the silver screen.
“Please don’t ever change,” I say, slipping my hand under his T-shirt. His skin sears against my open palm, and a groan gets locked in my throat. Gage is warm as a heater. I want nothing more than to curl up with him for an entire eternity. “I love you just the way you are.”
“I’m not enough for you, Skyla.” He shakes his head as his features spray with a wash of blue light. “If I was, there would be no decision to be made.”
And there it is—the knife in my gut he unwittingly lunged because it must be true.
Fuck.
How can I have a heart for three people? And a tiny part of me is appalled that Marshall is in the equation to begin with.
“Hey.” I slip in front of him and halt us from moving another inch forward. “I swear to all that is holy, on the throne itself, you, Gage Oliver, are more than enough.” I swallow down the heartache ready to stream out in tears. “But I’m afraid no matter how much I say it, you’ll never believe me because of my actions.” I glance down. I can’t even face him with this truth. “I’m a terrible person. I deserve to be alone, forever.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Gage cups my face and gently holds my gaze. “You’re nowhere near a terrible person, and I know for a fact you will never be alone.” He wraps his arm tight around my waist as he leads me down the long-necked partition, and the wall-sized screen appears with nothing but blotches of blue and purple over it like a bruise.
Figures. Same crappy film he showed Chloe.
I lead Gage to the center, and we take a seat and give Demetri the honor of our time and attention by gazing at the monument to fake futures a moment too long.
“This is stupid,” I bleat. “I can’t believe we fell for this.”
“Maybe he just wanted us to be alone?” Gage pulls me onto his lap, and I wrap my arms around his neck.
“I like where this is going.” I blow it in his ear like a promise. “Although, knowing my least favorite Fem, we’re probably being filmed, so he can blackmail us later.”
“I don’t know.” Gage pans the vicinity with suspicion. “He doesn’t strike me as the blackmailing type.”
The speakers overhead snap and pop. An image appears on the screen, and I tuck myself further in Gage’s lap, half afraid of whatever the hell Demetri has managed to conjure. God, what if it’s Marshall and me getting it on? Or Logan? We did share a heated kiss right here on Demetri’s property just a little while ago. Shit. I bet that’s exactly what this is. The perfect set up to kill my future with Gage. Demetri is so team Chloe.
A scene emerges. Daylight brims over the top of a series of evergreens.
“Great. He probably tricked us into watching his old home movies,” I quip, fully relieved this has nothing to do with what transpired earlier. “We’d better settle in. I think he’s starting with the dawn of time.”
“I don’t think so.” Gage points up at the unfamiliar strip mall displayed on the screen. “That’s Host.”
Host is the neighboring island that’s apparently overrun with college kids and .98 cent stores. I have a trip planned with Mom and my sisters coming up.
The camera pans in on a post office, then a municipal building next to that with its gilded address, a dark metal plaque that reads Host County Courthouse.
“Shit,” Gage whispers, completely amazed as if he were more than aware of what might come next.
A dark paneled wall appears, a judge sits high above two people, a guy and girl around my age. The judge is speaking, but not a sound emits from the speakers. His hair is so white it almost looks translucent. He says something in earnest before smiling down at the couple.
“Skyla,” Gage whispers as the couple turns to face one another.
“Oh my, God.” My stomach bottoms out.
It’s Gage and me. My hair has ballooned out from the weather with rain droplets still locked in my curls. Gage is impeccable. His hair is slicked back, his eyes wide with wonder as he takes a deep breath.
I love you, I mouth before hiking up on my toes and landing my lips over his. Gage holds me by the back of the neck as we indulge in a kiss that goes on forever.
The screen fades to a night sky with ethereal blue clouds nesting up above, and the moon brightens the room like a spotlight.
I cover my mouth with my hand, closing my eyes as I try to comprehend what just happened.
“Skyla, do you know what that was?” Gage strokes the back of my neck in tender, warm circles. “That was the vision I had, the one I shared with you. How do you think he did that?”
Gage. His features are washed a pale shade of sky, his eyes as bright as the ocean. Someway, somehow Demetri tapped into our very private vision and replicated it with stunning accuracy.
“I don’t know how he did it.” I shake my head. “But I know one thing. That was our future.” A smile starts to break on my lips, and my heart breaks right along with it. Something is not right. You can’t have visions with three different people, and now Demetri just blew things out to a whole new level.
“I’m going to marry you one day, Skyla Messenger.” He cups the sides of my face and gently draws me into a kiss.
I twist until I’m straddling him, landing a knee on either side of his waist as we indulge in a kiss so achingly sweet I let out a guttural groan.
I miss Gage in acres. I miss his body, those mouthwash-fresh kisses that span time and memoriam.
“I love you, Gage Oliver,” I whisper in his ear and mean every word.
We kiss for what feels like hours, far longer than those stolen bleats of time I shared with Marshall, with far more breadth and depth than the quick release of passion I shared with Logan. Gage is a marathon all unto himself, and according to the visions and Demetri’s sneak preview of the future, Gage gets far more than my kisses for the long haul—and I’m so very glad.
***
Instead of calling out Marshall’s name and letting him zap me ov
er to his seventeenth-century soiree, I let Gage drive me home. We head to the butterfly room and finish our oral explorations, thorough and necessary, like cartographers mapping out a foreign landscape.
“I guess we’re forever,” I muse, flexing my fingers over his.
“You sound resigned to the fact.” He presses a kiss over the top of my head.
“Are you kidding?” I give his ribs a quick pinch.
“OK, I give.” He tightens his grip around my waist. “You’re ecstatic.”
“I am so very ecstatic.”
“But you don’t know if you believe it.” He gives a soft nod. “It’s OK. I have a nagging doubt myself. I’ve had other visions, Skyla. I’m not going to lie, we get to that courthouse…” He lets his words hang there like a sickle waiting to drop. “I don’t have all the answers. The important part is that it happens. And you know what I’m looking forward to just as much as meeting up with that judge?” A smile twitches on his lips.
“Our wedding night?” I bite the air, and he belts out a laugh.
“Exactly.” His expression grows all together serious as the wonder returns to his eyes. “Skyla, I have dreamed both in and out of my sleep about loving you that way.” He shakes his head just barely. “We’re going to have the most unproductive lives because I don’t think I’ll ever want us to get out of bed.”
I press my finger to his lips and trace down, slowly to his chest.
“That sounds mighty productive to me,” I whisper.
“Maybe we’ll roll out of bed for the holidays.” He catches my finger and bites down gently over the tip.
“Who says I’m letting you out of bed for the holidays?” I laugh into him.
The room gives a violent quake. The butterflies blow off the walls like a bomb, and I bury my face into Gage’s chest.
Ms. Messenger. It’s time.
“Marshall?” I dart my gaze around the room in a fervor. My body starts to dissolve. My hands grow altogether translucent.
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