“Listen, I’m not looking to have some sort of come-to-Jesus moment with you, but—”
“What’s a come-to-Jesus moment?” His lips pursed as he stifled a smile. “Are you joking around?”
Man, his whole English-as-a-second-language thing was really rich, especially for a dude who claimed to be an Idaho native. His eyes bore into mine with a curiosity that poked at my brain. I wanted to roll myself away from him and give him some of that cold shoulder I was so good at, but when he looked at me that way, I was tempted to tell him everything about myself. I needed to get away before I let my locker combination or my bra size slip.
“No, I’m not joking around.” My hair caught on the wind and whipped me across the face. I wrangled it into a quick ponytail just below one ear and reached for my wheels. “I’ve gotta go, Saxon. It was nice meeting you, but you don’t have to be nice to me because you feel sorry for me.”
He used his hand to hold one of my wheels in place. “I don’t feel sorry for you.” I shot him a glare, but he didn’t loosen his grip. “I’m curious about you. Those are two different things. I want to get to know you, but not because of your
wheelchair
.” Again, Saxon stretched out the word like it was difficult for him to say.
I rolled my eyes and looked around. The kids on the football field were trudging inside. “Right. Listen, Sax, it was nice to meet you, but—“
He pulled my chair closer, and I felt my skin warm. “Sax? What is that?”
Shaking my head, I pulled on my wheels to create some space between us. “It’s a nickname, but—”
“You shortened my name? I like that. Sax.” The bell rang inside of the school, and suddenly kids were filtering from all the exits. “You’re trying to get rid of me, though. And I
don’t
like that. You fascinate me.”
I fingered my dark ponytail. “I’m not a science experiment.”
“Not like that.” Saxon looked around. “I’ve been walking around the halls in this place for two days now, and everyone here seems so…”
“Petty? Stupid? Moronic? Unworthy of the very breath in their lungs?” Most of the kids I went to school with spent their weekdays finding new and inventive ways to bully each other via text messaging and spent their weekends drinking cheap beer and driving the cars their mommies and daddies bought them for passing physics. My nostrils flared.
He looked back at me and arched one eyebrow. “I was going to say depthless.”
“Oh. That too.”
“And you, Luna, have depth.” His hand moved to cover mine, and the moment our skin touched, it was like being scalded on a hot oven burner. “I knew that the moment I saw you. There’s more to you than meets the eye.”
I was either too stupid or smitten to pull away, and my voice dipped into a hoarse whisper. “So you’re not using me to become an Eagle Scout?”
He laughed, and the sound wrapped itself around me like a towel fresh out of the dryer. “I don’t know what an Eagle Scout is.”
“Seriously, were you raised under a rock?” I found myself grinning and didn’t even bother to stop myself.
He shrugged, and the corded muscle beneath his neck tats flexed. “More or less.”
My stomach tightened as I watched. “So…” I pulled my hand out from under his and immediately missed its presence. “Are you going to strip naked in the woods by my house this afternoon?”
The corner of his mouth ticked upward in that smirk that made me want to pop wheelies. “That depends. Are you planning to watch me?”
A hysterical giggle bubbled up in the back of my throat. “You wish.”
“I think it’s best if I use a bit more discretion today.” Saxon ran a hand through his chocolaty waves and shifted his weight between his feet. It had to be killing him to stay crouched next to me for so long, but he didn’t complain. The wind picked up and surrounded us, bringing with it the scent of rain and pine.
A flash of discomfort fleeted across his face, pulling his lips thin and paling his cheeks, but it was gone before I’d blinked.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I reached for Saxon’s hand, but pulled back before we made contact. Whenever I touched him, I felt completely buzzed, and it freaked me out. “You looked sort of green for a second. Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine.” Saxon gazed past my face and nodded his chin toward the school. “Is that your sister?”
I turned around in my chair and sure enough, Evey was standing in our waiting spot. When we made eye contact, she gestured wildly with her arms, bouncing up and down. “Geez. Yes. That’s Evey. She’s…um…excited to see me.”
The smirk returned, and he stood back up. “Should I take you back now?”
“Yes.” When Saxon’s hands went to take hold of the handles on my chair, I jumped in my seat. “No! I mean, I’ve got it.”
He retracted his hands and nodded patiently. “Got it. No helping. I’ll remember that for next time.”
We headed toward the parking lot side by side, and I saw Evey quickly dive for her backpack, pull out a book, and pretend to start reading. Subtle.
I glanced up at him. “Next time? Are we starting a club or something?”
“You didn’t think I was done talking to you, did you?” He watched me as I pushed my chair over the hump in the ground between the edge of the track and the parking lot. “I intend to pick your brain much more.”
“Well, if you’re trying to implement yourself into Sandpoint High’s innermost social circles, you’re hanging with the wrong girl.” I stifled a chuckle when Evey glanced at us from behind her history book, then turned a page with phony interest. “I’m not exactly on the prom committee, Sax.”
He scrunched up his chiseled face. “What’s a prom committee?”
I wheeled up close to my sister, shaking my head. “You’re seriously so weird.” Reaching down, I tapped on her book. “Hey, Ev. Earth to Evey.”
She looked up and blinked a few times behind her frames, feigning nonchalance. “Oh, hi. What’s up?”
I pressed my tongue against the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Sorry to interrupt. Evey, this is Saxon. Saxon, this is my sister, Evey.” When her eyes bounced between my face and his a few times, I added, “He’s the one we saw…
swimming
yesterday.”
Saxon held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hey.” Evey gripped her book. She looked at his outstretched hand and then rolled her eyes toward me.
I widened my eyes at her. “Yeah. She’s…uh…shy. Really shy.”
Saxon’s mouth pulled into the smirk, and I watched as Evey’s face grew a ripe shade of fuchsia. Apparently his affect was not lost on my sister. “I’d better be going now anyway. I enjoyed talking to you today, Luna.”
“Me too.” I waved lamely. “Stay out of the water today, will ya?”
One of his blue eyes winked. “Can’t promise that.”
We watched his back as Saxon walked across the track and football fields, then off into the woods. I didn’t peel my eyes away until I saw the black of his T-shirt get swallowed completely by the green foliage, and when I did, Evey was gazing at me with a silly smile.
“Luna, you were totally talking to him. The entire school’s talking about it.”
I noticed that my stomach had cooled. “He was really nice. Different from how I imagined.”
“So, does he ride a Harley like we thought?” She pushed up her glasses.
I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and ran my hands through it. “I don’t think so. I think he walks everywhere.”
Evey tucked her book into her backpack. “He didn’t have any books again.”
The chill in the air hit me all at once, reminding me that it was March outside, and I shivered. “I don’t think he cares.”
“About his classes?” Evey looked shocked. She always tried to do the right thing.
“About anything around here.” I gestured absently at the brick school building. “I think he’s already over it.”
“You like him,” she squeaked.
“I do not.” I bit the inside of my cheek and avoided her gaze. The sound of the red minivan peeling into the parking lot pulled my attention away from the forest, and I drew in a long breath. Releasing it slowly, I remembered the way Saxon’s palm felt covering my hand, and my heart squeezed deep inside my chest. “But I
am
compelled by him.”
Chapter Four
“Colette said you were out of sorts tonight,” my dad said as we drove through downtown, the sound of early Pearl Jam murmuring from the stereo speakers.
We were heading home after my physical therapy pool session, and I shivered in my seat after rolling to the car with dripping wet hair. Resting my chin on my hand, I stared out the window. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
It was almost April now, and though snow was no longer in the forecast, the sky had opened up and dumped gray rain from the night sky Noah’s Ark style. “I’m as chipper as a chipmunk.”
“Come on, kid. Throw me a bone.” He turned on his blinker and waited his turn to make a left onto the two-lane highway leading out of town. “Your mom’s worried about you. She says you’ve been really rude lately.”
My nostrils flared. “I’m always rude. Why’s she worried about it now?”
I thought I saw a smile tickling the corner of my dad’s whiskered mouth. “She said the last few weeks have been exceptional.”
Yikes. Maybe my attitude since Saxon disappeared had turned a little bit pissy. I hadn’t meant to let it bother me as much as it did, but between my disappointment and my raging teenage hormones, I’d soured a bit. “Yeah, well, she also says that I need to quit water therapy. Maybe Mom’s not the most reliable source for info right now.”
My dad glanced at me. “What? Why? You love your pool time.”
I shrugged my shoulders. The lights from the center of town faded, and we headed into the woods. “Guess she doesn’t care. She told my therapist that we need to focus on gym work.”
“Why?” My dad frowned at the windshield.
A trickle of cold water fell from my bangs. “She said I’ll never walk at graduation if we keep playing in the pool every week.”
He drew in a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “I’ll talk to her.”
My father was a man of few words. He spent most of his time away from the coffee shop with his nose stuffed in a book or—weather permitting—sitting at the end of our dock with a fishing pole. When my mother was home, she went from one end of the house to the other in a blur, a flurry of activity surrounding her. When my father was home, he sat in the corner. Observing. Watching. Taking it all in. It drove my mother crazy, and was reason #347 why they spent most of their time together either arguing or not speaking to each other.
“Don’t bother.” I cracked the window and drew in the scent of rain. “I already told my therapist I’m not giving up my pool time.”
He cleared his throat. “What about graduation?”
I faced him with a scowl. “What about it?”
We curved around a hairpin turn in the road. “I don’t think your mother’s going to be happy about that.”
I glared at the side of my dad’s head. “So? Mom’s never very happy about much of anything these days. Neither are you, for that matter.”
“Your mom just wants what’s best for you.” His jaw muscle flexed as he stared out the windshield. The rain was coming down by the bucketful now, and it was getting difficult to see more than a few feet past the end of the hood. “And I’m plenty happy.”
“No, you’re not.” I tugged my dripping black hair into a makeshift bun on top of my head. “I heard you fighting again last night.”
We turned onto an even smaller road, and my dad’s mouth pulled into a thin line. “Listen, your mom gets high strung because—”
I sat back in my seat and rolled my eyes. “Oh, good grief. If you say she’s a raging control freak because she loves me, I’m going to puke all over your dashboard.”
“Now, Luna, I’m serious—”
My hand shot up, pointing toward the blurry windshield. “Watch out!”
There, lumbering along the side of the thin road in the pouring rain wearing just his black T-shirt and jeans, was Saxon. His head was down as he protected his face from the pelting rain, and his shoulders were hunched. His soaked clothes clung to his body as he splashed through deep puddles at the side of the road. We didn’t spot Saxon until our front bumper was about four feet from the back of his legs.
My dad hit the brakes and skidded to a noisy stop. Saxon jumped to the side, sliding a bit on the rain-slicked brush. His eyes wild and wide.
“What the hell is he doing?” My dad slammed the car into park and ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Lunatic.”
The heat started to flare in my stomach, and I grabbed the handle of my door. My dad’s hand came down firmly on my other arm. “No,” he growled. “He could be a transient. Stay in the car.”
I shook off his grasp. “He’s not a hobo, Dad. I go to school with him.”
My dad’s eyebrows went high on his forehead. “You go to school with that guy?”
“Yeah.” I reached for the window button. “We’re friends.”
My dad frowned. “How old is he?”
I looked out the window at Saxon, who was squinting in the bright headlights while the rain pounded the top of his head and shoulders. Stifling a manic giggle, I realized how, er,
intimidating
Saxon looked. He was tall, muscular, and in desperate need of a haircut. He had matching tattoos on either side of his neck and was glaring at our car as though we’d deliberately tried to run him off of the road. Oh, and this was all on top of the fact that he was walking along a country road in the rain without a coat.
“My age. A senior.” I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from grinning like an idiot.
My dad shut off the engine. “In grad school?”
“Sandpoint High, Dad. Take a breather.” I pressed the window button. “Hey, Saxon!”
His eyebrow relaxed and that half-grin tugged to life. “Luna?”
My dad got out of the car and held an old paper menu from the coffee shop over his head as a makeshift umbrella. “What are you doing out here in the dark? I almost hit you.”
My left eyebrow rose high on my forehead. My father only used that tone when he tried to appear intimidating. Apparently he was more bothered by Saxon than I had anticipated.
Saxon raised a dripping hand in a small wave. “Good evening, sir. How are you tonight?”
Pressing my lips together, I tried not to smile. Apparently the fact that he traipsed through the woods of Inland Northwest in the rain without the luxury of a coat hadn’t dampened his manners.
My father didn’t answer Saxon’s question. Instead, he put one hand on the roof of our car and frowned. “You’re soaked. Are you headed somewhere?”
“The rain doesn’t bother me, sir.” Saxon shook his hair out of his eyes, sending drops of water splashing onto the hood of the car. He caught my eye through the windshield and grinned. “I’m heading home.”
I ignored my father gaping at me. “Aren’t you cold, Sax?” I called out the window.
My father’s attention snapped back in Saxon’s direction just in time to see him shake his head. “Not really. I’m sort of…at home when it’s wet out.
“Don’t you have a car?” My dad asked through gritted teeth.
Saxon cleared his throat. “No, sir. I don’t have a license to drive a car.”
My father’s jaw twitched. Apparently the fact that Saxon didn’t have a driver’s license was indicatory of a criminal background. I guess he chose to forget I didn’t have a driver’s license, either. Of course, it wasn’t for lack of trying. I’d been asking to learn how to drive for a year and a half, but because modified automobiles for paralyzed drivers were so expensive, and we were still drowning in medical bills, getting me behind the wheel wasn’t a priority.
“Couldn’t you get a hold of your folks to come and get you?” Giving up on the now-soggy paper, my dad tossed it onto the backseat.
Saxon gestured up the road. “No. They’re…not home right now. But it’s only a ways away. I’m just fine.”
“Do you want a ride?” I asked without thinking. When both Saxon and my father turned their gazes on me, I added, “I mean, we’ve got plenty of room. And we’re headed the same direction, so…you know, we could take you.”
“No. I don’t want to impose. I’m fine walking the rest of the way. But thank you.” Saxon tipped his head.
My dad opened the back door of his car. “Come on, son. Let me drive you home.”
Saxon dipped his head. “Thank you, sir.”
When he climbed into the backseat, my nose filled with the aroma of rain and grass, and every hair on my arms stood at attention. Suddenly I was acutely aware of everything happening in my father’s sedan. The engine being turned over, the rain spattering against the metal roof, the sound of my father’s seat squeaking as he settled. I didn’t slouch in my seat anymore. I sat up with my shoulders back and a big, moronic grin plastered all over my face.
Saxon snaked his hand between the seats and squeezed my right shoulder. “How are you, Luna?”
I felt my skin beneath my hoodie burn. “I’m cool. Where have you been lately?”
Did you fall in the lake and wind up with hypothermia, so you had to be hospitalized? Did you fall off of the edge of the planet? Do you have any idea how much it sucked for me to wonder why you acted like you liked me and then disappeared into the woods for two weeks?
“I had some, um, family things I needed to take care of.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “You’re gonna have an awful lot of homework to catch up on so close to graduation.”
Saxon gave my shoulder one last squeeze before folding his hands in his lap. “I’m not so worried about it.”
My dad gripped the steering wheel and stared at the windshield with an expression of pure discomfort on his face. It reminded me of the same way he would fix his eyes on a point just above my head when Ian would come over to pick me up for a date. As if the sight of his daughter with
a boy
were so excruciating that the only thing he could do was turn into a robot to deal with it. I guess the two-year break between dates hadn’t made things any easier for him.
“Dad, this Saxon.” I said quickly. “Saxon, this is my father, Jeremy Prosser.”
Saxon nodded at the back of his head. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
“You too.” My father glanced at him through the rearview mirror. “Where to?”
I focused on the rain pounding the glass as we pulled forward and started to roll down the road. There were so many questions I wanted to ask Saxon, but I quashed all of them as I heard him shifting uncomfortably behind me.
“Just up here a ways.”
I pulled down the visor and pretended to use the vanity mirror to check my makeup. Saxon was sitting there, dripping rain all over Declan’s discarded backpack on the backseat. His expression was grim as he stared out the window. His full lips pulled into a long line, and I saw the shadow of a muscle in his jaw twitching. Apparently, he and my dad had a twitchy jaw in common.
“Will you be at school tomorrow?” I scrunched up my face. Could I sound any more overeager?
“Yes, I believe so.” Saxon made eye contact with me through the mirror and smiled crookedly at me. The cauldron in my gut stirred.
My dad’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “What colleges have you applied to, Saxon?”
Saxon let his shoulders rise and drop. “None so far. I’m, um, still deciding.”
We turned down an even smaller road. “Running out of time, aren’t you?”
Saxon nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I applied to the North Idaho College,” I announced over the sound of the pounding rain. “I wanted to apply to Berkley, but my parents didn’t want me to move so far away. Did you, Dad?” I glanced at my father, waiting for a reaction.
No response. He just shifted in his seat.
The truth was that I didn’t really care where I went to college or
if
I even went. I only knew that I wanted to get away from Sandpoint, and out from underneath my parents’ thumbs, as soon as possible. Unfortunately, they nixed every school I’d suggested because of the distance it would put between us. Apparently, I needed to have someone in my family nearby to wipe my chin at all times.
“I’m still weighing my options,” Saxon announced.
My father made a
hmm
sound under his breath. “What will your major be?”
Saxon seemed to ponder this for a moment. “I’m not sure, exactly.”
My father’s eyebrows knit together. “Well, what are your interests?”
Saxon leaned forward in his seat. “History.” I could tell that my dad accepted this answer, as the muscles in his forehead relaxed the tiniest bit. But Saxon wasn’t done. “Mathematics. Literature. Oh, science. I like science too. And music. I love music. And art.”
My father glanced at me with a strange look, as if to say,
What the hell is up with your friend?
I ignored him and closed the vanity mirror with a snap. “Saxon likes to swim.”
“Oh yeah? Are you on the swim team?” My father squinted his eyes to see through the sheets of rain.
Saxon cleared his throat. “No, sir. I do most of my swimming in the lake.”
My father’s eyes flashed to the rearview mirror. “The lake? That’s pretty dangerous.”
“I’m a strong swimmer.” Saxon’s voice dropped low.
I turned my upper body to the side so I could look back at him. “Did you hear that someone drowned in Garfield Bay last week?”
Saxon’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I heard that.”
“Yeah, I guess some guy was hiking near the water and fell in.” I looked at my dad. “Isn’t that what you read in the paper?”
He nodded. “He lost his footing and the ground was wet. The dirt collapsed underneath him, and he rolled into the lake.”
I turned back to Saxon. “Apparently he clawed at the dirt as he fell and pulled a bunch of plants out of the ground. They found the body two days later. Totally creepy.”
Saxon’s blue eyes looked translucent in the dim light from the dashboard. “Yes, it is.”
“Who are your parents?” My father asked out of nowhere. Saxon just looked at him. “If they live on Moon’s Bay, I’ve probably met them. What are their names?”
Saxon’s gaze slowly went back to the window. “We’re new to town. You probably haven’t met them yet.”
I watched as my dad processed this in his annoyingly tempered way. Why wouldn’t Saxon answer the question? And why did my dad want to know his parents’ names anyhow? What, would he run a background check later or something? I was torn between being annoyed by my father’s curiosity and by Saxon’s evasiveness. Or maybe it was just because I always seemed to need
something
to be annoyed by.