A Beautiful Dark (5 page)

I smiled in spite of myself. “This way, come on.”

As we walked down the hall and up the stairs, I got that same prickly, being-watched feeling as before. The girls all stared at Asher—and glared at me. The bell was going to ring any second, and most people had already filtered out of the halls to their classrooms. But the stragglers turned as we passed, parting for us like the Red Sea. Their whispers followed us down the hall. I slid my eyes sideways as we walked in relative silence. I had to admit, it wasn’t just his eyes that were alluring; it was as if all of him radiated this magnetized power, drawing people in toward him.

“It’s just up here,” I said, snapping myself out of it.

When we reached the open door to the room, I waved my hand like a magician unveiling something that had been hidden. “Here you go.”

“After you,” he said.

I blinked at him, my heart pounding suddenly. I hadn’t told him that I was in this class, too.

“What’s wrong, Skye?”

He could have just assumed
, a small voice whispered inside my head.

The sharp sound of metal against metal made me look around.

The blond guy from the party—Devin—was standing by a locker on the far side of the hallway.

And he was staring at me.

His face was expressionless, but the temperature in the hallway seemed to plummet.

He hefted his backpack onto one shoulder and approached. I wanted to head into the room, but I was rooted to the spot. He stopped in front of me.

“I’m sorry about ruining your party Saturday night.”

His voice was quiet, calm, shy. But also seemed sincere. I hadn’t been this close to him yet, and now I could see that his eyes were a tranquil blue. Peaceful. It was something I’d longed for since my parents had died—a place with no troubles.

When I glanced back at Asher, I could sense the animosity rolling off him in waves. I looked back and forth between them, unsure of what was going on. Standing there, I felt closed in—trapped—like I had Saturday night during the fight.

“You should both talk to Dr. Schneider,” I said. “The guidance counselor. I hear she’s great with conflict resolution.”

The bell rang.

“Thanks, guys. Now I’m late to class.”

“First time for everything,” Asher said.

How had he known?

Chapter 5

I
hesitated at the door. Ms. Manning was already pacing the front of the classroom, going through the day’s announcements.

I heard something drop in the row of seats by the window where Cassie and I had been sitting since the beginning of the school year. She was already seated there, bending over to pick up her calculator from the floor. She turned her head, and I could just see her eyebrow rise through the messy red-blond wisps of hair that had fallen in her face. She shot a pointed look at the two guys standing near me, winked, righted herself, and began to scribble in the notebook in front of her.

“Skye?”

Ms. Manning was standing in front of her desk, staring at me as if she was waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard.

“Sorry, Ms. Manning,” I said, humiliated. I’d never before had to do the tardy walk of shame. I hurried to my desk and slipped quietly into my seat beside Cassie. She kicked my ankle lightly with the toe of her gray vintage suede boot.

“Nice entrance,” she whispered. “Drama queen.”

“It wasn’t her fault we’re late, Ms. Manning,” Asher announced. “My cousin and I got lost, and Skye helped us find our way. It’s our first day here. New school. You know how it is. I’m Asher. I’ve heard great things about you.” He flashed a dazzling smile, focused only on her. She actually blushed and patted her mousy brown hair that frizzed out in a crown around her face. I almost laughed as I remembered the note Cassie had sent me last semester:
Why doesn’t she use conditioner?

I figured that now, Ms. Manning was wishing she had. She looked past Asher to his cousin. “And you are?”

“Devin.” He looked uncomfortable, as though he didn’t relish being in the spotlight as much as Asher apparently did.

“Welcome to homeroom. You’ll find empty seats in the back, boys. Make yourselves comfortable there.”

As they walked to the back of the room, Asher winked at me. My heart kicked up, and I fought not to smooth my hair like Ms. Manning had. I couldn’t help but be impressed by how he’d effectively diffused the situation with Ms. Manning more easily than I’d ever seen anyone do it. I had a feeling the three of us wouldn’t be marked as tardy. My perfect attendance record would remain unmarred.

I stole a glance over my shoulder. Asher slumped low in his chair, splaying his legs out in front of him. Devin sat up straight, tucking his legs beneath his desk. Not stiff, exactly. It was more that he was perfectly controlled, like in yoga. I could almost envision him meditating, a low hum playing inside his head.

“Well, now that we’ve had our excitement for the morning,” Ms. Manning began, drawing my attention away from the guys, “let’s look in the packet that you should have taken from my desk when you came in.”

Everyone just stared blankly at her.

“Really, guys? Come on, vacation’s over. Let’s get those heads back in the game. Cassandra.” Ms. Manning looked sharply at Cassie as a stack of packets passed back to Cassie’s desk. Glaring at her, Cassie took one and gave them to me.

She has it in for me
, she scribbled in tiny script at the bottom of her packet.

I pretended not to see and looked down at mine. I had Ms. Manning not only for homeroom but for history as well. It was important that I stayed on her good side. Ms. Manning liked me, probably because I actually paid attention in class, and I was banking on her to write me a letter of recommendation for Columbia. I wasn’t about to screw it up now.

The packet on my desk was a detailed itinerary for the junior class ski trip, a Northwood High School institution that we’d been talking about since freshman year. It was going to be a nice break from competitive skiing, which I’d been doing all winter.

“. . . leaving next Thursday, at eight thirty a.m. sharp. On page three is the packing list, please stick to it. . . .”

As Ms. Manning’s voice faded into the background like a cloud of chalk dust, I became acutely aware of Asher and Devin sitting behind me. I casually glanced over my shoulder again at the back row. Asher was studying me with a lazy smile. Almost like he was challenging me to hold his gaze.

Beside him, Devin’s calm had dissipated as he glared at his cousin. Together these guys were like this force of energy that constantly seemed to be adding up to trouble. But separately—I stole a glance at Asher again—I was a little intrigued by what they might be like.

Devin was a puzzle, though.

As though reading my thoughts, he shifted his gaze over to me. The warmth in his eyes made me wonder if I wanted to spend some time figuring him out. I whipped back around and discovered a note on my desk. I recognized Cassie’s loopy, artistic scrawl.

Goner
was all it said.

For the rest of the period, I felt eyes on the back of my neck. The clock above the blackboard ticked slower than normal. Cassie’s pen scritch-scratched music notes across her paper. She tapped her foot against the side of her chair in rhythm. I was dying for the bell to ring.

And then suddenly it did.

“Catch you later,” Cassie said with a wink toward the boys as she slipped past me. She had Music Theory after homeroom on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so she never stuck around to chat on those days. Today, I knew there was a reason why she wanted to leave me alone.

“So I think your reputation for never being late to class is safe.” I glanced up from slipping the ski itinerary packet between the covers of my notebook. Asher looked as though he’d accomplished world peace. Behind him, Devin was hovering warily, like he was expecting to have to jump his cousin at any moment. I wasn’t used to so much animosity and distrust. It seemed particularly odd that two guys who were related to each other would so openly dislike each other.

“Yeah, so how did you know about that?” I asked.

Devin stiffened, his zen totally gone now. Apparently he wasn’t comfortable with the direction the conversation was going. Or maybe he just didn’t like that I was talking to his cousin.

Asher just gave me a conspiratorial wink. “Like I said. A reputation is something that everybody knows.”

I narrowed my eyes.

So kids at school were talking about my never-tardy record? I was pretty sure that wasn’t happening. “Yeah, well, in keeping with my reputation, I need to get to my next class. And, guys, seriously, see someone about your anger issues. Even when you’re just sitting next to each other, I can tell that you’re battling something out. It’s not healthy.”

I stuffed my notebook into my backpack and walked away.

I thought I’d have at least a class or two to think about my reaction to the new guys before I could run everything by Cassie at lunch—but just seconds after I walked through the door to Spanish, Devin did, too. He parked himself two seats behind me and the next row over. Which, as everyone knows, is the perfect spot for covert flirting: passing a note down the row, “accidental” pencil-dropping with the casual glance behind you, piling your hair on top of your head and then letting it cascade in seductive tangles down your back. I’d seen Cassie run through the entire arsenal. But I stayed rock-still in my seat, not daring to turn around, hardly even daring to
breathe
. I could tell, just tell, that he was watching me. It bugged me. I wasn’t that fascinating.

If this was some weird kind of cousin rivalry—see who could get the girl first at the new school—I wasn’t playing the game. Let them fight it out. It seemed to be something they liked to do anyway.

Of course, Asher showed up to third-period history. He said and did nothing, but his mere presence at the back of the classroom prevented me from absorbing any of the important dates of World War I. And in fourth-period chemistry, I got so distracted by
not
paying attention to Devin at the next lab table that I let my glucose solution bubble over the top of my test tube and spill all over the place.

By lunchtime, if you’d asked me to recount the event that started World War I or balance the equation for the solution that I’d spilled in chem, I’d have had no clue what you were talking about. These distractions were going to have to stop.

I spotted Dan at our usual table, a slice of pizza just visible under a Jenga tower of French fries on his plate. I hurried through the lunch line—grabbing along the way a plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich and an apple—and weaved through a maze of tables to get to him. When I dropped into the seat across from him, I felt like I pulled the weight of the world down with me.

“Whoa,” he said through a mouthful of fry. “You okay?”

“Just tired,” I said. “I guess I still haven’t recovered from the weekend.”

“Still, best party ever.” Dan swallowed and grinned.

“Best party ever,” I agreed. “It really
rocked.
”

“Well, sometimes it’s nice to just
shake things up.
” He laughed his slow, raspy laugh, dipping a French fry into a blob of ketchup. “The boiler exploding? Definitely not a part of the surprise, by the way.”

Cassie came over with her tray of juice and organic veggies—Northwood is top-ranked in a national survey of high school cafeteria food—and scootched in next to Dan, scrunching her nose at his French fry tower. She unpacked her lunch tray slowly, fully aware that we were watching her. With dramatic flair, she unscrewed the cap of her Odwalla juice, took a bite of steamed butternut squash, and looked up at us.

“Skye has a crush,” she announced.

“What? I do not!” I cried. “What are you even talking about?”

“Please, do you think I’m an amateur? This is what I
do
, Skye. This is what I live for. Besides, I’ve been your friend for how long? You don’t think I’d recognize the signs?”

Dan shot me a wry grin. “Do you need me to ask who it is, or is Cassie about to tell us that anyway?”

“I do not have a crush!”

Ian slid into the chair beside me. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

“Apparently Skye has a crush,” Dan informed him.

Ian brightened slightly. “Oh, yeah? Anyone I know?”

“The guys from the Bean,” Cassie said. “The ones who were fighting.”

“What?”
I scoffed, trying not to notice how Ian suddenly looked deflated. “You’ve totally lost your powers of observation.”

Cassie took a sip of juice and cleared her throat. “Prepare to be proven wrong. Clue number one: You were late for homeroom. You’re never late for homeroom. Clue number two: Your arrival to homeroom happened to coincide with the arrival of two hot new guys—who you apparently rescued. Saving them from the horrific fate of being lost and having to wander these halls for all eternity.”

“It was only Asher. Devin found his own way. Besides, Asher wasn’t lost. He just asked where the room was.”

“And you volunteered to be tour guide? Perhaps allowing for a little chitchat along the way, your little heart fluttering like a butterfly—”

“Cassie, I will shove this French fry in your ear—”

“Clue number three: You’re getting flustered and defensive. This is really a textbook case. But let’s press on, shall we? Clue number four: You couldn’t stop turning around to look behind you, though you tried to make it look like you weren’t by rooting around in your backpack—”

“But I—”

“Shh. This brings us to the final and most important clue: You haven’t touched your lunch.”

I looked down at my tray—it was true. I hadn’t even taken the turkey sandwich out of its cellophane wrapping. Warmth crept up my neck and bloomed across my face in what I could only imagine was a completely incriminating blush.

“Ah!” Cassie cried, pointing her index finger at my face. “Witness the defendant’s telling facial color! Skye
never
eats when she’s nervous. Sensitive stomach. And why should she be nervous,” Cassie said, slamming her hand on the table as if she was auditioning for
Law & Order
, “if she doesn’t have a crush?”