Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever) (16 page)

“No,” I said finally. I rubbed another tear out of my eye before it could fall. “No, you did everything right. It’s just that —” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t.

Sam didn’t flinch. “— that this is my last year.”

I bit my lip, hard, and rubbed away another tear. “I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.”

He didn’t say anything. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say. Instead, he wrapped his arms around me again, only this time he guided my cheek onto his chest and ran his hand over the back of my head, clumsy but comforting. I closed my eyes and listened to the thud of his heart until mine matched pace with his. Finally, he rested his cheek on the top of my head and whispered, “We don’t have time to be sad.”

The sun had become brilliant by the time we walked out of the bookstore, and with a shock I realized how much time had passed. On cue, my stomach pinched with hunger.

“Lunch,” I said. “Immediately. I’m going to wither away to absolutely nothing. Then you’ll be racked with guilt.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Sam took my little bag of new books and turned to put them in the Bronco, but he froze partway toward the car, his eyes fixed somewhere behind me. “Crap. Incoming.”

He turned his back to me and unlocked the car, shoving the books onto the passenger seat, trying to look inconspicuous. I turned around and found Olivia, looking disheveled and tired. Then John appeared behind her and gave me a big grin. I hadn’t seen him since before I met Sam, and in comparison, I couldn’t fathom how I’d ever imagined he was good-looking. He looked dusty and ordinary in comparison beside Sam’s black flop of hair and golden eyes.

“Hey, gorgeous,” John said.

That turned Sam around in a hurry. He didn’t move toward me, but he didn’t have to — his yellow eyes stopped John in his tracks. Or maybe it was just Sam’s stance beside me, shoulders stiff. In the space of a second, I had a flashing thought that Sam might be dangerous — that maybe he normally quieted the wolf inside him far more than he let on.

John had a weird, unreadable expression that made me wonder if all those months of pretend flirting had been more real than I’d thought.

“Hi,” Olivia said. She glanced at Sam, whose gaze had been fixed on the camera slung over her shoulder. He looked down and rubbed his eyes as though he’d gotten something in one of them.

Sam’s discomfort was catching, and my smile felt insincere. “Hi. Funny bumping into you guys here.”

“We’re just running some errands for Mom.” John’s eyes flicked toward Sam and he smiled a little too pleasantly. My cheeks warmed at the silent testosterone battle waging; it was kind of flattering, if a little weird. “And Olivia wanted to hit up the bookstore while we were out. It’s friggin’ cold out here. I’m going to go on in.”

“They let illiterate people in there?” I teased, like old times.

John grinned then, all tension gone, and grinned at Sam, too, like,
Yeah, good luck with that
, before heading into the store. Sam sort of smiled back, eyes squinted shut, still acting like he had something in them. Olivia remained on the sidewalk just outside the door, arms hugged around herself.

“I never thought I’d see you out of the house this early on a
non-schoolday,” she told me. Talking to me, but looking at Sam. “I thought you hibernated on days off.”

“Nope, not today,” I said. After this much time not talking to her, it felt like I didn’t know how to do it anymore. “Up early to see what it feels like.”

“Amazing,” Olivia said. She was still looking at Sam, an unasked question hanging in the air. I didn’t want to introduce them, since Sam seemed so uncomfortable around Olivia and her camera, but I was hyperaware of the way she was looking at us: the space between the two of us, how it shifted as either of us moved, connected by invisible strings. And the casual contact. Her eyes followed his hand to my arm as he touched my sleeve lightly, and then moved to his other hand, still rested on the handle of the car door — comfortable, like he’d opened it many times before. Like he belonged with the Bronco and with me. Finally, Olivia said, “Who’s this?”

I glanced at Sam, for approval. His eyelids were still lowered, shadowing his eyes.

“Sam,” he said softly.

There was something wrong with the tenor of his voice. He wasn’t looking at the camera, but it seemed like I could
feel
his attention on it. My voice inadvertently echoed his anxiety when I said, “This is Olivia. Olive, Sam and I are going out. I mean, dating.”

I expected her to comment, but instead she said, “I recognize you.” Beside me, Sam stiffened until she added, “From the bookstore, right?”

Sam flicked his eyes up to her, and she nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Yes. From the bookstore.”

Olivia, arms still crossed, fingered the edge of her sweater but didn’t take her eyes from Sam’s. She seemed to be struggling to find words. “I — do you wear contacts? Sorry to be so blunt. You must get asked a lot.”

“I do,” Sam said. “Get asked a lot. And I do wear them.”

Something like disappointment flashed across Olivia’s face. “Well, they’re really cool. Um. It was nice to meet you.” Turning to me, she said, “I’m sorry. It was a really stupid thing to fight over.”

Whatever I had been planning to say disappeared when she said
I’m sorry.

“I’m sorry, too,” I replied, a little feebly, because I wasn’t really sure what I was apologizing for.

Olivia looked at Sam and then back at me. “Yeah. I just … Could you call me? Later on?”

I blinked with surprise. “Yeah, of course! When?”

“I — actually, can I call you? I don’t know when will be a good time. Is that okay? Can I just call your cell?”

“Anytime. You sure you don’t want to go somewhere and talk now?”

“Um, no, not now. I can’t, because of John.” She shook her head and looked at Sam again. “He wants to hang out. Later will be good, though, definitely. Thanks, Grace. I mean it. I’m so sorry about our stupid argument.”

I pressed my lips together. Why was she thanking me?

John stuck his head out of the bookstore’s door. “Olive? Are you coming, or what?”

Olivia waved at us and disappeared into the bookstore with a little
ding
from the bookstore’s doorbell.

Sam cupped his hands around the back of his head and heaved a huge, shaky sigh. He paced a small circle on the sidewalk without lowering his hands.

I stepped past him and pulled open the passenger-side door. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Are you just camera shy, or is it something more?”

Sam came around the other side of the Bronco and got in, slamming the door shut, as if shutting Olivia and all the weirdness of the conversation out. “I’m sorry. I just — I saw one of the wolves the other day and this Jack thing just has me on edge. And Olivia — she took pictures of all of us. As wolves. And my eyes … I was afraid that Olivia knew more about me than she was saying and I just — freaked out. I know. I acted totally whacked, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did. You’re lucky that she was acting more whacked than you. I hope she calls later.” Unease crept through me.

Sam touched my arm. “Do you want to go someplace to eat or just head home?”

I groaned and put my forehead into my hand. “Let’s just go home. Man. I feel so weird, not finding out what she was talking about.”

Sam didn’t say anything, but it was all right. I was going over and over what Olivia had said, trying to figure out why the conversation seemed so awkward. Trying to figure out what wasn’t being said. I should’ve said more to her after she told me that she was sorry. But what else was there to say?

We traveled along in silence back toward the house, until I realized how intensely selfish I was being.

“I’m sorry, I’m ruining our date.” I reached over and took Sam’s free hand; he squeezed his fingers around mine. “First I bawled — which I never do, for the record — and now I’m totally distracted by Olivia.”

“Shut up,” Sam said pleasantly. “We’ve got plenty of day left. And it’s nice to see you …
emote
… for once. Instead of being so damn stoic.”

I smiled at the thought. “Stoic? I like it.”

“Figured you would. But it was nice to not be the wishy-washy one for once.”

I burst out laughing. “Those aren’t the words I’d use to describe you.”

“You don’t think of me as a delicate flower in comparison to you?” When I laughed again, he pressed, “Okay, what words
would
you use, then?”

I leaned back in the seat, thinking, as Sam looked at me doubtfully. He was right to look doubtful. My head didn’t work with words very well — at least not in this abstract, descriptive sort of way. “Sensitive,” I tried.

Sam translated: “Squishy.”

“Creative.”

“Dangerously emo.”

“Thoughtful.”

“Feng shui.”

I laughed so hard I snorted. “How do you get
feng shui
out of ‘thoughtful’?”

“You know, because in feng shui, you arrange furniture and plants and stuff in thoughtful ways.” Sam shrugged. “To make you calm. Zenlike. Or something. I’m not one
hundred percent sure how it all works, besides the thoughtful part.”

I playfully punched his arm and looked out the window as we got closer to home. We were driving through a stand of oak trees on the way to my parents’ house. Dull orange-brown leaves, dry and dead, clung to the branches and fluttered in the wind, waiting for the gust of wind that would knock them to the ground. That was what Sam was: transient. A summer leaf clinging to a frozen branch for as long as possible.

“You’re beautiful and sad,” I said finally, not looking at him when I did. “Just like your eyes. You’re like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again.”

For a long moment there was only the
whirring
sound of the tires on the road, and then Sam said softly, “Thank you.”

We went home and slept on my bed all afternoon, our jean-covered legs tangled together and my face buried in his neck, the radio murmuring in the background. Around dinnertime, we wandered out to the kitchen to find food. As Sam carefully assembled sandwiches, I tried calling Olivia.

John answered. “Sorry, Grace. She’s out. Do you want me to tell her anything, or just to call you?”

“Just have her call me,” I said, somehow feeling like I’d let Olivia down. I hung up the phone and ran a finger along the counter absently. I kept thinking about what she had said:
Stupid thing to argue about.
“Did you notice,” I asked Sam, “when we came in, that it smelled out front? By the front step?”

Sam handed me a sandwich. “Yeah.”

“Like pee,” I said. “Like wolf pee.”

Sam’s voice sounded unhappy. “Yeah.”

“Who do you think it was?”

“I don’t think,” Sam said. “I
know
. It’s Shelby. I can smell her. She peed on the deck again, too. I smelled it when I was out there yesterday.”

I remembered her eyes, looking at mine through my bedroom window, and made a face. “Why is she doing this?”

Sam shook his head, and he sounded uncertain when he said, “I just hope it’s about me and not about you. I hope she’s just following me.” His eyes slid toward the front hallway; distantly, I heard a car coming down the road. “I think that’s your mom. I’m going to vanish.” I frowned after him as he retreated into my room with his sandwich, the door closing softly behind him, leaving all the questions and doubts about Shelby out here with me.

Out front, the car’s tires rolled into the driveway. I got my backpack and settled down so that by the time Mom came in, I was sitting at the kitchen table staring at a problem set.

Mom whirled in and tossed a pile of papers on the kitchen counter, dragging a rush of cold air in with her. I winced, hoping Sam was impervious behind my bedroom door. Her keys jangled as they slid onto the floor. She picked them up, swearing lightly, and threw them back onto the papers. “Have you eaten yet? I’m feeling snacky. We did paintball on the outing! I mean, his work paid for it.”

I frowned at her. Half of my brain was still thinking about Shelby, lurking around the house, watching Sam, or watching me. Or watching us together. “What, for group bonding, I guess?”

Mom didn’t answer. She opened the fridge and asked, “Do we have anything I can eat while I watch TV? God! What is this?”

“It’s a pork loin, Mom. It’s for the slow cooker tomorrow.”

She shuddered and closed the fridge. “It looks like a giant, chilled slug. Do you want to watch a movie with me?”

I looked past her toward the hall, looking for Dad, but the hall was empty. “Where’s Dad?”

“He went out for wings with the new guys from work. You act like I’d only ask you because he’s not here.” Mom banged around the kitchen, pouring herself granola and leaving the box open on the counter before retreating toward the sofa.

Once upon a time, I would’ve leaped at the rare opportunity of curling up with Mom on the couch. But now, it sort of felt like too little, too late. I had someone else waiting for me.

“I’m feeling a little off,” I told Mom. “I think I’d rather just go to sleep early.”

I hadn’t realized that I’d wanted her face to fall until it didn’t. She just jumped onto the couch and grabbed the remote control. As I turned to go, she said, “By the way, don’t leave trash bags on the back deck, okay? Animals are getting into it.”

“Yeah,” I said. I had a feeling I knew which animal in particular. I left her watching the movie on the couch, swept up my homework, and carried it all to my room. Opening my bedroom door, I found Sam curled on my bed, reading a novel by the light of my bedside lamp, looking like he belonged there. I knew he must’ve heard me enter, but he didn’t glance up from his book for a moment, finishing his chapter. I loved looking at
the shape his body made while he read, from the curved slope of his neck bent over the pages to the long forms of his sock feet.

Finally, he stuck his finger in the book and closed it, smiling up at me, his eyebrows tipped together in their permanently mournful way. He reached out an arm as an invitation, and I dumped my textbooks at the end of the bed and joined him. He held his novel with one hand and stroked my hair with the other, and together we read the last three chapters. It was a strange book where everyone had been taken from Earth except for the main character and his lover, and they had to choose whether to make their ultimate mission finding the ones who had been taken or having Earth all to themselves and repopulating at their leisure. When we were done, Sam rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. I drew slow circles on his flat stomach with my fingers.