He laughs and it feels the tiniest bit like it’s at me, before he turns away for the first time and studies the couch. With his side to me, I can see the way his button-down strains across his shoulders, the full bulk of his arms under the shiny fabric. Silk. Is it silk? I’m not as good at fashion as I am at art and furniture. Not high fashion, anyway. My expertise is limited to cotton and doilies.
“What are you trying to do with this?”
“Move it over there,” I say, pointing across the room, relieved to finally have something else to talk about.
“Why?”
“Because every time I walk by this room, it bugs me that it’s set up entirely wrong. So I’m fixing it.”
“But if you stick it in the middle of the room, won’t it kind of… I don’t know, block things off? I mean this is one giant couch.”
“No,” I say. “I mean, look at this thing. It’s pretty much a piece of art. If I position it correctly, it will provide flow, and people will actually notice it and appreciate the design. And over here,” I say, pointing to where I’d face-planted, “it blocks the window.”
“Provides flow, huh?”
I might have been self-conscious about my Clue references, but my interior-decorating skills—no matter how dorky they are—never actually embarrass me. I mean, if you ask Alex, she’ll say it’s totally mortifying, but whatever.
“There’s an actual science to interior decorating. Just like there’s a science to how restaurants lay out their menu to highlight the big-ticket items, and grocery stores position impulse buys.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a teenage interior-decorating scientist,” he says, crossing his arms. “And I know some pretty impressive people.”
“Yeah? Like who?”
He shrugs. “Pop stars. Actresses. Inventors. The president’s daughter.”
“Try not to brag or anything,” I say, rolling my eyes to pretend I’m unimpressed.
But really… who the heck is this boy? How does he know these people? And why would he bother talking to me when obviously he could go hang out with way cooler people? People who have full function of their arms, for instance.
“Hey, you asked,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking into a Cheshire grin.
Okay, the boy is smokin’ hot and knows it. The part of me all wound up at his attractiveness unravels. I will not be intimidated by insanely good looks and a crappy personality.
I meet his eyes, annoyed. “So, fine, you know impressive people, and I’m not one of them. Maybe you think this is stupid, but it’s kind of my thing. So if you’re not going to help me, maybe you should just move on?”
“Huh,” he says, but not like I’ve annoyed him. More like… he’s intrigued. Like maybe I won him over. “Malik.” He extends his hand. “And you are?”
“Lucy,” a voice calls out, just as I’m reaching for his hand. I swing around to find one of the residents, Henrietta, standing at the entryway, leaning against the doorjamb for support. My stomach sinks. Interlude With the Hot Boy is officially over. Henrietta is seventy-four and frail, and if she needs my help, it’s more important.
“Sweetie, can you help me to my room?”
“Sure,” I say, pretending like it’s totally no big deal that I’m going to spend the entire summer dateless and pathetic. I step away from Malik as he drops his hand back to his side. “See you around?” I give him an awkward little wave. Dumb. I should have shaken his hand instead, if only to feel his skin, hot against mine, one more time. Maybe that would be enough cute-boy contact to last me the two months until I head off to college.
I make it all the way to the door before he answers.
“Yeah, see you later, Lucy.”
I open my mouth to correct him just as Henrietta finds the crook of my elbow and leans against me. She always thinks I’m her granddaughter, Lucy, who was around my age when she died in a car wreck.
Once, I corrected her. Once, I told her the truth. But watching her eyes fill with tears as if hearing the news for the first time ensured I’ll never do that again.
And I don’t have the heart to do so now. To tell her my name isn’t Lucy, that she has no family left at all, just a giant bank account and no one to leave it to.
And so I simply glance back at Malik one more time, searing his image in my head as I lead Henrietta back to her apartment.
By the time I return to the billiards room twenty minutes later, he’s gone.
But the couch is sitting in the middle of the room, exactly where I wanted it.
Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Burkhart
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First published in the United States of America in May 2015
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burkhart, Jessica.
Wild hearts : an If only novel / by Jessica Burkhart.
pages cm
Summary: When residents of a small Wyoming town protest her developer father’s plan to build a hotel on land used by mustangs for grazing, sixteen-year-old Brie, who enjoys the excitement of moving to a new place each year, finds herself falling for a young protester who rescues and rehabilitates mustangs.
ISBN 978-1-61963-259-2 (paperback) • ISBN 978-1-61963-258-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-61963-260-8 (e-book)
[1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Land use—Fiction. 3. Real estate development—Fiction. 4. Mustang—Fiction. 5. Horses—Fiction. 6. Love—Fiction. 7. Wyoming—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B92287Wi 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014031989
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