I grab her hand. “I’m not. I’m serious.” For the first time since the new girl arrived, I’m actually feeling interested in Raine. She’s hot. Hot as hell, and she’s not playing games with me.
“If you’re serious, then you’ll be ready for tonight.”
“Ready for what?”
“Anything and everything.”
“Always.”
She pulls her hand away from mine, but not too hurriedly. Our fingers are entangled for a long moment. She tells me her address and phone number and I put it into my phone, and then she walks away, looking back over her shoulder once as she goes.
For a second I’m confused all over again about Natalia. I still can’t figure out why she would want to suddenly ditch me for Brody. Is he really such an amazing catch?
I don’t get it.
Whatever, I tell myself, she’s not worth it. You don’t even really know her.
And she’ll realize that I did a lot better for myself when she sees me with Raine tonight, while Natalia’s forced to sit around and stroke Brody’s fat ego the entire time. I smile a little. I’m going to make sure Natalia knows that I’m not even remotely bummed out about not going with her, and if she thinks I’m spending my time crying over her and Brody, she’s got another thing coming.
Chapter Nine
Natalia
“This is kind of awkward,” I say as I buckle myself into Brody’s truck that afternoon.
“Why?”
“Um,” I say. “Going to Raine’s? She hates me.”
“Who could hate you?” Brody says. He pulls the car out of the parking lot and turns onto the main street behind the school.
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” He looks over at me and grins. “No, but seriously,” he says, “You worry too much. Just relax, it’ll be fine.”
I take a deep breath and lean my head back against the seat. Of course Raine isn’t the one I’m really worried about. Well, not totally. I’m worried about Cam, too.
I didn’t know what to say to him this morning when I ran into him near the vending machines. I mean, I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t want to seem like I thought it was a big deal that he was supposed to drive me.
But then he started acting like it was a big deal, and then I didn’t really know how to backtrack, so I had to just go along with it, and then Brody started saying all that stupid stuff about Natalias being sweet and blah blah blah. It was like a pissing contest, right there in front of me. With me as the prize! But I’m not stupid – it could have been any girl there, and they’d have been doing the same thing. Whatever’s going on between Brody and Cam is way deeper than me.
When we get to Raine’s house, Brody leads me out to the backyard, where Cam and the two girls from their lunch table are hanging out on the deck near a hot tub. Great.
No one told me to bring a bathing suit.
“Hey,” Cam says, giving us a huge smile. Obviously he’s over the whole awkward encounter from this morning. Maybe I was reading into it too much. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Hey,” Brody says. “Becca, Teri.” He sits down on one of the benches at the patio table, and the two girls say hi to him and then ignore me. I sit down next to Brody, and Cam sits across from us. Becca and Teri are at the other end of the bench, smoking cigarettes, their heads huddled together, deep in conversation.
There are voices coming through the kitchen window from inside the house.
Raine and what sounds like her parents. You can’t really make out what they’re saying, but their tones sound heated.
“What’s going on in there?” Brody asks.
“Her parents,” Cam says easily. “She didn’t think they were going to be home until later, but they showed up and here we were, drinking.”
“Shit,” Brody says, shaking his head. “They flip?”
“Big time,” Cam says, “They’re fucking pissed. She’s trying to calm them down, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we all have to leave.”
But when Raine comes back a few minutes later, she doesn’t look like anyone has to leave. In fact, she’s all smiles. “It’s okay,” she tells us, rolling her eyes. “We just have to keep the drinking covert.” She looks at me, her eyes darkening. “Hi, Natalia.”
“Hey,” I say. I give her a half smile, which of course she doesn’t return.
The three girls peel their clothes off, revealing bikinis underneath, and then slide into the hot tub.
“You going in?” Brody asks me.
“I didn’t bring a suit.”
“That’s okay,” he says. I feel Cam stiffen across from me.
“I think I’ll just hang out here for a second,” I say.
“Come on,” Cam says, “At least put your feet in.”
I hesitate. But things feel okay between us after the weirdness that happened this morning, and I don’t want to screw that up. Plus I don’t want the girls to think I’m a total bitch. I don’t know why it even matters, but somehow it does. And Brody’s the only one who’s been even halfway nice to me, and I don’t want him to end up feeling like he has to baby-sit me.
So I roll up the bottom of my jeans and perch on the side of the hot tub. Brody does the same, and so does Cam.
“You guys,” Teri says, “Come in.” She leans over and picks up a bottle of beer she has stashed on the ground behind the tub and takes a sip, then hides it again.
“I will,” Brody says. “But first I’m just going to hang here for a second.”
“Me too,” Cam says, giving Brody the evil eye, which in turn earns him a dirty look from Raine. The three girls start talking about some TV show I’ve never heard of, and so I say to Cam, “Listen, I’m sorry. About the mix-up with the ride.”
“It’s okay,” he says, “Don’t worry about it.”
“Cam’s a big boy,” Brody says. “Aren’t you Cam?”
“No, I feel bad,” I say, “I should have let you know, but I didn’t have your number and – “
“It’s fine,” he says, “Seriously. But I appreciate you apologizing.” His eyes get kind of stormy, and before I can say anything else, he’s sliding into the hot tub. He grabs Raine around the waist and pulls her into the water, and she squeals in delight.
They wrestle around for a few minutes, and then she takes his hand and pulls him out of the tub and leads him into the house. Probably so they can go make out or something. I put my hand in the water and let the bubbles swirl around my fingers, telling myself it’s stupid to be upset about some guy I don’t even know.
“So,” Brody says, looking at me. “Why’d you transfer to Santa Anna?”
“Just… needed a change.” I feel the hot water on my toes, and I flex them a few times. Becca and the other girl are pushed up against the other side of the tub, ensconced in their own conversation.
“Just needed a change, huh? Yesterday you told me that it was because you wanted a better education.
“Well, I wanted a change of a better education.”
“Ahh,” he says. “Sounds like you have a scandal you’re not telling me about.”
His tone is teasing, but something in his eyes seems serious, and I swallow. Hard.
There’s no way he could know about what happened at my old school, but it’s still unnerving.
And then, all of a sudden, he leans over and kisses me. I’m so shocked, that for a split second I don’t know what’s happening, but then I instinctually start kissing him back. He’s not a bad kisser. His lips are soft, and firm, and I try to relax and just go with it, but I can’t.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling away. “Sorry, I just – “
“No, I’m sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t have – “
“No,” I say, “You didn’t do anything wrong.” But my vision is getting kind of weird and blurry, and I stand up. The sound of the water from the hot tub rushing around is echoing in my ears, and I can’t make it stop. “Where’s the bathroom?” I say, trying to keep my voice as eve
n as possible.
“Um, it’s in there,” Brody says, “Through the sunroom and second door on the left.” He gets up to go with me, but I stop him.
“No,” I say, “It’s okay. I’m fine. I’ll…I’ll be right back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He sits back down, and I stumble out of the hot tub and into the house.
Cam and Raine aren’t in the sunroom, but as I walk by, I catch a glimpse of them kissing on the couch in the living room, his hands in her hair, her body on top of his.
I rush by and into the bathroom, my heart pounding in my throat. I close the door and lock it, then turn the cold water on full blast. You’re okay, I tell myself, this isn’t like the other times. I splash water on my face, and take deep breaths like they told me to do whenever I started having a panic attack.
I sit down on the closed toilet seat and take a few minutes to calm myself down, counting to five on the inhales and exhales and waiting for my heart to slow to a normal rate. When I start to feel better, I wash my face and then reapply my lip gloss.
On my way back out, Cam and Raine aren’t in the living room anymore, but I can hear voices coming from the kitchen. The same voices I heard before. Raine and her parents. Arguing.
“Raine Lynn!” her mom’s saying, “I cannot believe that after we specifically told you no alcohol, you did it anyway!”
“You’re grounded, young lady,” her dad adds. I’m almost at the sunroom now, tiptoeing so they can’t hear me. I’m expecting to hear Raine starting to go postal any minute, but instead, her voice gets almost low.
“Listen,” she says slowly, “This is not a big deal. I’m old enough to drink if I want to.” She’s being so calm that it’s almost creepy.
I wait for her parents to start going crazy again, but all I hear is silence. I quickly push through the sunroom and back out onto the deck, but when I get there, everyone’s gone.
“Brody?” I try.
No answer. Weird. I walk down the steps and onto the lawn, figuring maybe they all went through the gate and out to the front yard after Raine’s parents freaked out.
There’s a butterfly flying around the hedge, and it flutters in front of my eyes as I walk by. That’s weird, I think, peering at it closely. The wings look like they’re getting darker.
“Natalia?”
I turn around. Cam. “Hey,” I say, “Where did everyone go? I figured – “ And then I stop. Because he doesn’t look so good. He’s pale, and he’s walking kind of…
hunched over. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he says, “I feel a little weird.”
I start to take a step. But before I can get to him, he collapses on the lawn….
TRICKED
(The Witches of Santa Anna, Book Two)
By Lauren Barnholdt & Aaron Gorvine
Copyright 2011 Lauren Barnholdt and Aaron Gorvine, all rights reserved This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental
Chapter One
Natalia
Cam’s on the ground, and I have no idea what to do. I’ve never been that great in a crisis, but there’s no one else around, and so I rush over to him. “Cam?” I ask, kneeling down next to him on the grass. “Cam? Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He sits up and shakes his head back and forth slowly. His skin is still slightly pale.
“Put your head down,” I instruct, “Between your legs. I think you fainted.” He does as I tell him, dropping his head down below his knees. “Now take deep breaths.”
He does, and when he looks up a few moments later, the color’s starting to return to his face.
“I don’t know what that was,” he says, “I just… started feeling weak.”
He tries to stand up, but I put my hand on his arm, stopping him. “Don’t,” I say.
“You need to just sit here for a few more seconds, wait until you feel better.”
“I feel fine,” he says, but he stays sitting. The evening sun is shining through the bushes that line either side of Raine’s backyard, and the rays glint off his hair, making it shine. I resist the urge to reach over and push a lock off his forehead. I already have my hand on his arm, and the heat that’s radiating up my fingers from his skin is almost too much to take. “Where is everybody?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I was in the bathroom, and then I came back out, and everyone was gone.” I leave out the part about how Brody kissed me and the part about how I freaked out.
“They probably went to the front yard when Raine’s parents started going ballistic,” he says, “I think I’m going to try to stand up now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He stands up slowly, and his legs seem sturdier, but I stoop down a little and offer my shoulder, and he wordlessly drapes his arm around me. I still have my hand on him, and all the contact is making my heart race. Once he’s standing up, he looks at me, his blue eyes locking right onto mine. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I say, somehow knowing he doesn’t want me to make a big deal out of it. “Do you need some water or something?” I look over my shoulder back toward the house. I so don’t want to go in there, especially if Raine and her parents are still screaming at each other in the kitchen, but if Cam wants me to, I will.
“No,” he says, “I’m fine.”
“What the fuck?” Brody comes running into the backyard, his face flushed.
“Where the hell have you guys been?”
“Where have we been?” Cam asks. “Where the hell have you been? We came out and everybody was gone.”
“We went into the front yard,” Brody explains, “After Raine’s parents came out and caught Becca with the beer.” Cam’s hand is now on mine, and Brody’s eyes take it in, and he looks at me, questioning.
I’m about to tell him Cam fainted, when I feel a soft squeeze of pressure on my hand. Cam. Telling me not to say anything.
“Anyway,” I say, pulling my hand out of Cam’s and turning to Brody. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at my hand pointedly. “Are you ready to go?”
I turn to Cam, wanting to ask him if he’s okay to drive, wanting to insist that he should ride with us. But he’s giving me that same look, and so all I say is, ”See you later?’
“Yeah,” Cam says, “Later.”
And then I follow Brody to his truck.
***
I’m expecting the whole ride home to be pretty awkward, because hello, Brody kissed me and then I freaked out -- what teenage guy really wants to talk about something like that? But Brody’s full of surprises, because as soon as we’re out of Raine’s driveway, he says, “So let’s talk about the kiss.”
“The kiss?”
“Yeah.” He glances at me and grins.
“Why do we have to talk about it?”
“Why not?”
“Usually kisses are better left unspoken about,” I tell him. The light on the dash beeps for me to put my seatbelt on, because I’m so frazzled that I forgot to put it on when I got in. I slide it over and buckle it. “It’s more romantic that way.”
“That makes sense,” Brody says, nodding. “Or at least it would, if it were a normal kiss.”
“Are you saying my kisses aren’t normal?”
“I’m saying that when I kissed you, you kind of freaked out.”
“I did not!”
“Natalia, you ran inside the house and didn’t come out for fifteen minutes.”
“It wasn’t fifteen minutes.”
He raises his eyebrows skeptically. “All right,” he says, “Fine. I can see you need some time to process this.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” I say.
“We can talk about it tomorrow. At breakfast.”
“Breakfast?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I’ll pick you up at ten.”
“Who says I wa
nt to go to breakfast with you?”
“Don’t you?”
I think about it. “Okay,” I say finally, “I’ll see you at ten. But you’re buying, and we can’t spend the whole time talking about the kiss.”
“Can we spend half the time talking about the kiss?”
“How about ten percent of the time?”
“What if I try to kiss you again?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
We’re in my driveway now, and I say goodbye and then jump out of his truck.
But as I’m walking up the driveway and into my house, my phone starts ringing, and so I pull it out of my bag as I shove my key into the lock and open the door. It’s a number I don’t recognize, and for a second, I think about not answering it.
“Hello?” I say, stepping into my foyer.
“Hey. It’s Cam.”
“Oh,” I say, dropping my bag onto the table near the door. “Hey. Uh, how’d you get my number?”
“Took it out of Brody’s phone.”
“You stole my number out of Brody’s phone?”
“Not stole. Borrowed.”
“Right. I forgot you’re a master borrower.” He has a sexy phone voice, and I think again about how it felt to have my hand on his arm a little while ago. That same rush of heat fills my body.
“Yeah. So um, listen…I just wanted to say thanks. For not making a big deal out of what happened.” His voice is lower now, quieter, and I wonder if he’s still at Raine’s house.
“No problem.” I walk into the kitchen, then open the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of water. My throat is dry, and I down half the bottle in a few gulps. “What did happen, anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean have you ever fainted before?”
There’s silence and then he says, “No.”
“Oh.”
“It was probably low blood sugar or something.”
“Probably.” I think about telling him he should get it checked out, or at least tell his parents or something, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear that.
“Anyway, um, I wanted to make sure that you don’t…I mean, that you understand that I don’t really want anyone knowing about it.”
The Witches of Santa Anna ( BKs 1-7 Complete Set) Page 4