Logan pauses, looking from me to Gage.
“I’m great.” The smile slides from his face, and that perennial sadness clouds him. He heads over and opens the register, checks to see if we need any more dollar bills. “So you guys work things out?” He washes over the two of us with a brief glance.
“Yeah.” Gage nods as though he were affirming a grim diagnosis at the oncologist’s office.
“You!” Brielle lunges at Logan with a big rocking hug. “Your birthday is knocking at the door. So what are we doing? The Cape?”
“What’s the Cape?” I ask as Gage tries to wrap his arm around my waist, but I pretend to lose my footing and move a little out of reach. It doesn’t feel right to have him holding me openly in front of Logan. I can’t stand the fact that my love for Gage keeps stabbing him in the heart.
Brielle opens her mouth a moment and nods. “That’s right, you weren’t here.”
Gage steps over and pulls me in. Obviously, Gage and I don’t see things the same way when it comes to sparing Logan’s feelings.
Brielle continues, “A bunch of us went out last year and camped at the north tip of the island for his birthday. It was completely wild.” She looks up as though she were reliving a memory. “We should totally go to the Cape.” Brielle bounces on her feet like a child pleading for a new toy.
“What do you guys think?” Logan swallows hard as he traces Gage wrapped around me—eyes him as if he were an anaconda about to swallow me whole.
“I think it sounds great.” It’s doubtful Mom and Tad will approve, but a girl can dream.
“Get the shifts covered and let’s do it.” Gage jostles me, thrilled by the prospect of losing ourselves in an overnight adventure. He tucks a kiss into my neck. “I’ll get our wetsuits ready. I’ve been dying to take you out.”
“Perfect.” I reach up and cradle the back of his neck to reward him for his stroke of genius. I glance up to find Logan glaring at the counter like he’s just been robbed, and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.
The main board lights up showing two different lanes with jammed pins.
“I got it.” Gage jogs over without hesitating.
“I’m on Chloe patrol.” Brielle declares, heading out after him.
“Chloe patrol. Some things never change,” Logan says, as he tries to reprogram the machines, but it’s clear his mind is elsewhere. Logan is wearing his heart on his sleeve and it’s visibly broken for all to see.
“No, some things never change,” I say, glancing back over at Brielle. “I think she has a transference issue with Chloe and Gage regarding Emily and Drake—something like that anyway.” I step into him and lay my hand carefully over his forearm. “She’s really worried about protecting what’s hers but won’t admit it.” I know you’re hurting, I say it telepathically because I can’t find the strength to push the words through my lips.
Logan blinks a smile, still hacking away at the keyboard.
I mean, I go on, you spent a few days with my mother. That’s enough to psychologically scar just about anybody. What did she do? Lock you in the lion’s den?
He darts a quick look in my direction. No lion’s den. Turns out, she likes me. A devilish grin breaks out on his face.
Oh, that’s right. Actually, I hadn’t forgotten. I was trying to make light of the situation because, in truth, I’m scared to death to find out what she might have revealed to him. She’s team Logan. I run my fingers down his back and feel him shudder. His eyes close as if he were locked in passion, and it catches me off guard. It pulses a wave of pleasure through me uninvited.
“I heard you.” He bows into his words with a bashful apprehension that I’m not used to hearing from him. “And, you’re right, your mother did reveal something to me.” He runs his sad orbs over me, washes me with those dark saffron eyes, slow as molasses in January.
“Really?” I try to sound freshly surprised. “OK.” I sag with defeat. “Just give it to me straight because I can’t handle the suspense. What is it? Is Chloe going to hack my head off? Or maybe Tad will lock me in a cellar somewhere. Oh, wait—Demetri hangs me upside down in his trophy room.” I know Gage once predicted Logan and I would live very long lives, but there was never any stipulation about whose head I’d be wearing while I did it. With Dr. Oliver’s handy dandy tool bag and Marshall’s knowhow, I could be staring at anyone’s face in the mirror before I’m officially a senior. God—what if that’s why I demanded Gage keep Chloe alive in the future? Holy freaking shit. “I’d better not end up wearing Chloe’s head like a hat.”
“What?” He lets out a low rumble of laughter. Logan loosens up for the first time since he’s stepped into the bowling alley. “It’s nothing like that, I promise. She didn’t mention anything about you accessorizing with anymore of Chloe’s body parts.”
“Then what is it?” I step into him, pleading with everything in me for the short and sweet synopsis that I’m hoping against hope doesn’t involve mortality or eternal curses. I can’t wait to hear what moronic bullshit my mother is up to now.
“I’ll tell you.” Logan glances behind me as Gage calls him over to assist with a sticking gutter. “Emily is having a party tonight.” His eyes switch back to mine. “You going?”
“Are you kidding? And miss the artistic display of my future playing out on at least three hundred canvases? Of course, I’m going. Who knows what she’s whipped out since we were last there.” I leave out the detail of bringing Dudley.
“You think maybe we can hang out after?” There’s a boyishness about him. A wide-eyed apprehension I don’t ever remember seeing in him before.
Hanging out after a party is usually a right reserved for people who are seeing each other. The idea makes me nervous, as if Logan is trying to move the invisible boundary line of what we should and shouldn’t do.
“Sure,” I say. “We can all go out for a bite, hang out at Rockaway or your house.”
He shakes his head just barely. “Just me and you, Skyla. You’re the only person I’m going to share this with.”
Just Logan and me alone after Emily’s party—the idea has me flustered. I can feel the heat rising to my cheeks. An unnatural level of lust beats its way to the surface, but I submerge it as I glance back at Gage.
Logan leans in. “I think there should be a whole lot more time spent with just you and me,” he whispers.
I take a quick breath at the thought. There’s something powerful about the two of us together. We seem to harness all of the energy in the universe, strong enough to slice through granite boulders with precision.
Logan looks up and brands me with his wanting. Logan could drill a hole straight into the core of the Earth with all of that sexual tension bottled up inside him.
“OK.” I nod into Logan. “Just you and me.”
Chapter 51
The Crying Game
That evening, I hang out with baby Beau in my bedroom. It’s the big babysitting stint Gage volunteered us for. He’s conveniently late for our nonmonetary employment, and seeing that it has the potential to involve bouts of incontinence, I really don’t blame him.
It’s just a few hours before Emily’s big party, so I text Marshall and let him know I’ll be expecting him to drop by and hang with the teen scene. To which he promptly replies.
There’s not a spirit in the sky that could keep me away from you tonight. Shall I bring the wings?
NO. ~S
Figures Marshall would go there. I say hello to him these days, and he considers it a proposition. If I did marry Marshall—which I’m a thousand percent sure I’m not—I have a feeling tying me to the bedpost would be a rather permanent situation. For a second, I envision us there in his palatial bedroom—Marshall in his unclothed glory, panting over me all sweaty with that perplexingly sexy, devilish grin of his. I can practically feel his hands tugging at the haunted corset I’m sure he’d require me to wear, the hot red and black one he fashioned for the woman he thought would love him but didn’t
. My heart breaks a little for Marshall. Then all unholy hell breaks loose in my imagination, and I let him rip the bodice off me before I latch onto him like some sexed-up chimpanzee. I can practically feel his hands swimming over my hips, his hot breath in my hair, an entire string of hot kisses that lead all the way down to my stomach—
Baby Beau lets out a gurgle, and I snap out of my erotic-laced fantasy. He’s already tucked snug in his casket sans the lid, which Tad removed after Gage’s oh-so-lucid suggestion. Mom needed me to baby-Count sit so she could effectively fight Dr. Izzy off her husband during their sham of a couple’s counseling session.
I pull outfit after outfit from the closet and settle on a pair of jean shorts and a tight white T-shirt that’s perfectly see-through. It’s actually freezing out, but I noticed that doesn’t stop anybody on Paragon from pretending it’s summer.
My phone buzzes lightly.
Almost to the door.
It’s Gage. I made him promise to text me so he wouldn’t interrupt the therapy session Isis is busy misconducting. Plus, the baby is sleeping, which, by the way, was totally easy to get him to do. I have no clue what Brielle was griping about. Gage and I should have a whole blissful hour to ourselves before we leave for Em’s.
I head downstairs and startle at the sound of hysterical crying, only it’s not coming from my bedroom.
What the hell?
I know for a fact it’s not the baby. It’s definitely originating from downstairs and holy shit if it’s not more than one person—a woman’s howls are intermingled with a man’s bizarre form of shrieking.
Oh my, God. I bet Isis brainwashed Tad into slaughtering my mother. She could have easily hypnotized him with a pair of swirly pasties.
A shadow lingers on the other side of the front door, and I pull Gage in and brush him with a quick kiss.
Gage rides a low sexy smile, and for a moment I forget all about the insanity taking place in the other room.
“Did Logan say anything about his time with your mom?” He washes over me with those steel beams. His features transform with a heavy burden. Gage is as concerned as I am over the content of said conversation. He has a look on his face that suggests Logan might have been promoted in a spiritual manner—soon to be followed in the physical sense.
“He asked if he could talk to me in private after Em’s party,” I confess.
Gage huffs a laugh. He isn’t at all amused that Logan wants alone time with me. He sees the threat, and he feels it’s real, I can tell.
Another bout of hysterical weeping emits from the family room. I use Gage as a human shield and walk over to the edge of the hall. Obviously, Isis made them eat a serious shit sandwich because Mom and Tad are very fucking upset.
Gage pauses just shy of rounding out the wall and inspects the carnage.
Voices escalate, yelling ensues, then a fit of frenzied sobbing—far more intense than before.
“What the hell’s going on?” Gage whispers after examining the situation.
I peer out and spot Mom and Tad bawling like babies while Isis the serpentine solicitor looks on with a content grin on her face. She’s encased in a hot pink tank top with no freaking bra, as exemplified by the twin hat pegs poking from her shirt that look as if they could cut through diamonds.
“What the hell is going on?” I take Gage by the hand and drag him over to the tear fest with me. “Everything OK?” Obviously, everything is not OK. The breasty one here brought up a bunch of past offenses, and now Mom and Tad are just buying time before the dissolution of their marriage kicks in.
“Skyla,” Mom drags my name out in two equal parts, “please don’t interrupt. We’re in the middle of something.” She bows into a heavily used tissue and lets out a few good honks.
“Method acting.” Tad wipes his eyes with the back of his arm in one fell swoop.
Method acting? Obviously the “method” is madness.
“That’s right.” Isis smiles up at me with a vacant look in her eyes. “It’s a new therapeutic treatment that brings couples to the brink of distress and allows them to drain every emotion.”
More like brink of disaster.
“I do feel drained.” Tad nods into her genius. “You really know your stuff.” His eyes venture south, and he reaches over and strokes her hand while hypnotized by the lower forty-eight. I’m sure that’s not all he’d like to stroke.
“I agree.” Mom continues to pinch her nose. “I’m finding this very beneficial. Skyla, you should consider a session with Dr. Edinger. She might be able to pull some things out of you that Dr. Booth couldn’t.”
I suck in a breath. Dr. Booth and I have a mutually satisfying professional relationship. I pretend to see him, and he collects a check. Besides, I thought we moved past my need for psychiatric attention.
“I would love to see Skyla and Gage.” Isis beams. Her glittering teal eyes light up the room with anticipation. “I’ve long since believed young lovers could very much benefit from counseling if not more than some old married couple.”
I’m not sure what’s more reprehensible, the fact she referenced Gage and me as lovers in front of my mother and Tad, or the fact she collectively dismissed them as hopeless geriatrics.
Mom fumbles for words. I’m pretty sure Lizbeth Landon wasn’t suggesting couples counseling for her seventeen-year-old daughter. She meant the glowworm and me going at it mano-a-mano. But now look what she’s done. She’s gone and dragged my perfectly good boyfriend into the picture.
“They think they’re engaged,” Tad balks. “Maybe you can knock some sense into them.”
“A-huh.” She gives a dreamy nod into Gage. “I would certainly love to knock something into—”
“I think I hear the baby,” I say, grabbing Gage and leaving the room before Isis has the chance to knock any more of her perverse psychosis around.
I drag Gage all the way upstairs and shut the door, then turn off the lights.
It’s time to reinstate my sanity, one kiss at a time.
***
Alone in the dark with Gage Oliver is quite possibly the most perfect place on the planet, in this or any other dimensional plane.
I pull him in and cover his lips. I can feel his love pulse over me, his chest palpitate in rhythm with mine. If I could relive a moment over and over, if I could choose my own treble, it would be this moment with his searing affection poured out like oil.
I love you, Skyla, he says, walking me back toward the bed.
There are still so many questions I have, like how he could even tolerate being in the same room with Chloe after what she did to us but I push the thought out of my head for now.
A thin seam of light floods over him from a crack in the blinds, and I can make out a faint smile on his lips as the inky dots on either side of his cheeks twitch in my honor. It’s magic like this with Gage—watching him take me in, swallow me whole into his heart, his mind. He memorizes my features, my body as it’s pieced together in shadows.
Gage lies me down. He raises my hands over my shoulders, blesses me with a river of kisses that span the distance of my lips and chest as far as my T-shirt will allow. He pulls up next to me and indulges in a sea of soft pecks before his determination increases. Those charged kisses harness an entire force field of raging passion. They’re the ones that let me know there’s a deep well of craving in him that can only be satisfied in a carnal manner. Gage longs to christen our love with a holy exchange of rapture that, according to my mother, will conjoin us on an unbreakable spiritual level—let no man put asunder what Gage and I fuse together with our flesh. The thought of the two of us merging our souls is amazing, a miracle I could ponder all night while feasting on the fire that races from his mouth.
A vision appears—Gage and I stand on a windy beach—it’s dark. The sand moves in smooth ripples, it looks alive beneath our feet, black as a panther. I’m yelling, crying. Gage points hard in my direction with a searing expression. This is no showcase of our affection, no prognosticating
of some rosy love affair.
Gage sits up and takes a breath.
A choking sound emits from the tiny casket followed by a hacking cry—a welcome distraction to that alarming vision. I switch on the light and jump over to Beau, screaming himself into what looks like a seizure.
“Hey, you.” I reach in and pluck him free from that horrible crib they keep him in. Who puts a baby in a casket on purpose? Plus, it’s making me feel a little like the crypt keeper. “It’s OK,” I whisper as he wails into my shoulder. “You’re a noisy little Count, aren’t you?” Cute one, too.
Gage gives a crooked smile from the bed. He rides his gaze over me as I try to calm the screaming infant by bobbing him around and petting him like a puppy.
Gage pats the bed beside him until I bop the junior Count all the way over. We sit side-by-side, staring down at the red-faced infant with his tiny balled up fists and erratic kicking legs. So this is what it would be like if Gage and I accidentally had a baby—noisy.
“He’s an angry little guy.” Gage picks up his hand and jostles it gently.
“His diaper feels dry.” Lucky for him because I would sooner hack off my Chloe arm and eat it before I would change a dirty diaper. Yet another reason I would make a lousy teenage mother.
I pick him up and cradle him the same way I used to hold my dolls—which I’m pretty sure is entirely wrong positioning for an actual human, but instinct is kicking in and the only point of reference I happen to have comes from Mattel.
The wailing doesn’t stop. Instead, he arches back before digging his face into my shirt. His head turns side to side at a million miles an hour as if he’s trying to settle his hungry mouth over my boob, and he starts chewing on my shirt without the proper invitation.
“I’m guessing he gets this from his dad,” I say, handing him over to Gage before things get X-rated.
“Whoa.” Gage freezes, holding him out like a hot potato. “I don’t know how to do this.” An elevated state of panic brews in him.