Starbright (The Starbright Series) (37 page)

             
“Next time I will,” I promised, shaking my head wearily.

             
“Seth,
go ahead,
drive Stella home,” Jupiter suggested
again
.

             
I stood up and tried to straighten my posture, but my shoulders slumped in defeat. “Sorry to ruin your night with my crazy,” I offered, feeling on the verge of tears.

             
Jupiter caught my bicep in a firm grip as I moved toward where he stood in the doorway. “Nobody thinks you’re crazy, Stella. Something is going on, we don’t know what yet and it obviously doesn’t make sense. But
something
is going on and we are going to get to the bottom of it.” I gulped back the lump in my throat, hearing the solid tone to Jupiter’s confidence and conviction. His beliefs were rooted behind his words and it was hard to think less of myself when my weapon’s trainer held such faith in me. 

             
“Thank you, Jupiter,” I answered meekly, the tears I had been trying to suppress flooding my eyes with gratitude. I blinked them quickly away knowing whatever respect I had garnered with Jupiter would be instantly and forever lost if I broke down in inconsolable tears in the middle of Seth’s bedroom for no reason at all.

             
“Let’s get you back to bed,” Seth encouraged, placing a warm hand on the small of my back.

             
I turned into his touch, letting the heat of his strength comfort me. He led me outside and opened the truck door for me so I could climb in. I wanted to apologize again to him, but as he climbed in the cab and started the vehicle I decided I needed to stop apologizing and get better control of my emotions.

             
“Thanks for driving,” I offered instead.

             
“Stella,” Seth glanced at me seriously before turning his eyes back to the blackened country roads. “Promise me you will never stop investigating these feelings you’re having.”

             
“What do you mean?” I asked as Seth followed the gravel roads that traveled between his farm and mine. The frosted night glazed over the windshield with delicate snowflake patterns and our breath puffed around us in white clouds.

             
“It could have been something tonight, I mean, even thoug
h it wasn’t…. it
could
have been,” Seth paused and gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

             
I cleared my throat, not trusting my voice with a response. Seth was so sincere, so genuine with his gratefulness that I was actually moved by it. I shook my head, trying to clear it of my over-emotional behavior tonight, but the “what if’s” kept running through my mind and I had to fear that Jupiter was right, that something was going on and we just hadn’t figured it out yet.

             
“And Stel?” Seth asked, a lightness returning to his tone.

             
“Yeah?”

             
“Anytime you need me to come check out your room in the middle of the night, I’m just a phone call away,” he turned to me with a sly smile on his lips and I immediately burst into laughter, thankful for his change in tone.

             
“Oh, really? You’ll come look in my closet for monsters?” I flirted, still laughing at his brazenness.

             
“Absolutely,” his grin grew into a wide smile and I stared back into those honey colored, heated eyes smiling just as big. “And under your bed…. under your covers…. wherever those monsters might be hiding.”

             
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I laughed.

Chapter Fifteen

             
“Ok, so here’s the plan,” Piper exclaim
ed
in between seventh and eighth period, “Since there are no basketball games tonight we’re going into Omaha to pick out dresses for the Valentine’s dance!”

             
“Oh that sounds like fun!” I repl
ied
, shutting my locker and leaning against it. “Since we
both
have dates and all!” I smirk
ed
. This
wa
s the first dance Piper ha
d
ever allowed a boy to take her to, and I c
ould
n’t stop teasing her about Lincoln, it
was
impossible.

             
“Actually all three of us have dates,” Piper explain
ed
in a quick rush of words I barely underst
oo
d.

             
“Three?” I accuse
d
, rather than ask
ed
.

             
Piper st
uck
her head in her locker for a second before popping back out with a bright smile, “Well, me, you and Bree.”

             
“Are you kidding me?” I ask
ed
dryly, seriously reconsidering my evening.

             
“
Come on, it will be so much fun! Plus it’s not like you have a whole lot of
couture
options in this one-horse town….
a
nd you desperately need my opinion.” Piper reminded me by gesturing around the crowded high school halls as if they were a good indication of the lack of shopping in Mead.

             
“Fine,
although Omaha doesn’t have many couture options either,
” I grumbled, realizing the dance was two weeks away and I really didn’t have any options as far as dress shops went other than Omaha. And she was right about her opinion, I was helpless when it came to formal dresses and even if Seth and I were going only as friends, I definitely wanted to avoid looking like a bad eighties movie.

             
“It will be fun!” Piper practically demanded, the strained edge to her voice daring me not to agree.

             
“It will be fun,” I sighed, completely lacking the enthusiasm she was hoping for.

             
“What will be fun?” Seth asked as he and Tristan joined us at the lockers.

             
“We’re going shopping tonight in Omaha, we need to pick up our dresses for the dance in a couple weeks,” I explained with a
marginally
better attitude.

             
“Oh
,
but I thought we were going to tr-“ Seth cut himself off, his cheeks heating with a soft glow at his almost announcement of our training with Jupiter
that
I had forgotten about. During basketball season almost every Friday and Saturday
we
re scheduled with games, but this
wa
s an off week since
our next game
wasn’t until Tuesday
. I had completely forgotten about the extra training Jupiter wanted to squeeze in this weekend.

             
Oops.

             
I needed to figure out Jupiter later
though;
right now I needed to do some quick damage control.

             
“Go on a date!” I finished for Seth, placing my hand over my eyes like I was embarrassed. “I completely forgot. Oh my gosh, Seth
,
I’m so sorry.”

             
“Yes our date,” Seth nodded, not covering as smoothly as I would have liked him to. “It’s Ok, there are other nights.”

             
I wanted to laugh at his obvious inability to act but had to remain stoic since Piper was glancing back and forth between us like she had missed the biggest headline of the year.

             
“Stella, I was just kidding about finding a dress, you can go on your date with Seth and you and I can find a different night to go into town,” Piper promised.

             
“Are you sure?” I double checked, realizing I could get out of making Jupiter mad
and
shopping with Bree.

             
“I have a better idea,” Tristan piped up, sounding enthusiastic but his eyes were narrowed just the tiniest bit sending warning bells resounding in my head. “Let’s all go into town tonight. Lincoln and I can show Seth the big city while you girls shop and then we’ll meet up for dinner and a movie
after
. It will be fun.”

             
Why did people keep trying to convince me tonight would be fun? It sounded more like a threat coming from Tristan and I wasn’t really sure how to get out of this one.

             
“Seth is from Boston, Tristan, it’s not like he’s never been to a big city before,” I laughed nervously, trying unsuccessfully to get the subject dropped.

             
“No, Tristan’s right! That does sound like fun!” Piper, for maybe the first time in her entire, stubborn, artistic life, agreed with the person she hated most in life.

             
My jaw dropped, my eyes bugged out of my head. I probably looked like a cartoon character holding a stick of lit dynamite. “Piper, what about this scenario makes you think that
it
would be fun?”

             
“Fun” had just officially turned into a curse word.

             
“What? You don’t want to hang out with your best friends
and
your boyfriend?” Tristan
asked, his voice cutting like an accusation.
“You’re the one constantly going on and on about how if we just spent more time together we would learn to like each other.” His pointer finger flicked back and forth between him and Piper who was nodding her head excitedly.

             
“Seth is not my boyfriend,” I explained too quickly and then forced myself to backtrack after noticing the confusion
flash in Seth’s eyes
. “I mean,
we’re just going to the dance as friends.”

             
“And going on a date tonight,” Tristan reminded me callously.

             
“And going on a date tonight,” I echoed in a tiny voice.

             
“So it’s settled!” Piper squealed. “
Triple date in the city!”

             
“How do you know Lincoln doesn’t already have plans?” I asked her pointedly, not really sure why I was still objecting to the outing.

             
“Well, then I will just have to convince him with my womanly wiles,” Piper purred conspiratorially and then bounced down the hall in search of Lincoln.

             
“Piper is something else,” Seth chuckled as he watched her weave in and out of end of school traffic, her severe ponytail of dark hair bouncing enthusiastically
behind her. “You’re Ok with tonight? You seemed like maybe you didn’t want to go,” Seth turned to me, his golden eyes squinting in concern.

             
“Why wouldn’t she want to go?” Tristan asked from his position, leaning against my locker. “A night out with her two best friends
and
her boyfriend, come on Stel, what isn’t there to get excited about?”

             
“Why do you do that?” Seth growled, his expression turning dark. “Why do you say ‘boyfriend’ like an insult?”

             
“Because you’re not really her boyfriend
,
are you?” Tristan stood up straighter, his shoulders pushed back and his hands c
lenched into fists at his sides.

             
“Unfortunately, you’re not either,” Seth growled, adjusting to his full height, and cracking his neck forcefully to the side as if he were preparing for a fight.

             
“I never said I was,” Tristan snapped back in a low voice.

             
“Tristan you are the one that keeps calling him my boyfriend, so knock it off,” I demand
ed
, annoyed that Tristan
wa
s still upset over this. “And we were never going on a date
tonight;
we had training that I forgot about.”

             
“Oh,” Tristan backed down a little. Seth had too, although I could feel that the only reason he wasn’t working out his own version of training on Tristan’s face had something distinctly to do with me. “It doesn’t matter anyway, because you two basically are together. Which is fine with me, I just don’t know why you want to blow off your friends now that you’re so busy with
him
.”

             
My mouth kind of hung awkwardly open for a moment while I tried to gather a
rebuttal
to his insane argument, but he cut me off before I could even start a stuttering response.