Chapter Ten

“Miss Deville,” a voice calls from the reception as I pass.

I stop and look at the sour-faced secretary.

“Can you come here for a moment?”

I nod and follow her, listening to the sound of her kitten heels clicking on the wooden floor.

I stop at this side of her desk as she goes around the other side and shuffles a few papers around.

“I’m struggling to locate your schoolwork from your prior schools. I know you’ve already done most of your finals, but in order for you to finish the year and graduate I really need a record of them.”

I sigh heavily. “We have this same problem everywhere I go.”

“Is it something you can chase up yourself? You might have more luck.”

Smiling, I nod and tap my fingers on the desk. “I was just going to suggest that exact thing. Give me a couple of weeks, is that okay?”

“That’s fine, if not you’ll have to redo the year so far.”

I nod again and turn towards the door.

“Also,” she adds softly. “There’s no record of you at the last two schools you listed.”

Fuck.

“Yeah, that happens too. We move so much that a lot of time I get into a school and then straight out of it again. I’ll be out of here in a few weeks too. Don’t worry yourself about it.”

She looks unsure. “What about your mom? Is it something she can handle?”

“She’s busy working.”

She clucks, unhappy about that but doesn’t argue.

“Okay. Enjoy the rest of your day, Miss Deville.” She nods for me to go and clicks away on her computer. I leave, letting my chest deflate from the relief that the encounter is over. She looks so bitter with her pursed lips and scowling eyes.

“Jesus,” I snap when I almost walk into Nokosi who is standing to the right of the door. “Don’t do that.”

“Which school did you go to last?” he asks, falling into step beside me.

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Salt Lake High.”

He looks surprised. “Nevada?”

I nod and tuck my pink hair behind my ears.

“How long were you there?”

“I don’t know, a few weeks, maybe?”

“So how long are you here?”

Grinning, I peer up at him. “A few weeks, maybe? I don’t know, Nok. Why are you so interested?”

“Wait… Salt Lake High?” He looks lost in thought for a moment. “A girl died there, right?”

I stop and think back to my time there. “I don’t know. Lots of people die in lots of places.”

“Yeah, but this was different. She was murdered. I think. Is it the same place?”

“Maybe, I don’t know, I didn’t do a history check while I was there.” To be honest, Salt Lake High isn’t my last school, it’s one of the first ones I attended, but I don’t ever remember a girl being murdered there. He’s probably remembering wrong. “Anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Then why are you following me?”

His answering smile is devious and makes my core give a painful ache of arousal. He ducks into a classroom and I hear somebody yell his name.

Maybe he was just walking with me, but then why was he waiting for me outside of the office?

He’s so weird, but in a hot way.

I enter my own class and look behind me when Barbie waves my way. She pats the desk beside her so I look around the room frantically for another.

“Come here, Lily.”

I fucking hate being called Lily. I pad to her and slide into my seat.

“You and Nok?”

I knew it would be about that.

I groan. “Don’t… don’t make it about that. I’m not dating him, I don’t want to date him.”

She frowns. “No, you’ve got me all wrong. That’s not… I’m not jealous. I just thought well… I wanted to make sure you know what you’re doing.”

My teeth trap my lips for a moment. “Oh, I do.”

“He was vile to me, that’s all. If I can save somebody else the same treatment, I’ll try.”

I look at her and place my hand on her arm. “He’s not going to get away with anything he’s done. Okay?”

Fear flashes in her eyes. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“Nothing, I just believe in karma is all.”

“Eyes front, please, girls!” the teacher calls, tapping the whiteboard with her fingers.

We look up front for a while until I whisper, “Is it true? Did he really sleep with you and then abandon you at a gas stop?”

She nods, her eyes watery at the memory. “I was a virgin too. I really thought he liked me.”

“What a monster,” I breathe, looking back at the board.

“He’s very convincing so be careful, okay?”

I nod. Oh, I’ll be careful all right.

“Thanks for telling me, it can’t be easy to talk about.”

“It’s not, but anything I can do to help a sister.”

She’s so fake. I hate that about her. Even while being honest she’s just so insincere, it rubs me the wrong way. I want to tell her that I don’t like her and to stop talking to me, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

***

“I saw something on the news earlier,” Willow tells me as I thread my fingers through her hair. She’s on the floor between my knees, her head resting back on my thighs. “They found a body off the I-5.”

“Eww.” What is it with everybody’s obsession with death today?

She snorts. “Not eww. It’s sad.”

I blink. “I don’t want to talk about death and murder and anything else. Okay?”

“But…”

“No,” I snap. “You know I don’t like it.”

She pushes away and glares at me. “You’re such a bitch these days.”

“Well, I’m under a lot of pressure, what do you expect?”

“You mean taking care of me?”

“No.” I soften my features. “Never because of you… just… All the moving and I don’t have a fucking clue what they’re talking about in classes. I feel like an idiot.”

“I’ve been doing your homework.”

“I know and I appreciate it.” I mutter and hug her. She’s so frail. I can feel her slipping from me and I can’t cope with it. I have to do something to make her stronger again. “Did you take your medication?”

“It makes me woozy.”

“You’re already woozy,” I grumble and pull her back to me so I can braid her hair.

She laughs gently, breathily. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“We need to get you out and get you some sunshine, you look awful.”

“Thanks, sis,” she grumbles and curls under my arm on the couch.

Approximately ten minutes later there’s a knock at my door. An odd occurrence seeing as our neighbors did the welcome wagon already and we haven’t given out our address to anybody in town.

“I’ll get it,” I say to Willow who is almost asleep. She hums and curls into a ball, remaining where she is. As bad as it sounds to an outsider, sometimes I envy her illness. To have a constant excuse to not deal with people and a quick exit out of life without having to bring it upon yourself.

I pad through the hall and to the door, my freshly painted toes are bloodred. A contrast to the cream carpets that run through the hall.

Whoever it is knocks again, louder this time, more insistent.

“Just a sec,” I snap and look through the peephole. When I see his elongated profile through the domed spyglass, I let my forehead thud against the door for a second before yanking it open. “Nash… what are you doing here?”

“I said seven.”

“I said no.”

“Well…” He points to Nok’s truck on the street and smiles a triumphant smile. “We’re all going so you have to.”

Looking sheepish and hopeful with eyes so much like his brother’s, he stuffs his hands into his jeans and waits.

“Who is we?”

“Huh?”

I snort and roll my eyes at his obliviousness. “You said we’re all going?”

“Oh, right, me, Nok, Joseph. A couple of Nok’s friends from school are meeting us there.”

“And Joseph is where? I only see your brother in the truck.”

His smile broadens. “We’re getting him on the way. Don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust anyone.” I look between him and the truck again and can’t think of a good reason to not go. In fact, I can think of about ten reasons why I want to.

One of them is that I love movies, another is because Nokosi is driving, which means alone time with him, which means progress.

“Give me five minutes, I need to…” I glance back at the room where my sister is on the sofa out of sight. “Get my shoes and stuff.”

“You’re coming?”

I close the door in his face and puff out my cheeks. I was looking forward to just a night in alone with my favorite person in the whole world. But plans change and this is good.

When I enter the room she’s gone, and then I hear her bedroom door close upstairs right before my phone vibrates.

Willow: Have fun. The sooner you get this out of your system the better.

I slip my sandals on because I can’t be bothered to find my sneakers, and then exit my house with my bag over one shoulder.

“Shotgun!” I yell with a smirk and race towards the truck where Nok is sitting behind the wheel, eyes ahead. He looks annoyed about something, could it be because I’m joining them?

Not that I care or even feel apologetic about that in the slightest. I’m just curious.

Nash races me, beating me to the door by a millisecond, but only to pull it open and motion for me to climb in. I do so, admiring the cream leather interior and decked-out dash. No wonder Nok yanked me out of his truck. I was covered in grease. I get it now.

“Your truck is ballin’,” I mutter as I squeeze into the middle seat, careful not to sit too close to Nok. Nash sits to my right and I jolt when Nok reaches across me for my seatbelt and clicks me in. I swear he inhales my hair as he passes. I almost do the same, but I need my panties dry. “Can we listen to the radio?”

He turns the knobs and presses the small screen as Nash smiles apologetically at me. Likely because his brother is being rude. Or he thinks he’s being rude. I don’t mind that he doesn’t want to talk. It makes it easier to dislike him. Although when he does talk it’s not usually very nice so even then I still don’t like him. He just rubs me the wrong way, all the while rubbing me all the right ways. Metaphorically speaking. He hasn’t properly touched me yet and I hate how much I want him to.

“So, popcorn or fries?” Nash asks.

Raising my brows, I snap playfully, “You’re gonna force me out here and then make me choose?”

“So… both?”

“Duh.”

“And your popcorn, how do you like it, salted or sweet?”

“Both mixed together.”

Nash grimaces. “You two can share then. I’m getting sweet. Nobody likes salted and sweet mixed together.”

“Nobody but us,” Nok retorts, his eyes on the road so I’m extremely surprised when he flicks a bug off my bare thigh. A bug I didn’t notice, and he did, despite the fact he’s driving and paying attention. How? Is he always watching me, and I just don’t notice?

We drive through Westoria, collecting Joseph from a grocery store on the way. He has a crate of beer and a bag full of snacks. How old is Joseph? I put him at around nineteen because of how cute he is, but I guess he must be at least twenty-one if he can buy beer.

My phone vibrates, alerting me to a text so I pull it out of my bag.

Willow: Miss you.

“That your mom?”

I shake my head. “It’s my sister.”

Nok’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.

Nash sounds surprised. “You have a sister? How old is she?”

“My age, she’s my twin.”

“Twin? There’s another one of you? God help us all,” Joseph jests and I find myself smiling with him.

“You should have said,” Nash puts in. “We’d have brought her too.”

I shift uncomfortably, I don’t like it when I’m the focus point of the conversation, or my sister. “She wouldn’t have come.”

“We can go back for her?” Nok suggests.

“She’s sick,” I respond shakily, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Is that why she doesn’t go to school?”

Nodding, I chew on my lip and stop talking.

It’s Nash who asks, “How sick is she?”

“It’s terminal.”

“Cancer?”

I turn up the radio. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nash puts his hand on my thigh, over the fabric of my lace black skirt but I shift so he removes it. “If you change your mind.”

He and Nok share a look. I know they’re concerned now, even Nok. Though he’s probably just worried I’ll bring the mood down.

“Are you sharing those beers, Joseph?” I ask, putting on a cheery façade to lighten things up a bit.

He breaks open the box under his feet and grabs two beers, using one to open the other. I take a long pull and nudge Nok with my elbow.

“Sucks to be you tonight.”

He smiles and surprisingly nudges me back. “Puke in my car and I’ll throw you in Columbia River.”

Laughing, I take another pull, smack my lips, and flex my neck from side to side. “I almost wish I didn’t have to leave if this is what the rest of my senior year is gonna be like.”

“No chance your mom will stay?”

“What is it that she even does?”

“Can we just not talk about my family tonight?” I ask, frowning at them. “Why are you so fascinated?”

“You’re a mystery that’s why,” Nash answers.

“You roll into town all cool on your bike, with major attitude, no prior history to mention, family as private as you are, and you have pink hair and great tits,” Joseph explains, smiling his cute, dimpled smile.

“Really great tits,” Nok mutters so only I can hear.

My breath catches in my throat and I look at him, forgetting how close we are. Luckily my attention is diverted to the half-full gravel lot that resides in front of a huge screen. People are already here, parked by individual meters.

“I’ve never been to a drive-in movie,” I admit, leaning forward to look out the windscreen as Nok navigates us past people and smaller vehicles. When he finally decided on a spot near the back, he reverses into it. “How are we going to see the screen if we’re facing the wrong way?”

“Truck bed,” he replies and offers me a hand when he climbs out.

I don’t take it, I’m no delicate flower. Instead I put my hand on his head just because I think it’s funny. Oh my God his hair is so soft.