Chapter 5 #2
He threw me a peace sign then slipped away.
When the door closed behind him, there was a silence.
A thick, sticky sort of silence. I didn’t want to look at Leo, so instead stared toward the sound of the sailboat knocking against the dock with a rhythmic thud.
The water seemed agitated, like a summer storm was brewing.
Then Leo said my name and when I finally glanced at him, he looked more crestfallen than smug, to my surprise.
“I’m so sorry, Pan,” Leo said, his voice soft. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that, I just—”
“Leo!” I interrupted. “I jumped you.”
“Well, yes, but—”
I almost shoved him. “Don’t you dare try to steal the credit!”
A tiny grin appeared on his mouth. “You’re drunk.”
“I am not! I’m apologetic! I apologize!”
“In that case I accept your apology,” he said, like the jerkface he was.
When I took a better look at him in the light, I realized it’d been years since I’d last seen him.
His hair is nicer than Paul Mescal’s. Thicker.
And he was clean-shaven. Not that I cared.
I was perfectly fine blaming our little interaction on too many elixirs.
Then I remembered the heat of his kisses on my neck, between my breasts and—
I gave a little shiver and kept looking at him.
“I am sorry, though,” he said. “You’ve been drinking, but I, uh…”
“Found me impossible to resist!” I blurted.
He frowned. “Um…”
“Because of the balm Deja gave me. She said it was for relaxation or, like, finding my gift…”
His frown shifted into a smile. “You’re trying to get your gift!”
“What? No. Who told you that?”
“You did. Just now.”
“I don’t need a gift! Would you all stop with that already!”
“All of us?” he asking, looking around the empty boathouse.
“What I was trying to say, before you so rudely rinderpupted, is that Deja said it’s for, like, chilling out, but I’ll bet you it’s an aphrodisiac.”
“I didn’t mean to rinderpupt,” he said.
I ignored him. “She probably figured sex would relax me—”
“Sex with Gabe? That’s what you two were doing?”
Why did he look so angry?
“No. What? In the boathouse? Yuck. Ha! No, you weirdo. I’ve got an actual bed just across the blueberry field. Why would I—I mean, honestly!”
“Sure,” he said. “That clears it up.”
Time to go on the offensive. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here tonight, especially not here here. Standing in the dark pretending to be Gabe.”
“I wasn’t pretending to be Gabe.”
“Fine,” I said. “Why are you even on the island?”
He rubbed his mouth, which looked plumped and ravished, even in the dim light of the lantern. “I wish I wasn’t. I should be in Paris, but I suddenly felt the urgent driving need to be here.”
“Oooh, Paris,” I said, in my mature way. “Wait, your gift made you come?”
“Exactly.”
“Doesn’t that only happen if there’s a special book or something?”
“Yeah.”
I shot him a dubious look. “You’re a big international text-monger, you really think there’s a million-dollar book on Beane Isle?”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense, but my gift’s not great at narrowing things down. It tells me there’s a book I need, then sort of waves its hand in the general direction. Though I can’t imagine there’s anything here that I need.”
“Ouch,” I said. “You really haven’t changed, have you?”
Of course, he’d been pretty damn needy a few minutes earlier. I’d felt his need grinding into me when we kissed.
“I didn’t mean like that!” He ran his fingers through his unkempt hair. “Uh, there are some things here I need. Like my parents and—”
“Then why are you trying to move them to Boston? Their home is here, with my parents.”
“My mom isn’t like your mom,” he told me.
Yeah, she wasn’t an absolute nut. But that didn’t explain why he wanted her to move. “Anyway, you missed the lobster.”
“That’s not all I missed,” he said.
“Really?” I felt my cheeks flush. That kiss had definitely spun my world upside down. It was nothing like in high school. Someone had learned new moves.
And suddenly I wanted to apologize again. Not for jumping him, but for avoiding him all this time. We’d just been kids when he’d broken my heart; we were fully grown adults now, maybe his opinions about dating normals had changed.
On stupid impulse, I hugged him, mostly so I wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. If you’d asked me what he smelled like when we were kids, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, yet the core of him was so familiar, so magnetic.
Then “I’d leave her in a heartbeat” echoed in my head and I stepped away. Maybe he had changed, that didn’t mean I had to forgive him. And the last thing I needed this summer was confusing feelings about Leo. I was trying to have Magical Moments, not screw up my life.
“I didn’t miss you,” I told him.
His eyes sparkled in the lamplight. “So I gathered.”
How dare he be so alluring? “Do you still think faerie-kin should never date anyone normal?”
“What?” His brows drew together. “I mean, not never…”
“Oh, because normal girls are fun. They’re a good time. Use them and lose them.” I shoved through the door. “You’re so—”
He grabbed my hand as I stumbled on the dock. “Pan, what are you—”
“There you are!” my mother called from up the hill. “Oh good, you found each other.”
“Yeah, it’s been great!” I said, jerking my hand back.
Mom peered around. “Where’s Gabe?”
“Good evening, Grace,” Leo greeted Mom, clearly unsurprised to discover her acting exactly like herself.
I had to admit that I’d never not be amused at my mother being named “Grace.” If ever there were a misnomer. She stomped and blasted through life. She should have been called Bull or Tank.
“Did Pandora tell you I caught her in flagrante this morning?” she asked.
“No, she didn’t mention that,” he said.
“Dames, Mom!” I cried. “I guess I’m not the only one who drank too much. It’s great to see you, Leo. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take care of a little matricide.”
I hustled my mother toward the party, and only glanced back once. I don’t know what I was expecting, but when I looked back, he was gone.