I nod into his line of thinking as we get out of the truck. I blip myself to the front door to buy a half-minute with her before Logan sweeps her off her feet again. But it’s not Skyla who opens the door, it’s Brielle. I give a brief hello and make my way past her. It’s refreshing seeing new furniture in the place, the dank scent of the Bishop house long forgotten, replaced with the sweet scent of Skyla. She beats cinnamon rolls any day of the week for “best olfactory experience ever.”
Skyla blooms in the family room like a fantasy come to life. Her hair falls over her shoulders in a gold waterfall as she offers a sweet smile in my direction.
Here’s my chance to say something. Tell her about the dreams—the fact I know that she and I will do amazing things on a black sandy beach one day. That I’ve thought about her—fallen in love with her—long before I ever met her. Instead, I grin like an idiot until she walks past me and greets Nat and Kate with an enthusiastic hello.
Perfect. This is a shining example of why I’ll never make it to first base with the “girl of my dreams”—I’m a tongue-tied idiot whenever I’m around her. Maybe I misinterpreted those visions, and she’s the girl I’ll forever be fantasizing about. That sounds about right.
I turn just in time to catch the Logan and Skyla show, his arms already locked around her waist. My stomach sinks as I glance down at the pizza—because God knows I’ve lost my appetite.
Skyla gathers everyone in the family room, and they indulge in the feast of the best artery clogging pizza on the island. Logan seems to be taking a cue from me and passes on the meal. If anyone gets sick tonight, I’m sure they’ll accuse us of lacing their dinner.
Skyla comes over and leans in. She washes over me with those haunting pale eyes and hands me a movie.
“So here’s the DVD.” Her fingers brush against mine, and my entire body tingles from her touch. “If you don’t like it, blame Drake.” She points to the console the television rests on. “There’s lots more crap where that came from.”
She glances back in Logan’s direction. I need to say something to hold her attention or she’ll never notice me. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be less visible than air by the time we leave.
“You get the comedy channel?” I blink into my own stupidity and snatch the remote from the coffee table like I actually meant it.
She opens her mouth as if she’s about to answer then turns abruptly like she’s thought of something better. “Hey”—she bites down on her lip while looking at Logan—“would you like a tour of the house?”
Perfect. My stupid inquiry about the fucking comedy channel inspired her to give Logan a sneak preview of her mattress. I’m sure she’s dubbed me the scary Oliver by now.
Logan glances at me for a moment with a mournful look before perking back to attention. “Why, yes. Yes, I would.”
Must be nice up on cloud nine.
“You’re going to miss the movie.” Kate snatches at Skyla as she drifts by.
“That’s the point.” Natalie hugs a pillow like it was a body. “They’re going to entertain themselves.”
Nat’s words slice through me as I shoot a look up at Skyla. She catches my eye, and I beg her with everything in me not to go anywhere with Logan, just to sit right here next to me and watch the crap movie I’m about to put on.
“We’re just going to talk.” She says it sweetly, directed to me of all people, and a part of me swims with relief. Skyla winces as she drinks me in. She’s feeling something, I can tell, and for a brief moment, I’m sure she’ll be mine one day.
“Hey, Skyla?” Her brother shouts as she and Logan head for the stairs. “There’s a stack of rubbers in my top drawer. Feel free to grab one. I hear it’s a safe way to ‘talk’ to people.”
There goes that brief moment.
She’s all Logan’s again.
5
Logan
The Bloody Party
Skyla’s bedroom is sweet in nature, not at all the vixen den that Chloe had set up for herself. A wicker-framed bed sits in the corner with a canopy floating above it like a cloud. A plain white desk with a laptop sits against the opposite wall.
Skyla’s hand warms to mine, and I can hear her worry over how well she hid her stuffed animals. I can’t help but listen in. Her inner dialog is too damn cute not to. She does a spastic inventory of the floor while her face lights up the exact same shade of pink as the quilt on her bed. A stack of boxes sit untouched in the corner, patiently waiting for someone to tend to them, and I give her hand a squeeze as if to say it’s not a big deal.
Skyla shoots a look of dismay at the walls. One day this summer, I for sure want to paint it a really pretty green.
“I’ll help,” I offer.
“Help?” She drops me like a bad connection and leaps over to the mattress, smoothing her hand over the spot right next to her.
“Paint your room.” I land beside her in one fell swoop, no formal invite needed.
“Are you kidding?” She lies back and turns her head into the pillow as if she’s somehow mortified by this. Her bare shoulder pops free from her sweater, and I want to press my lips against it, graze my teeth over her flesh for the hell of it. Every move she makes, feels like an invitation.
“And, you hid things pretty well.” I reach under her bed and retrieve a scruffy blue elephant.
She lets out a bubbling laugh while trying to grab it.
“Give me that,” she cries. I let her reach it, and she smothers its face in her cleavage. Damn lucky elephant. “Don’t touch him,” she hisses. “He’s mine.”
“So…” I start. Skyla mentioned just before dinner she wanted to know why Michelle Miller harassed her at the mall today, claiming I gave her a special invite to the party. I reach over and run my fingers through her hair, soft and slippery. “You want to know why I was at Michelle’s.” I’m not looking forward to any part of this conversation. Nor do I enjoy spending any of my time with “Michelle.”
“It’s none of my business where you go.” She glances at the door. Wonder if I locked it?
“I locked it.” I press out a quick smile. Maybe I can make her forget the entire Michelle fiasco by way of my body. But something in me already knows Miller is going to be nothing short of a guillotine to this budding relationship.
“No reason to.” She drills me with a look that could cut through diamonds.
A sigh of regret escapes me before I set out to explain myself.
“Michelle has something I want.” Shit. Could I sound anymore elusive?
“I hear most girls do.” She wrinkles her nose in a pinch of jealousy.
“Not that.” Damn, she’s cute when she’s ticked. “And no, most girls don’t. You do.” I lean back and flash a mile-wide smile. “Michelle has something else. Something nobody else could give me.” This time, I incited her a little for the hell of it.
“What?”
“I can’t say.”
“Say,” she demands. I kind of like her barking out orders, so I comply.
“It’s something of Chloe’s.” We’re traveling in the complete wrong direction—and for sure, it’s not a good omen to bring up Chloe in the room I had her in.
“Who’s going to care?”
“You’ll care—you may want it,” I say, writhing for a way to turn this ship around and make this conversation about something else—us, preferably. “And I’m pretty sure I’ll want to give it to you, at least in part.” I don’t think I could deny Skyla a bottle of poison to drink if she asked for it.
“Okay”—she exhales—“anybody ever tell you that you talk in circles?” She picks up my hand and interlaces our fingers, easy as breathing. She’s relaxing, letting down her guard, and nothing in the world could make me happier.
“Are you sleeping with Michelle?” she asks without blinking.
“No.” I fire back.
“Have you slept with Michelle?”
“Almost, but that was months after Chloe died, and I was a head case.” And right
about now, I’m thanking God I didn’t cave.
“Did you sleep with Chloe in my bedroom?” She spits the words out like a round of bullets.
Shit. I lock onto her gaze, speechless, wishing I could turn back the clock and stop myself from the biggest mistake of my life.
“Yes.” It takes everything in me to push it out, and my heart breaks at how much I might have hurt her—how the horror of what happened, right here, encased in these four walls, might haunt her for a long time to come.
She backs the hell away and glares at me.
And there it is. I lie down and cover my eyes with my arm. How the hell did Skyla Messenger end up in Chloe Bishop’s bedroom? Just what the fuck are the odds?
“It’s not like you knew me then,” she whispers, as if she were mournful that I didn’t. I wish I could make her understand that I would have given anything for it to have been her I shared that special moment with, not Chloe, especially the way things turned out in the end. “Just tell me about the touch, how we can hear.” She sounds exasperated, ready to boot me from her bed without so much as a kiss.
I glide my hand over her bare arm before replacing it by my side.
“I think we should do this with words.” I press a finger over my lips, wishing I were touching hers instead.
“Afraid to let me in much?” She says it like a dare. I wonder what she would do if she knew I could withhold my thoughts from her at will—that I seem to hold a secret from her at every turn. I doubt she’d believe any of this was in her best interest.
I shake my head. “More like, afraid to hear you.” It comes out slow, measured. “It happened twice with Chloe and me. It was stupid. Chloe and I…” I wish I could take it all back, every last kiss. “She wasn’t the right person for me.” I interlace our fingers soft as feathers. “By the time she disappeared, we had already broken up, which put me at the top of the suspect list.”
Her eyes widen at the prospect.
“Tell me what Michelle has.” She pleads, taking the spotlight off me as one of Paragon’s most wanted, if only for a moment.
“Her diary.”
“Oh.” Her forehead wrinkles with concern.
“She left something in it for me.” I pull a bleak smile. “Anyway, when I get it, you can read it if you like.” I pull her hand in close.
I would like that. She nods into me, solemn—honest, and it evokes a smile from my lips.
“So what about me?” she asks. “This thing?” I don’t want to talk about Chloe anymore, like, ever.
“This thing.” I give her fingers a gentle squeeze before she snatches her hand back. “You said your dad did it?”
“Yes. My mom and sister can’t.”
“Your dad ever talk about his family? Do you know them?” I have a feeling her dad had a few secrets of his own.
“Just my grandma. She lives in a nursing home back in L.A. My mother left her there to rot.” She sighs into the thought.
“She ever talk about angels?”
“All the time, but she’s senile. The doctors said it was one of her fixations. It was nonstop angels everyday, all the time.”
“Well, she might not be as senile as everybody thinks. The only other people that share our gift have Nephilim blood in them.”
“Nephilim?” Skyla leans back as if I were about to give her a rare disease.
“Angels who chose their lust for women over their desire to remain on the frontlines for God. They came down and started families as if they were human.”
“Are you saying I’m part Nephilim?” Skyla’s chest rises and falls at a quickened pace, and it makes me want to lay over her to keep her from jumping out of her skin.
“I think so, but I’ll have to take a small vile of blood to be sure.” Here’s hoping she isn’t squeamish—but I’d bet large bills she is.
“You’re kidding, right?” She eyes the door like a caged animal. “I can’t stand the sight of blood.”
“Well then…” A silent laugh trembles from me. “You’d make a lousy vampire.” I called squeamish.
“And where do you send this vial? Angels-R-Us?”
“My uncle runs the mortuary. He has access to testing.”
“Your uncle runs the mortuary? I thought your family ran the bowling alley.”
I want to tell her it’s just the tip of the odd family iceberg, but don’t.
“My father owned the bowling alley. My uncle had it under management until he could pass it to me. I’ve been running it into the ground ever since I was fourteen.” I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t just dive in and explain to her about Barron, my iffy past life, the fact I’m technically Gage’s uncle and another age entirely. “I never claimed to be good at anything.” And apparently disclosing vital info tops the list.
“Fourteen?” Her lips curve at the edges as if she secretly approves of my adolescent ability to gut myself financially.
“I had help. Still do. But back to the topic at hand.” I produce a bevy of third-world hospital equipment from deep in my pocket—a lighter, a scalpel, and a small glass vial to store her blood. “Are you ready to get the answers you’ve been looking for?”
Skyla’s face turns ashen as though I had just powder-bombed her with my words. Her lips quiver out the idea of a smile.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say, touching the scalpel to her skin.
I glance up at Skyla as she closes her eyes. She pulls back her neck and bites down on her bottom lip.
Here I am, penetrating Skyla Messenger with what amounts to a rusty razor, and she looks as if she’s locked in passion—go figure.
I flick the vial until the dark fluid bubbles to the top before taking up her hand.
Maybe next time we’ll get the penetration part right.
She opens an eye, looks at me, and we both share a laugh.
Gage
All the way home, Logan is quiet.
We hang out downstairs, and I put on a movie, but neither of us seems too interested in it. Logan keeps spacing out, and I can’t focus on anything but the inadvertent image I have stuck in my head of the two of them tumbling beneath the sheets.
“So what happened tonight?” I toss the bone out there to see if he’ll bite. Logan has never been shy to divulge details, but I already know this situation with Skyla is different.
“We hung out. I got the blood for your dad.” He adjusts the pillow below his head and reverts his gaze to the television.
“So that’s it? You hung out?”
“That’s it.”
He glances over at me with a devilish grin playing on his lips.
Knew it.
“She kiss you?”
“Not tonight.”
The words go through me like a spear. Who the hell am I kidding? I figured it happened that night at Ellis’s, anyway. It looks like Logan and Skyla are already in too deep. Just the idea of them sharing something intimate like a kiss lights me up like a flare—nothing but a blowtorch of jealousy.
“I take that back.” He feigns a bored look, a classic signal that he plans on jerking me around. “There was penetration.”
“Right.”
“No, really. It happened—just me, Skyla, and a needle.”
I nail him in face with a pillow while he laughs his pretty boy ass off.
A tremble of laughter rails through me as I fill with relief. Not that I would peg Skyla for someone who sleeps around, but this is Logan we’re talking about. He could do whatever he wants, with whomever he wants—or at least he’s convinced himself of this.
“So, dude”—he grinds his palm into his eye—“you gotta let this go. I’m not joking. Look, I’m trying to be as nice as possible. The last thing I want is get into it with you because of some girl.”
“Some girl? Do you feel anything for her, or are you just introducing her to the island by way of your body?”
“I care about her.” He sighs, locking eyes with me as if this were about to get serious and quick. “I want to know
her better. I feel something—there I said it. But I know that you feel something, too, and this is going to suck in a big fucking way if you don’t find someone else to set your sights on—like fantasy girl.”
I lean back and take him in. Logan has always had everything handed to him—the bowling alley, the quarterback position, the girls. Of course, he’s eaten his fair share of a shit sandwich, too, like losing his parents. But for some reason, fate has decided to compensate him with what amounts to the Midas touch when it comes to everything else.
“Fantasy girl.” I murmur.
“Yes.” He nods. “Focus on her. Your visions are never wrong. You’ve waited this long. Hell, you turned Chloe down stone cold because of her. I say hang tough, bro. I have a feeling she’ll be showing up any day now. Rumor has it there are tons of new girls coming to West this year.”
“Right.”
“You know what you should do?”
“What?” I flat line. I’m just playing along at this point, but Logan’s got his head tucked so far up his ass he doesn’t notice.
“You should write her a poem or something. You still keep that diary?”
“Journal—dude, it’s a journal.”
“Good. Start journaling again, and get all your feelings down on paper. That way, when she walks into your life, you can sit her down and read to her how much she means to you already.”
“She’ll think I’m a stalker.”
“She’ll think you’re a sweet stalker.”
I shake my head at his lunacy.
I’ve kept a journal for as long as I remember. I’ve taken a stab or two at poetry, but I’ll be the last person to share that with Logan. God knows I’d like to write a poem over Skyla’s lips with mine.
“Who knows”—Logan pipes up again—“you might even have her in a class or two next semester.”
A class or two...
An idea comes to me, and I have a feeling it’s going to be far more effective than poetry.
6