Cursed (Book 1, The Watchers; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (4 page)

When we got back
into Brand’s car, I couldn’t help but steal glances at him on the drive back. 
I didn’t want to just stare at him like some crazed, love sick school girl, but
just his presence was making me feel things I thought I would never feel
again.  Having been thrown to the wayside by Will after our first kiss had caused
me to inadvertently build a wall around my heart.  I wasn’t sure if anyone
would ever feel brave enough to attempt to breach my self induced preservation
mechanism.  Would Brand be the one who finally broke through?  Was he
interested enough to try?

Brand took me back
to the parking lot behind the science building where my car was parked.  Before
I got out of his car, he took one of my hands and placed a gentle kiss on it.

“I’ll be sitting
on the steps outside biology class before it begins in the morning.  If you
want to join me, I would love to spend some quiet time with you.”

“How early will
you be there?” I asked breathlessly.

“Oh, at least
thirty minutes before class begins.  Will you come?”

My heart leapt at
the yearning and hope I saw in his eyes.

I nodded.  “Yes,
I’ll be there.”

We said our
goodbyes and I walked to my car.

I drove back home
excited about life like I hadn’t been for a long time.  I parked in front of my
apartment. I’d just locked the car door and shut it when I heard someone close
behind me call my name.  Turning around I saw Will leaning against his Honda
Civic with his arms crossed in front of his chest.  If it were possible, the
look of hostility I saw on his face earlier in the evening had intensified.

Well, if he
planned to be rude to me, I wasn’t about to just stand there and take it.

“We don’t have
anything to say to each other, Will.”  I made my way to the door of my
apartment, but he was there in a flash blocking my path.

“We need to talk,”
he said brusquely, grabbing me by the top of my arms so tight it scared me for
a moment.

“Will Allen
Kilpatrick, you need to let go of me …
right
…
now
.”

He dropped his
hands to his sides and took a step back.

“I just want to
talk with you, Lilly.  Please.”

The look of desperation
on his face convinced me to at least hear what he had to say.  Since he was
breaking over a year of silence, I assumed it was probably important.

  I motioned for
him to sit on the steps leading to the second floor of the apartment complex. 
Standing in front of him with arms crossed over my chest, I waited for him to
begin.

  “You need to
stay away from Brandon Cole.”  He was so strident in this statement I almost
laughed.

  As it was, I
looked him straight in his pretty blue eyes and said, “Who I spend time with is
none of your business.  You gave up the right to give me advice on my love life
a long time ago.  How dare you come here after almost two years of ignoring me
and tell me how to run my life!  Why shouldn’t I go out with him?  He’s nice, handsome,
and has shown me more caring in the last two days than you have in the last two
years!”  I turned to leave when I felt Will gently grab one of my hands.

  “Lilly,
please
,
he’s not the person he’s pretending to be!”

  I jerked my hand
away and turned around to face him.  “That’s funny.  He said the exact same
thing about you tonight.”

  Will stiffened. 
“What did he tell you?”

  I knew Will.  I
could tell when he was worried about something and he was extremely worried
about my answer. 

  “Nothing more
than that.  He just said I should stay away from you, which is advice I’m
really thinking about taking.”

  “You don’t mean
that.”

  I couldn’t
believe Will actually looked hurt by my threat.  How was that even possible? 
Hadn’t he avoided me like the plague the last two years?   Why was he
pretending to care about me now?

  But Will didn’t
pretend feelings.  At least the Will I knew never did.  Was the Will of my
adolescent fantasies still in the Will standing before me now?

  “Can you give me
one good reason why I shouldn’t, Will?  Just one,” I whispered, daring to hope
for the answer I had waited so long to hear.

  He opened his
mouth to say something but shut it again, obviously rethinking whatever his
automatic response had been.

  “No matter what you
think of me,” he said in a controlled voice.  “I’m still your friend and only
want to see you happy.”

  My heart sank. 
I could feel the tears of my broken heart threatening to show Will how much I
still cared about him.  I knew if I didn’t get into the apartment soon he would
know how much he could still affect me and that was something my pride couldn’t
let him see.

  “Leave me alone,
Will.  If you want to see me happy, just leave me alone.”

  I unlocked the
door to my apartment and quickly shut it behind me.

  Tara was sitting on the futon pretending to watch TV.  I knew she had to have heard the
conversation between me and Will outside because the apartment walls just
weren’t that thick. 

  The tears I'd
held back wracked my body as soon as I leaned my back against the door. 
Without saying a word, Tara stood, sat me down on the futon and held me until my
heart stopped weeping. 

  The next morning
I woke up early so I wouldn’t miss my rendezvous with Brand.  I decided to try
my best to forget about what happened with Will the night before and strive to
find happier ways to occupy my time.

  When I neared
the science building, I saw him sitting on the steps in front of the classroom
reading a copy of
Taming of the Shrew
.

  “I hope you
aren’t getting any ideas from that book,” I said as I walked up to him. 

  I was rewarded
with one of his heartbreaking smiles.  “You’re no shrew, Lilly.  Anyway, I
wouldn’t dream of changing a thing about you.”

  I sat down next
to him on the steps and was about to put my books on my lap when he reached for
them and placed them on top of his own sitting on the other side of him.

  “So, what did
you do last night after you took me back to my car?”  I asked, curious to know
what he did in his spare time.

  “I went to see
my cousin Abby for a while and then I went home.”

  “Your cousin?  I
didn’t know you had family living here.  Is that part of the reason you moved
to Lakewood?”

  “No, actually
she moved here with me.  We’ve always been close.  She recently lost a friend and
needed a change of scenery.”

  “Where does she
live?”

  “There was a
barn on the property I bought.  We refinished the inside for her.  It turned
out really well.  Now she can play the drums without me having to yell at her
to stop,” he laughed. 

  His laugh had a
deep, easy quality to it that instantly made me feel peaceful and happy.

  “She likes the
acoustics in there too.”  He said while gingerly taking my right hand into his
left one and kissing it ever so lightly.

  Dear Lord, what
his lips did to my skin just wasn’t right.  Goosebumps involuntarily covered my
whole body.

  “Are you cold?” 
He asked worried, seeing the bumps on my flesh and pulling me in closer to his
side to drive away the chill he thought I felt. 

  I wasn’t about
to complain.  The warmth of his arm around my waist sent another pleasant chill
up my spine.  It had been a long time since I felt the comfort of being in a
man’s arms.  I sank into his side reveling in the feel of being looked after,
comforted.

  “How old is your
cousin?” I asked, wanting to prolong the moment as long as possible.

  “She’s around
the same age as me.”

  “Is she going to
school here too?”

  Brand chuckled. 
“No, I don’t think she would care for school.  She has enough money to live
comfortably.  And she thinks she knows everything anyway.  School would just be
a distraction from her music.”

  That brought up
an interesting question.  “Why
ar
e you here?  It seems like you have a
lot of money.  It’s not like you need a job after college like the rest of us. 
And you’re what, twenty-three?”

  “Twenty-four and
I’m here because I like to learn things,” he replied.  “Even though I’ve read
Taming
of the Shrew
a hundred times, I want to see what the teacher and other
students find important about the story.  Everyone has a different point of
view on most everything.  I find people and their differing ideas interesting. 
And as far as finding a job after school,” he shrugged, “you never know.  I
might just find a beautiful girl and want to follow her wherever she goes.  I
wouldn’t want to spend my days without her so I had better enjoy working where
she does.”

  I smiled at
that.  It was totally sweet and totally romantic.

  It was then I
knew there had to be something wrong with Brand.

  There was no way
a guy so sweet and gorgeous could exist in the real world.  But, did I care
enough to really want to find his flaw?

  “What do you
want to do with your life?” he asked, holding me even tighter against him.

  “I’ve always
wanted to work in a lab somewhere.  Find a cure to an incurable disease or
something idyllic like that.  I would love to get a job with the CDC in Atlanta when I leave, but I just haven’t decided whether I want to go straight to work or head
straight to graduate school.”

“Well, you let me
know.”

“Why?”

“How else am I
going to know what to do?” He smiled at me with the cutest look on his face. 
It was the first time I had seen him look uncertain about something, like he
was afraid of how I would react to what he was implying.

“But aren’t you
interested in doing something in particular?” I asked him.  “Not everyone’s cut
out to do the same thing as someone else.”

He shrugged.  “I’m
interested in a lot of things.  You’ll just help me narrow down what I really
want to do.”

It was then we
were interrupted by the other students arriving for class.  We got up from our
cozy spot on the stairs and followed the others inside.  In the room there was
a long black table with seats all around it.  Brand and I sat down across from
one another at the far end of the table. 

Dr. Floyd entered
the room and silently nodded to me, obviously pleased to see I was able to find
the room again.  Geesh, I was really going to have to show the man I wouldn’t
be the dunce of the class.

As soon as the
lecture started I reached for one of the books sitting between me and Brand.  I
assumed mine was the top one but soon found out that wasn’t the case. 

When I opened the
book to chapter one, there was a small piece of paper with words scribbled on
it.  It wasn’t my handwriting so I knew the book had to belong to Brand.  On
the paper was written:

    
In the dark shadows of the night

     I hear a Nightingale singing a song
for my heart

I looked up at
Brand.  He looked from me to the piece of paper in my hands and smiled
guiltily.  I put the paper back inside the book and slid it over to him
mouthing the word, “Sorry.”

He just shook his
head silently telling me it was all right.  He quickly scribbled something in
his notebook and placed it at an angel in front of him so I could read it without
drawing Dr. Floyd’s attention:

     I just wasn’t ready for you to see
it yet.  You’ve inspired me to try my hand at poetry.  It might not be good
poetry but at least you’ll know it’s from the heart.

I smiled at him
and attempted to listen to what Dr. Floyd was saying during the rest of the
period.  After class, Brand walked me to English comp since he had an off
period next.  He told me he would be waiting for me on the terrace of the
Commons at lunch.  He asked if there was anything he could get me to eat.  I
told him not to bother.  I would bring something to munch on.

Tara, Michelle and
Nora were sitting in a group of desks together.  I took the empty seat beside Tara and behind Nora.

“Ok, when are you
going to introduce me to Mister Wonderful?” Tara said leaning back in her seat
to watch Brand walk down the hallway.  “You know I have to approve of him
before this goes any further.”

I laughed.  “How
about at lunch?  You can do all the questioning you want then.”

When I looked up
at Nora, she had the fakest look of enthusiasm on her face that I have ever
seen in my life.

“You guys are so
cute together,” she lied behind a perfect smile drenched in envy. 

“Thanks.”

“You know, I asked
Will if he wanted to go over to your table to say hi when I noticed you two
were in the Commons last night.  But he was pretty adamant about not going
anywhere near your table.  Do you have any idea why?”

Yes, I do you
sniveling little gossip monger but there’s no way in hell I’m telling you
anything,
I thought.

“Nope, no idea,” I
replied instead.

It was obvious she
knew I was holding something back but chose not to push the matter. 

“Well,” she
sighed.  “I can tell you one thing:  Will’s going to have to really step it up
if he wants to date me.”

“Oh yeah?” Tara leaned forward in her seat.  The tone in her voice warned of impending doom to someone
and her name was Nora.  “Why’s that?”

“He hardly said a
word to me the whole night and then he left before we had even finished our ice
cream.  I’m not even sure why he asked me to go in the first place.”

“From what I
heard, you were the one who asked
him
out,” Tara said.  “Or did I hear
it wrong?”