Chapter 174
My eyes flew open in a sudden realization of where I was, what I was doing, and whose shoulder I was asleep on. I hoped I hadn’t startled him, but as I checked the corner of my mouth for drool, I realized that Brandon was smiling at me, and my hand automatically went to my hair in an attempt to straighten it as he stared.
“Hey there, sunshine,” he smiled. “How was your nap?”
I leaned away from him, stretching as I did so in hopes that I wouldn’t look as embarrassed as I felt. I briefly remembered having thought of the fact that my head was on his shoulder as I’d slipped into oblivion, but I was more conscious of that fact now for certain. “Fine. I guess. What time is it?” I tried to keep my voice down as it looked like a few other people around us had also opted not to find sleeping cars.
Brandon glanced at his watch before saying, “It’s about 3:30.”
“In the morning?” I asked, shocked that I’d been asleep that long.
“No, no. In the afternoon. The sun is just temporarily out of order, that’s all.”
“All right, smart aleck,” I said, poking him in the arm. He had a point. If it wasn’t 3:30 AM, the sun would definitely be up. “I just can’t believe I was asleep that long.”
“About four hours,” he nodded.
Suddenly, I realized what was in his hands. “Are you reading my book?” Before he could even answer, I realized, if he could get that book without waking me, he could get to other things, too. I checked my pockets. Both phones were still there, but that didn’t mean anything. “You didn’t call my sister, did you?”
“No,” he assured me, and he looked sincere.
I eyed him suspiciously. “Or Aaron?”
“No.”
“Or anyone else?”
“No, I didn’t call anyone,” Brandon replied. “I told you I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. Though I think we should.”
I stared at him wide-eyed for a long moment before proclaiming, “No way. Not until we get there.”
“Well, that is in about another four hundred hours, so….”
“It’s not that much longer.” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. He was right, though. This was a super long train ride. We wouldn’t even get into Philly until tomorrow afternoon because of all the stops and whatnot.
“It’s a long time. Remind me again why we didn’t just fly.”
“Because my sister’s got eyes all over the airport. I didn’t want to risk it,” I explained.
“Right….” Brandon replied, shaking his head. “Well, next time, I say we throw on some Groucho Marx moustaches and hazard it.”
“You’re impossible,” I mumbled, and then I realized I was going to have to go to the restroom. “And I really have to pee.”
“Go pee!” he implored. “You haven’t gone since you got on this train, and that was a century ago.”
“I don’t go to the bathroom on moving vehicles!” I whispered sharply. “No peeing on buses, or trains, or boats….”
“Or planes. I do not pee in moving cars. I do not pee though near or far,” Brandon rhymed, chuckling at himself.
“You are a regular Dr. Seuss,” I said, though I was trying not to giggle. He was cuter than I was willing to admit.
“I do not pee. I don’t, I don’t. I will not pee, I won’t, I won’t.”
“Okay, stop saying pee!” I begged, pulling on his arm.
He looked down at my hand on his arm, and I slowly withdrew it, looking up into his eyes to see what looked like disappointment. “Fine. You sit there until your bladder bursts, and I’ll return to my exploration of Valery’s undying love for Rodrigo.” He held up the book so I could see how much of it he had read.
“You’re reading my vampire romance?” Obviously, I knew this already, but I still couldn’t believe he actually had it in his hands. I was more than a little embarrassed.
“Well, yeah,” Brandon said, pulling it away from me. “Fangs of Love by Amber Rose. It’s really quite interesting. I’m doing research.” He said it in an overly romanticized voice and I could feel my face turning red.
“Just give it here,” I whispered, reaching for it again. He held it just out of my reach.
“No, no, no. It’s just starting to get interesting. Rodrigo realizes that he loves Valery, but she can’t be with him because she wants to rip his heart out and eat it.”
“That’s not true.” I rolled my eyes at him in disgust. Valery didn’t want to eat Rodrigo’s heart. Did she?
“Oh, yeah? How do you know? What chapter are you on?”
I folded my arms and thought about it for a moment, trying to remember. With all of this stuff going on with Giovani, it had been a few days since I’d had time to read. “Chapter seven,” I admitted.
“Well, I am on chapter…” he flipped through the pages, “ten. So, you wouldn’t know.”
“God, you’re ridiculous,” I said giggling again at his silly expression.
“Thank you.” He looked down his nose, like he meant it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me….” He turned away from me and centered his eyes on the book, which had to be hard to do in the dim light.
“Fine. If you’d rather read that book than talk to me….” I countered.
Almost instantly, he put the book down and turned to face me. “What would you like to talk about?”
I shrugged, trying to think of topics we hadn’t discussed yet. “I don’t know. What’s life like in Pryor, Oklahoma?”
“Boring,” he admitted quickly. “How about Shenandoah, Iowa?”
I considered the question. “Well, it was pretty boring.” But that hadn’t been the case recently. “Until last year when everything started to get so weird.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He was nodding, like he could only imagine. I had no idea what he knew and what he didn’t know.
I cleared my throat and continued, seeing as though I had his attention. “I mean, when I found out Drew was dead, it was so bizarre. And then my sister started hanging out with all these new people. She dropped out of college. And your dad tried to convince me that I’d known him for years—he convinced everyone else.” I remembered how all of Cadence’s friends had thought Elliott was someone they’d known forever. It was part of his brainwashing tactics. “But it didn’t quite work on me.” I thought maybe I needed to clarify, but he was nodding, so I pressed on. “By the time Jack died, I knew something was up. I thought Cadence was a Vampire. Thank goodness I found out the truth.” I remembered how much time I’d spent thinking Cadence might’ve actually killed her friends.
“How did you do that?” he asked, seeming to hang on my every word.
I wondered why we hadn’t discussed this earlier in the day, but it had never come up. “I got a lot of clues from eavesdropping, honestly,” I admitted. “Your dad knew how badly it was driving me crazy, and while he wouldn’t admit it, he didn’t deny anything I asked him about either.”
Brandon nodded his head. “So, you were pretty close to him, then?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said quietly. I thought he knew that, but honestly, I hadn’t elaborated too much. “He was like the big brother I never had. He was such an awesome guy.”
