Covet

CHAPTER 25

TRISTAN
The velvet cake wasn't just a birthday present. It was also my peace offering. I didn't want to fight with Savannah anymore, even if I was still hurt and frustrated that she wouldn't fight for what we once had. She'd moved on. She had Ron now. It was time I found a way to move on, too.
The Indians fought a good battle on our home turf Friday night. But even the hard workout on the field hadn't managed to take the edge off my restlessness. I felt...off, like I couldn't find my balance.
And Bethany's constant chatter with everyone in sight on the front lawn at the Tomato Bowl's entrance after the game wasn't calming me down any.
A hand slapped my back, rocking me forward onto the balls of my feet. "Son, that was a fine game you played back there!"
Dad and Mom. I forced a smile for them. "Thanks."
Silence grew within our group, contrasting sharply with the noise of everyone else's talking and laughter.
"It's good to see you again," Mom said to Bethany. She gave me a meaningful smile and a nod of approval, then looked up at Dad. "You know, I think I'm in the mood for a little ice cream. What do you think, hon? Did you save any room after those four hot dogs?"
Dad grinned and stroked his beard, pretending to consider it. "Hmm, I think I might have a little room left in the ole tank." He patted his gut. "I guess it depends on what kind of ice cream. Are we talking Coke floats? Or brownie sundaes?" On that last part, his thick eyebrows dipped and wiggled.
Mom laughed, a delicate hand rising to smooth back nonexistent wisps of hair at the side of her bun. "Oh, I'm definitely thinking brownie sundaes."
Dad turned his grin on me. "Don't come home too soon, son. In fact, maybe you should take your girl here out for her own brownie sundae." He leaned close to me and stage-whispered, "Women like chocolate. Remember that. It'll make your life a whole lot brighter if you do."
Bethany giggled as my parents walked with their arms linked down the cement steps, stopping every few feet to say hello to at least half the crowd on the way.
"Your parents are so cute."
I looked away from them. "Yeah. They're adorable."
Her smile wobbled. "Is something wrong?"
"Nope. Everything's just perfect." According to my parents.
A breeze kicked up, brisk with the first snap of true fall. I tilted my head back and stared up at the sky, trying to see the constellations. But the lights of the stadium were too bright, blocking my view.
I was still hot from the game, and I'd overdressed for the weather. Too many layers, and my varsity jacket was tight, making it hard to breathe. I unsnapped its metal buttons, and the wind snuck in past the open edges like familiar hands to soothe my burning skin. Better. I sighed, remembering another crisp October night like this one under the stars, and how a certain girl's always-cool hands had rested at the back of my neck while we danced....
"Tristan? Hello, earth to my little brother." A small hand waved before my face, making me blink. It was Emily.
"Hey, sis! What are you doing here?" I bent over and gave her a quick hug.
"What, I can't come home to see my baby brother shining on the battlefield?"
I smiled. "I take it college life isn't all you thought it would be?"
"Of course it is! I just missed seeing you play."
Uh-huh. Then why did her smile look just a little too bright?
She sighed. "Okay, you caught me. I also wanted to check in on my old cheer squad and see how my replacement's doing."
"And how is she doing?" Bethany asked.
Emily made a face. "Well, you know Sally Parker."
Bethany laughed. "Don't we all." She glanced over her shoulder. "Oh, there's Jill! I need to get a pair of shoes back from her." She leaned in toward us and whispered, "She's the worst shoe klepto! She borrowed my favorite pair of sneakers over a month ago and keeps claiming she meant to return them but 'forgot' them in her car." She made air quotes with her fingers. "I'll be right back!"
As soon as she was gone, Emily's bright smile disappeared. "Tristan, there might be a small problem. I listened in on Sally's thoughts a few minutes ago, trying to see how she's really doing with the cheer squad, and learned she overheard the Faulkner twins planning to crash Savannah's Halloween party tonight."
I glanced in the direction I'd tried to avoid all night, across the railroad tracks to a certain house. Unlike the last time I'd visited, the Victorian was all lit up, with cars filling its driveway and lining its curb. It looked like the party was already underway.
I scanned the stadium's front lawn.
"I already checked," Emily said. "I don't see the twins anywhere. Think they've already-"
I nodded. "We should go over there and take a look around. Just to be sure."
She stopped me with a hand on my upper arm. "Okay, but Tristan? Promise me you won't do anything stupid if you see her."
Her meaning Sav.
I scowled. "I'm good, sis."
We headed down the grassy slope to the street, dodging and weaving in between cars filled with local football fans hooting and hollering out open windows.
Our final approach across the railroad tracks was too conspicuous under a bright streetlight, but there wasn't much we could do about it. Thankfully the twins were too busy huddling behind a tree trunk near the curb and giggling as they fiddled with something they were holding together.
"Dylan's going to love this!" Vanessa said, making Hope giggle again.
I realized what the object was as they threw it.
"Hey!" Emily said, showing off her cheer yell.
I didn't have time to say anything. I was too busy jumping over the curb onto the lawn while using magic to stop the object in midair.
"What do you think you're doing?" Emily yelled at the girls at the top of her lungs.
Squealing in fear, the twins took off at a run back toward the lights of the Tomato Bowl.
Either Emily's yelling or the twins' squeals brought the party spilling out onto the front porch to see what was going on. I hastily let the object fall to the grass, then walked over and picked it up. Lights from the house's front windows lit up the brick. The twins had used a blue-and-gold cloth hairband to hold a piece of paper in place around the brick.
"A scrunchie? How decorative," Emily muttered as I unwrapped the note and read it.
Get out of town monsters!
"And their creativity just keeps on going," I said, showing her the note.
The party poured onto the front lawn as people asked what was going on.
"Just some punks trying to ruin a perfectly good party," I told them with a smile, showing the brick but hiding the note.
Several people made tsking sounds of disappointment. Then somebody shouted, "Good job stopping them, kids! Y'all should come in and have a drink. It's all nonalcoholic, of course."
Several people seconded the idea.
"Oh, we really should be getting home," Emily said in her most mature and polite tone.
"Aw, sis, we can stay for a few minutes, can't we?" I'd have to be crazy to pass up the chance to see the changes to Sav's house when half the rest of the town had already gotten the full tour of the place. "We wouldn't want to be rude, would we?"
Emily flashed a glare at me before turning to the crowd with a big smile. "Well, I guess we could stay for a few minutes."
And inside we all went.
Always the mingler, Emily had no trouble finding a conversation to join in, leaving me to walk around and admire the house on my own.
Mr. Colbert had put a lot of work into the place. The last time I'd been here, every room had been dark and gloomy, full of peeling flowery wallpaper and wood so dirty it had looked black. Now the rooms were brightly lit with wall sconces, smaller chandeliers in the two front rooms, and a huge chandelier over the open staircase that caught the eye and pulled it up to the stained-glass window in the ceiling two stories up. He'd replaced all the wallpaper with fresh paint, and the wooden wainscoting, trim and floors, all now several shades lighter, gleamed. The furnishings were nice, too, not too stuffy or cluttered, so a guy could move around without knocking something over. There was plenty of room for the hundred or so people who had crammed in here tonight to check out the old place and probably its new owner, too.
Mr. Colbert had made a lot of smart choices with the house, not just in its renovation, but in opting to hold a Halloween party here open to the public. Right or wrong, the residents of Jacksonville put a lot of stock in a person's home. They would be less likely to make up negative stories about Mr. Colbert and his daughter after seeing what he had done with a building everyone else had wanted to bulldoze.
And then I realized...this wasn't just Mr. Colbert's latest project. It was also Savannah's home. A small fact I hadn't given much thought to during my last visit here.
I tried to picture Savannah hanging out in the front rooms on either side of the entrance area, maybe running down the stairs in the mornings on her way to school, that curly red ponytail of hers swinging along the way. Something tightened in my chest, making it tough to take a deep breath.
The staircase led to a balcony that ran the length of the second floor, which must have been filled with more than a few bedrooms and baths considering the number of doors up there. One of them was Savannah's room, where she lived and read and slept every night, and probably where she danced, too. She used to love to dance, though not when anyone was watching. I caught her at it many times in the Charmers' dance room after school when she didn't know I was there, and even a couple of times in our connected dreams before she knew I'd joined her.
The moment she came home, I felt it. I found a corner by the stairs below the balcony, out of the way of all the other guests, so I could watch Savannah enter the house. God, she was gorgeous, even just with her hair in a ponytail and wearing her blue-and-gold Charmers windsuit.
Then she tugged the band from her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders.
More noise as Ron came in behind her. He tugged on a piece of her hair, and she turned to smile at him and say something that was lost beneath the thumping beat of the music. A few seconds later, Anne, Carrie and Michelle joined them in the entrance area, followed by a handful of trick-or-treaters. Savannah grabbed a big orange plastic bowl from the side table and held it out so the kids could take handfuls of candy. She put the bowl back on the side table, said something to her friends and boyfriend, and they all went in separate directions.
Alone at the front door, Savannah started to drop her bag by the side table, then froze, her eyes widening.
I'd seen her freeze like that countless times before. It meant she knew I was here somewhere.
She looked to the left, scanning the packed room then the equally stuffed room to her right. Frowning, she toed off her sneakers and carried them with her as she ran up the stairs and down the landing toward the right. She opened the last door, ducked inside and shut it.
I should go. She was probably hiding now that she knew I was here. Besides, Emily would be looking for me soon.
I stood there for several minutes, torn between what I should do and what I needed.
Eventually my feet carried me up the stairs and down the landing to her door.
At my knock, there was a long hesitation before she called out, "Yes?"
I opened the door and stepped inside.
Seated in front of a vanity, Savannah's hand froze in the act of brushing her hair. "Tristan. What are you doing here?"
"Sorry. Thought this was the bathroom." I didn't bother trying to sound convincing.
"What are you doing at my house? Are you crazy?" she muttered. "There's a vamp council member here tonight. If he sees you..."
I shoved my hands in my pockets. "Does he regularly come up to inspect your room?"
She made a face. "No."
"Then how will he know I'm in here with you?" She opened her mouth to argue. "And don't even say vamp hearing, because there's no way he can hear us over all the noise downstairs."
She sighed.
I slowly walked around the room, looking at the shelf filled with glass ballerinas and pictures of her friends and the Charmers. No pictures of me anywhere, of course. Then I saw the snow globe I'd given her last year for Christmas and had to keep my back turned to hide my smile.
Yeah, she still thought about me.
I looked down at my feet. "Nice hardwood. Pretty good for dancing?"
"I don't dance anymore."
"Since when?"
Shrugging, she finished pulling her hair up into a bun. She'd changed into a pink leotard and tights with a glittery blue tutu.
I stated the obvious. "You don't dance anymore, but you're going as a ballerina this year?"
"No. A fairy. Just gotta add these." She picked up a set of see-through, glittery wings I hadn't noticed from her bed and crisscrossed the ribbons over her chest then down and back. But the ribbons weren't long enough to wrap all the way around her back and to the front again to be tied. She must have planned on having Anne help her tie them. Or maybe Ron.
"Here." I closed the distance between us, took the ribbons from her shaking fingertips and tied the satin at her back. I was tempted to let my fingers touch her skin, but I didn't. It was a miracle that she hadn't kicked me out of her room as it was.
"Thanks," she murmured. She sat down on the bed to pull on her slippers, glancing up at me in the process. "So what's with you crashing the party? Curious to see how the local vamps are living nowadays?"
I stared at her, silently letting her know how much I didn't appreciate the vamp humor. She knew better than to believe I would ever think that way about her.
She ducked her head to focus on tying the ribbons from her slippers around her calves.
"So I've been hearing some interesting things about you and your new boyfriend." Crap. I hadn't meant to bring him up.
"Who?"
"Ron Abernathy."
She made a face and stood up to check herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the wall beside her open closet door. "I'm not dating him. He's Anne's ex."
"And yet you're still seeing him. Does Anne know about the two of you?"
She sighed. "Whatever you think you heard about us, you heard wrong. Ron and I are just study partners. I would never date my best friend's ex." She glanced at me with one eyebrow raised as if to say I ought to know that.
Except I didn't. I felt like I didn't know her at all lately. And it was killing me. "Well, if you don't want people getting the wrong idea about you two, maybe you shouldn't be sneaking off to meet him in the library all the time."
She turned and scowled at me with her hands on her hips. "I'm not sneaking anywhere. Anne even gave me permission to help him with English lit in return for his help with chemistry class. And it's really none of your business anymore. Why are you even here tonight? Shouldn't you be with your girlfriend?"
"Who?"
She stared at me like I'd gone insane. "Bethany Brookes. You know, the girl you've been seeing for months? Where is she, anyways? Did you leave her downstairs at the punch bowl so you could come up here and lecture me?"
Oh crap. Bethany. She was still at the Tomato Bowl. I'd forgotten to give her a ride home. I snuck a glimpse at my watch. "She probably caught a ride home with another Charmer or her parents." I hoped. "And besides, she's not my girlfriend. She's just a friend."
"Uh, you might want to tell her that, because she's under the impression that you two have been a couple ever since you and I broke up."
"You mean after you dumped me." Twice.
"I did not dump you. I saved you."
I blew out a long breath. "That is such crap and you know it, Sav. You didn't save me. You just chickened out. And I've never dated Bethany."
She flinched, opened her mouth, closed it, then tilted her head to the side. "You've never dated Bethany."
"Nope."
"And all those images in your mind of the two of you kissing under the practice field bleachers and outside the gym and just about every other place possible on campus?"
I grinned. "What can I say? I have a great imagination."
She stared at me then shook her head, her cheeks turning pink.
She knew she had just sounded jealous.
Did she have any idea how cute she looked when she was jealous?
I walked over to her. When we were only a few inches away, her eyes widened. She looked around the room like a bird searching for somewhere to fly off to.
She disappeared then reappeared at the bedroom door, bending over to grab her sneakers from where she'd dropped them. She disappeared again, reappearing at her closet, where she tossed the shoes inside. She slapped the closet's folding door, apparently trying to shut it. But she only succeeded in knocking it out of its track at the top, and she was too short to pop its plastic wheel back in, though she rose up on tiptoe to try.
Moving slower now so I wouldn't startle her, I closed the distance between us then reached over her head to fix the door.
"Do you really think I could move on that easily after losing you?" I said.
She looked everywhere but at me for several long seconds. Then she finally dared to make eye contact. "I've heard Bethany's thoughts. If you're not really dating her, then you've been lying to two girls. She truly believes the two of you are a couple."
"I haven't lied to her. Maybe she just got the wrong idea. Kind of like I did about you."
She frowned. "What are you talking about? I never lied to you."
"What about all those times you said you loved me?"
Her breath caught and held. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. "I wasn't lying."
"Then why? Why break us up? Why throw it all away? Why didn't you help me fight them?" I was hissing out the words without meaning to, all the anger I'd been pushing down for months rising up and out of me. I wanted to grab her, shake her, but I kept my hands clenched in fists at my sides.
"I did the right thing," she snapped back at me. "I made a promise, to the council and the Clann, and I've kept it. I did what I had to in order to keep you safe. And someday you'll thank me for it."
"You really expect me to thank you for ripping out my heart and stomping all over it?"
"Yes, I do! Someday, when you're not being stupid and hardheaded about it."
"Stupid and hard-"
She held up a hand. We were standing so close it would have been easier for her to just rest the hand on my chest. I noticed she was careful not to touch me, though. "I really don't want to argue with you anymore, Tristan. What's done is done."
"You know, I'm not too crazy about arguing with you all the time, either!"
"Then don't!"
"You started it."
"Who came into whose room and started this whole conversation?"
She had a point. "Well, how else can I get you to talk to me? You run out of English lit so fast I can't even say two words to you."
"Please. You have all the time in the world to shout anything you want to me without interruption for an hour and a half before I ever leave. English lit is nothing but having to sit through your monologing."
"Believe me, I'd much rather hear your thoughts." What I wouldn't give to have her ability, to be able to hear her uncensored thoughts for a change.
She drew in a sharp breath, and as I watched, her eyes turned from green to silver-white. "Tristan, step away."
"Or what? You'll bite me?"
Unable to resist any longer, I stroked a fingertip along the curve of her cheek. Though her impossibly smooth and poreless skin was cold, strangely my finger felt warmer where it had touched her, as if my skin were having some kind of chemical reaction to the contact.
Her chin trembled. "Please. Don't do this."
I wanted to hold her, kiss her just one more time. But even that wouldn't be enough. One kiss would only lead to more, and we were indoors away from the ground where I could draw replacement energy. The second she felt my energy level weakening, it would be all over. She'd go right back to blaming herself for what she couldn't stop or change, and using that excuse to add to the walls between us.
Sighing, I stepped back toward the bedroom door, hating every inch of space that grew between us.
Someone knocked on the door, making Savannah jump.
Anne popped her head in. "Oh, sorry." She started to duck back out.
"I was just leaving," I muttered. I hesitated, waiting for Savannah to say something. To tell me not to go. To say she was wrong and we never should have broken up.
But she didn't say anything at all.
Anne stared at us, her eyebrows raised.
"Have a fun party," I told Savannah before leaving the room.
My steps were heavy as I slowly headed down the stairs. Every time I came to this house I left in defeat.
No matter what I said or did, no matter how jealous I managed to make her, no matter how much I argued with her, I couldn't change Savannah's mind. The fact that I'd convinced her to give us a chance once seemed like a miracle now. Because she loved me, there was nothing I could do to make her risk my life.
If it weren't making both of us miserable, I could almost admire that unbreakable will of hers.
I reached the entrance area just as Emily stepped through the living room's archway. She didn't notice me at first, too busy laughing at something some guy at her side was saying. Trust Emily to find the only frat boy in the place to flirt with.
Finally she looked up and saw me. "Tristan, there you are! We've been looking all over for you."
Sure she had.
Overhead, a movement of glitter caught my eye as Savannah stepped out onto the balcony with Anne. Savannah stopped there, returning my stare.
Emily followed my line of sight. "Uh-oh, time to go."
"Call me," the guy said as Emily and I left the party.
"That was the best party I've ever crashed!" Emily gushed as we crossed the lawn toward her car.
Yeah. Too bad we couldn't stay longer.
* * *
At home, I'd just toed off my shoes in my bedroom and was getting ready to fall into bed when I heard a thud across the hall.
I glanced out through my open door in time to see my sister closing hers and throwing a quick glance in the direction of our parents' room.
Emily was definitely up to something.
I darted out in time to beat her to the top of the stairs. "Hey sis. I thought you'd be headed back to your dorm by now."
"Shh," she hissed, glancing over her shoulder at our parents' closed door again.
Oh, naughty, naughty sister.
"Sneaking out?" I grinned.
"I'm not sneaking out," she said, still keeping her voice at a whisper. "I'm headed to a friend's house. Mom knows."
Liar. "Girl friend or guy friend?"
Her face went carefully blank. "Why would you ask that?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the short skirt you're wearing, or the extra makeup and perfume? You sure it's not another Halloween party you're off to instead?"
She hesitated a fraction of a section, then rolled her eyes, pressed a finger to her lips in warning to be quiet, then waved me after her down the stairs and into the kitchen.
Leaning a hip against the island, she crossed her arms and scowled at me. "Fine, you caught me. Happy? I'm going to a party. But don't tell Mom or Dad or they'll kill me, okay?"
I let the silence grow, pretending to consider it while I moved past her to the fridge and dug through the shelves full of plastic containers in search of leftovers.
Finally I sighed loudly. "Okay. But you'll owe me one. Why all the secrecy, though? You're in college now. So what if you go to a party? Why not just tell them the truth?"
"Mom was acting weird after we got home. She said Aunt Cynthia called her while Dad and her were out getting ice cream. Aunt Cynthia said she thought she and Uncle James were being stalked or something. Said they both kept feeling like they were being watched wherever they went. They were wondering if anything like that was going on with any other descendants. So now Mom's doing her whole overprotective thing. It was her idea that I stay here tonight so I wouldn't have to walk across the campus in the dark."
Aunt Cynthia was Mom's sister. We went to visit Uncle James, Aunt Cynthia and their two kids Kristie and Katie in New York City every year, usually for New Year's Eve.
I spotted a clear plastic container full of shrimp etouffee. Mom had been experimenting with her book of Paula Deen recipes again. I stuck the container into the microwave and hit the auto reheat button. "Huh. Aunt Cynthia's not usually the paranoid type. Did Mom say anything more specific?"
"No." Circling the island, Emily stopped the microwave, opened one corner of the container's red lid, then restarted the microwave. "Anyways, I'll be home long before they wake up, so don't wait up, okay?"
"Have fun. Call me if you need a safe ride home."
"Thanks, little brother. But I don't plan on drinking tonight. Which means I'll probably wind up as everyone else's designated driver." She stopped the microwave two seconds before it could ding, covering her tracks as always in case our parents heard us down here and came to investigate.
"Keep the top down. They can barf over the side instead of on the floorboards," I joked, grabbing a spoon to stir my now steaming food.
"Gross. But good idea." Nose wrinkled in disgust, she grinned and waggled her fingers over her shoulder as she snuck out the kitchen door to the garage. A minute later, the garage door creaked its way up. I grinned, imagining my sister silently cursing the noise as she tried to make her getaway.
I grabbed a can of soda and the food, burning my fingertips on the container's hot bottom, and ran up to my room to wolf down my snack while watching an old episode of South Park.
But something was wrong, and for a change it wasn't just my relationship with Savannah.
Something about that whole conversation with Emily seemed...off. Her smile after being caught had been a little too sheepish. And she'd totally dodged answering the question of whether her friend was male or female. And then there was that hesitation and the way her eyes had flashed before her confession, and how she'd neatly brought up family gossip as a distraction.
She was lying.
I'd seen her do it to our parents too many times to mistake it tonight. But why would she lie to me? She'd never lied to me, at least not that I knew about.
I'd have to see what clues I could get out of her tomorrow over breakfast.
* * *
By the time I made it downstairs the next morning, Emily had already gone back to college. Mom said Emily had claimed she had a ton of homework and studying to catch up on.
Yeah right. She knew I was on to her and was running off to hide out at school.
I tried calling her a couple of times later in the weekend, but apparently she wasn't taking any calls from suspicious brothers.
She was definitely up to something. The question was what?
SAVANNAH
After Tristan left my bedroom, I went downstairs and made the required rounds through Dad's party, smiling and pretending I was having a great time. But the minute the guests began to leave, I headed right for the kitchen fridge then my room, blood-laced juice in hand.
It was the first time I actually appreciated the escape that the blood memories offered.
The next day, Dad let me sleep in, deciding we could go car shopping on Sunday instead. After forcing my body through a half hour of tai chi and a shower, Dad let me take his car over to the Junior Livestock Barn at the edge of town to help the other Charmers get everything ready for our annual masq ball fund-raiser for that night. Since I would only get dirty and no one cared what I wore anyways, I'd decided to go as my own scary self this year and wear my Charmers windsuit. Somehow the thought of putting on last night's fairy costume and fixing my hair in a bun again didn't seem like a lot of fun.
At the huge barn, I threw myself into scrubbing the corrugated metal walls and cement floors free of dust and cobwebs, refusing to think about how a certain boy dressed in plastic shining armor had once caught me as I fell off the rickety ladder. We spent several hours decorating and setting up folding tables for the desserts the Charmers had brought to be given out as prizes for costumes and musical chairs. It took another hour to unload and prepare all the snacks, candy and sodas I would be supervising the sale of in the concession stand all night.
And then all too soon it was time to open the front door and let the dancers in.
When Tristan and Bethany arrived, I made sure I was too busy stirring a Crockpot full of cheese sauce to look up. I didn't need to see how perfectly matched their costumes would be, or how happy Bethany probably looked on his arm.
Later Carrie, Michelle and Anne showed up and stopped by the concession stand to say hello. By the looks of their wildly varying costumes, Carrie and Anne had managed to talk Michelle out of her idea for them to all dress alike.
"Why don't you two go on in and I'll catch up?" Anne suggested to the girls, and they took off for the dance room. Anne turned back to me. "Look, about our argument the other night...I didn't get a chance to apologize at your party last night, what with a certain Clann boy showing up and all, but I wanted to say I'm sorry. Maybe you're right, and this whole thing with Ron does have me a little too weirded out."
"Have you called him yet?" I asked.
Her gaze darted from one side of the snack lineup to the other, like she was pretending to shop. But I knew her better than that. She was avoiding making eye contact.
"Anne," I said on a sigh.
"I'm working on what I'm going to say, okay?"
My, but someone was feeling snippy tonight. Because she knew I was right. "Fine. But when you do call him and he does take you back right away, remember, I told you so."
She snorted. "Yeah, well, just remember what you promised if he doesn't."
A hog hunt. "Never going to happen. Now hurry up and call him already."
She drummed her fingers on the countertop. "Aw, why bother when he'll probably show up here tonight anyways? I can just talk to him then."
"Unless you chicken out again," I murmured with a smile.
"I'm not chicken," Anne muttered.
The front door opened to admit a new arrival. It was Ron.
"I'd better go find the girls," Anne said, turning the other way and pretending she hadn't seen him.
I made chicken sounds at her as she all but ran into the dance room. She didn't look back during her escape.
Ron sauntered up to the counter, dressed as a giant black cat, swinging his fake tail like a propeller. Apparently I wasn't the only one who had decided to go as themselves tonight. "What bee flew up her butt?"
I choked down the laughter. "Oh, she'll probably tell you about it later."
"Hmm, maybe I should go hunt her down and say hi."
"What a great idea! Tell me how it goes, and good luck."
He headed for the doorway that connected the foyer with the larger back room, waving a paw goodbye over his shoulder.
I fell into a rhythm then of taking orders and dishing them out to the customers. The work was a good distraction, keeping me on my toes and moving without thinking about anything personal for a few blessed hours.
Until Bethany showed up to work her shift at the concession stand.
The room behind the open window was small, made even harder to move around in by the folding table full of food and the numerous stacks of sodas and ice chests full of drinks. She was avoiding making eye contact with me tonight for some reason, but that was just fine by me since I didn't know what to say to her, either.
Did she really not know that Tristan thought they were just friends?
Part of me wanted to warn her. But what good would that do? Everyone knew she was crazy about him. She was headed for heartache no matter what, and she might not believe me or appreciate it if I said anything anyways.
So I stayed out of it. It was Tristan's mess to clean up, not mine.
But I felt sorry for Bethany all the same. What girl could resist those smiles of his, the way he laughed or touched the small of your back while leading you into a room, how he tilted his head down closer to you when you talked to him...
When the dance was nearly over, I told her I was going to go start the cleanup process in the dance room. She nodded without speaking to me, busy screwing the lid back onto a giant plastic tub of pickles.
The cavernous back room was dimly lit by only strobing, color-changing lights on the stage. A fog machine working overtime in one corner to fill the dance floor with billowing clouds of smoke that clung to my ankles as I skirted the dancers. Even at a distance I could tell the dessert table by the wall was a wreck, littered with empty soda cans and food cartons. Might as well start cleaning there now and get a jump on things so we could all go home quicker after the dance ended.
But before I could reach the table, my friends spotted me and grabbed my arms.
"One dance!" Carrie yelled over the near deafening music and the crowd. "It won't kill you!"
They tugged me into the center of the dance floor as a song was ending, and I wondered where Ron was. Then a fast-paced country song began, one that I recognized as Anne's favorite, and we shared a grin. The lyrics were infectious as the male singer sang about life going from bad to worse and walking through Hell. All four of us wound up singing the song at the top of our lungs while shaking our butts to the beat.
For three brief minutes, I let it all go...the stress, the sadness, the loneliness and missing Tristan all the time. I pushed it all to the side and pretended I was just a normal girl jumping around and singing at the top of my lungs with my best friends in a barn in the middle of nowhere.
And man, it felt good.
But all too soon, the DJ announced the last song of the night, and it was a slow one full of heartbreak and longing. My cue to beat a hasty retreat.
I moved over to the dessert table by the wall to do my job, grateful there was always work to turn to for a distraction. But then out of the corner of my eye I saw Ron walk over and ask Anne to dance. She agreed, and I couldn't help but stop cleaning and watch them. They were so completely and thrillingly cute together. It was like watching a romantic movie, only more intense because they were both my friends and I so desperately wanted them to be happy together.
Then I saw Tristan and Bethany swaying together, her cheek pressed to his chest, his chin resting on top of her head.
The same way he used to hold me.
As if he could feel my stare, Tristan looked at me, squinting under the moving lights over the dance area. Despite the darkness of the area where I stood frozen, our eyes met.
TRISTAN
The collar of my prince costume tightened like a noose around my neck, and my hands were sweating inside the too-tight gloves. Why had I ever agreed to wear this thing?
I jerked the gloves off behind Bethany's back and stuffed them into a pocket in my slacks, then unbuttoned my collar one-handed. But I still felt like I was choking.
I couldn't do this anymore.
That look in Savannah's eyes, so filled with accusation, was like being slapped awake.
Not to mention Bethany had her arms wrapped around my waist tightly enough to squeeze the air from my lungs.
What was I doing?
All these months, all the signs had been there, and I'd been too messed up over getting my heart ripped to shreds by Savannah to see how I was breaking someone else's.
Bethany was head over heels for me.
I'd believed we were just friends and that Bethany understood that, too. I should have broken my personal rule about reading others' thoughts and checked hers to be sure we were on the same page right from the start.
Both Emily and Savannah were right. They'd tried to warn me, and like an idiot I hadn't listened.
Bethany was a great girl and a good friend. But I could never feel for her the way I still felt about Savannah, even if trying to fight the Clann and the council was hopeless.
Even if we could never be together again, Savannah was the one. She always had been, and she always would be.
I looked down and found Bethany staring up at me, her eyes shiny with tears.
She knew. Somehow, tonight, she'd figured it out. All night, she'd been quiet and unsmiling, completely unlike herself.
I had to find a way to fix this. "Maybe we should go somewhere and talk."
Her eyes rounded, and she shook her head fast. "No. Let's just stay here and keep dancing. Everything's fine-"
"No, it's not." I stopped dancing, my hands resting on her shoulders left bare by her pale blue Cinderella gown. "I think you might have gotten the wrong idea about you and me. It's my fault. I haven't been thinking right for months. I thought you understood we were just friends. But I should have explained things to you that first day you showed up at the hospital." I took a deep breath. "I can't be the guy you need, Bethany. I'm still trying to get over someone else."
"You mean Savannah."
I hesitated then nodded, hating how the truth was hurting her, wishing I'd told her the truth from the start and avoided all of this.
A tear slipped down her cheek. She reached up and wiped it away with a shaky hand. "You still love her. That's why you're always staring at her. I heard you were at her house last night, that you and your sister stopped someone from throwing a brick through her window. That's where you ran off to, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but I didn't go over there to see her." At least not at first.
"Did I do something wrong? Did I talk too much, or not enough, or-"
My gut clenched. "No. You didn't do anything wrong."
"But I'm not the right girl. I'm not Savannah."
I nodded. God, I'd screwed this up. "I'm sorry-"
She stepped back, her chin quivering. Looking away, she blinked fast a few times then shook her head. "I've got to go."
"Bethany-" What could I say to make this right?
Obviously nothing she wanted to hear. Turning, she gathered up her long skirt and walked away, pushing through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor so she could escape to the foyer and her friends.