The bell rang and I was reluctant to be out of his presence. I was ecstatic, floating on cloud nine at the fact things were so easy, so natural with everyone.
“We’ve got English Lit, Lex,” Noah declared, standing and staring at Killian.
“Bro, aren’t you in my Biology class?” Wyatt asked Killian as they stood too. Wyatt was the same age as me, but he was seriously good at biology. By the sounds of it, he could be a doctor if he wanted. But he wanted to be a rock star, much to his parent’s dismay.
Killian nodded, rising at the same time as I did, handing me my backpack.
“Thought so. I’ve seen you there a couple of times,” Wyatt replied. “Should we head? I know Morton’s damn near homicidal every time I turn up late,” he said, frowning.
I was staring at Killian with narrowed eyes at the “couple of times,” part of Wyatt’s statement. I didn’t have any classes with Killian, considering he was the grade above me. But I didn’t like the idea that he cut classes. He was smart. I knew that he could easily get a scholarship to any college he wanted.
“Lex. English Lit,” Noah reminded me sharply.
My eyes cut to him. “Yeah, Noah, I haven’t forgotten.”
“See you later, Freckles?” Killian murmured, his eyes on mine.
“Dude, we’re going to cruise the music stores after school. Daddy needs a new bass,” Sam cut in. “Come with,” he invited.
“Rain check,” Killian replied. “Got work.”
Sam’s face fell. “Well, that blows.”
Killian shrugged. “It’s not too bad.” He moved his attention to me. “Bye,” he said softly.
“Bye,” I muttered.
He looked at me a beat longer then left with Wyatt, Sam trailing them.
I scowled at Noah as we walked in the opposite direction. “What was that?” I snapped.
Noah had the guile to look innocent. “What?”
“You doing your best impression of the ice queen Elsa,” I retorted. “What’s the deal? Do you not like Kill or something?” I asked, feeling crestfallen. Noah was my friend. The thought of him not liking Killian was painful.
His face hardened. “I don’t know him well enough to like or dislike him.”
I frowned at him as we walked into our English class. “Well, you could have a career in politics with answers like that,” I said dryly, unpacking my books and placing them on the desk with a little more force than necessary. “I like him, Noah. I want you to like him too,” I added softly.
Noah sat down, sighing. “I want to like him too, Lexie. But I also don’t want you getting hurt.”
I turned to him. “What makes you think Killian will hurt me?”
“I don’t know,” he hedged. His eyes turned from the front of the class and he lowered his voice as the teacher started talking. “He might not hang around anyone at school, his friends are bikers,” he whispered, “but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t spent time with certain members of the female class.”
My face must have paled as I felt the blood leave it rapidly.
Noah’s hand moved on top of mine in a comforting gesture. “I’m not saying that to hurt you, Lex,” he whispered quickly. “He’s never been with... anyone like he is with you. But I’m protective of you. No matter how much Sam chats to him, so is he, and Wyatt. He’ll need that entire biker gang he hangs around with if he does hurt you,” he warned ominously.
I didn’t get to say anything back as we earned a throat clearing and pointed look from the teacher.
Noah’s face moved to the front of the class, and I continued to stare at his profile. There were many things to think of on what he just said. I felt sick thinking about Killian with other girls. Stupid, I know. He was hot and a teenage guy. Of course he’d dated before. Not everyone was like me and hadn’t even been kissed at sixteen.
Hardly anyone was like me, I guessed.
It wasn’t that that gave me the most pause. It was the way Noah’s face had changed when he warned me about Killian hurting me. He was quiet and mild mannered. He may have had muscles, but I had never even seen an inkling of violence on my gentle friend. Until then.
I prayed I didn’t see any more of the violence that hid beneath his eyes.
****
It was a happy accident on Friday that I was walking into the school parking lot the moment a motorcycle roared in. Skipping may have been more of an appropriate description of what I was doing since I felt like I was floating around the school for the past week. How could I not be when I had lunch with Killian every single day so far. Sometimes we ate with the boys, but a couple of times he had directed me out onto the quad with a chin lift to the boys who gave me knowing winks. We had talked about everything and nothing those times. Sometimes he helped me with homework, but mostly we chatted about our favorite books, movies, and music, and got to know each other. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. Liked him. So much so that I didn’t think there was a moment of my day that he wasn’t in my mind.
I stopped my journey to Wyatt’s car and watched as Killian’s bike rode toward me and pulled up beside me. I turned my body his way but stayed rooted in the spot as he dismounted, his eyes on me.
I couldn’t help but drink him in, even though I was frowning at him. He was wearing his motorcycle jacket, which he basically lived in. A tight, white tee was underneath, hinting at the muscles I had only imagined seeing and touching. I bet any jeans label would pay millions to have Killian model the pair he was wearing, faded, not in the artificial way, but through wear. Black motorcycle boots stopped inches away from my fringed ankle boots.
I moved my gaze to meet his ice blue eyes. They were worried.
“Where are you going, Freckles?” he asked. “You sick?” His gaze ran over my face, looking for signs of illness, his hand going to my elbow.
I wanted to be touched by his concern. I was, a teeny bit, I could also feel myself getting annoyed. “I’m fine,” I replied tersely. “Where have you been?”
“Where you going then, you cutting?” He smirked, ignoring my question. “My little Freckles would never break the rules, not without me at least,” he teased.
I ignored the butterflies at getting called his. “I’m getting Sam’s stuff he forgot. It’s my study period and we were going to stay after school and use the auditorium for acoustics.” We were braving Mr. Hazelton’s wrath to do so. I usually hated breaking any kind of rules, but we had our music teacher’s explicit permission, after he heard us play. He’d promised to brave Mr. Hazelton himself if need be. I had a feeling Mr. Hazelton wasn’t well liked within the faculty.
“Are you only just getting here? It’s almost lunch, if that great ball of fire in the middle of the sky hadn’t already told you that.” I pointed to the sky.
Killian grinned. “I’m aware of the great ball of fire and its position in the sky communicating time.”
I didn’t grin. “That means you’re late.”
“If it’s almost lunch, I’m just on time,” he countered, his eyes turning intense.
I stared at him, something stirring in my belly for some reason.
“Three periods come before lunch,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, they’re not important. Lunch is,” he said, his voice hoarse.
My fingers tingled. “Lunch,” I whispered, realization dawning.
Killian nodded. “Yeah. Lunch. With you.”
I swallowed. “Where have you been this morning?”
He shrugged, looking sideways a moment. “At the garage. They’re short. Need an extra hand. I’m helping them out.”
Without even thinking about it, I lifted my hand and turned Killian’s chin so he faced me. “But you have school,” I reminded him. “What about your classes?”
Killian’s eyes blazed into mine. “What about them, Freckles?”
I dropped my hand quickly, registering that was the first time I’d touched him of my own accord. I hadn’t worked up the confidence to do it yet. Apparently irrita
tion helped.
Killian didn’t let my arm fall to my side, as was my intention. He grasped it and linked my fingers with his.
“You need to go to them in order to graduate high school,” I whispered, trying not to be distracted by his large hands engulfing mine.
He shrugged again.
I frowned. “Killian, you need to graduate high school, so you can go to a good college.” I hated sounding more like a mom than my actual mom ever did.
Killian’s eyes went blank and he dropped my hand. “You think I’ve got a chance at college, Lexie?” he asked in a flat voice.
“Yes,” I replied firmly. “I do.”
He shook his head. “That makes one of us,” he muttered, glancing at his feet. “Guys like me, we don’t belong in college. I’m only wasting my time here.” He nodded at the building in front of us. “But Steg insists I do it if I wanna prospect. That place doesn’t hold a future for me.” He paused. “Well, at least it didn’t.”
There was a long, beautiful moment of silence as I realized his meaning. I couldn’t address that now, though.
“You can be anything you want to be. You’re smart. Really smart. You could be a frigging astronaut if you wanted,” I exclaimed.
Kill grinned. “Got no desire to travel into space and see the stars up close, Freckles. I can see the only one that matters right here.” He stepped forward so our bodies brushed together.
I gazed at him, my entire body going jelly at the proximity and the electricity between us. I blinked rapidly. “Don’t do that,” I snapped. “Don’t distract me when I’m trying to have a serious conversation.”
“I’m being dead serious, Lexie.” His eyes were blazing.
I let the warmth of those words settle around me. “You can be anything you want to be, Kill. You might not have a mom who tells you that, but you can,” I whispered.
His eyes hardened the moment I mentioned his mom. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted to be was a patched member of the Sons,” he informed me. “Don’t need a high school diploma for that.”
I bit my lip, feeling profoundly sad that he was potentially throwing his future away for this club. It wasn’t my place to judge. They were his family, and Zane was part of it. It wasn’t my place to judge what was and wasn’t suited for his future. If I really thought about it, I technically didn’t know him that well. On the other hand, it was like I’d known him forever. Or as forever as I could fathom. It just got to me the way he talked about himself as... less. The way he dismissed himself.
“What if you change your mind?” I pressed softly. “What if you decide you want to get out of Amber? See the world?”
He searched my eyes. “I won’t change my mind,” he replied firmly. “You don’t have to get on a plane to see the world, Freckles. Shit I’ve seen in my life, I know plenty about the world. Enough to know what I want from it.” He stepped forward to clasp our hands together once more. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted was my bike, that cut, and the freedom that came with that. It’s a short list, never thought it’d grow.” He squeezed my hand. “Stand corrected, Lexie.” His voice was almost a whisper, his mouth so close to mine I could feel his breath. He was going to kiss me. Finally. After all those almost kisses, after weeks of confusion and desperation, it was going to happen.
I even leaned forward slightly, preparing myself, my entire body pulsing from the realization. Then the bell rang, shocking me backward and Kill’s eyes moved behind me, to where people would be filtering out onto the quad no doubt.
“Let’s get Sam’s shit. It’s time for lunch,” he declared, stepping back.
I let out a breath. That was the only time I’d actually dreaded the lunch bell. I was starting to think Kill and I would never actually kiss. We’d be stuck in this weird almost relationship limbo forever.
My mind had wandered so far it took me a moment to realize my body had done the same. I stopped to catch my breath on a corner and looked around me. The neighborhood was foreign. Amber wasn’t really big enough to have nice and bad parts of town. There were definitely streets with impressive houses, but no mansions or gated communities were around here. Our neighborhood was mostly full of family homes, apart from Zane’s. And although they might not have been mansions, people took care of their homes. Took pride in them.
The houses around here didn’t show that. Some looked like the residents took a passing interest in lawn maintenance; others looked like overgrown jungles. Paint chipped off most houses, as with the one in front of me. The lawn was mowed, but it was yellowing and patchy.
I guessed the house had been white at some point, but the weatherboard was faded to gray in some places and completely peeling off in others. There was a closed off garage, which was in a similar state of disrepair, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was the motorcycle in the garage. It was familiar. I would know it anywhere.
My heart sank and soared at the same time. I knew who this debilitated house belonged to.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I turned my attention to the front door, which had a very familiar, leather-clad body leaving it. Though I couldn’t hear the slam, I watched the force behind Killian’s body as he yanked it closed and then stormed down the cracked pavement toward his bike. Something must have told him he was being watched because his stormy gaze landed on me and he froze. Literally right on the spot.
I did the same. This was because of the purplish black shadowing underneath his eye and the bleeding cut on his cheek, which hadn’t been there yesterday. Worry and anger, pure anger, bubbled inside me at the sight of it. I felt a distinct urge to know who inflicted violence on his beautiful face and a need to extract some sort of revenge on them.
Killian seemed to shake himself out of his paralysis and moved his stride toward me. I didn’t move, didn’t even take my earbuds out as he got closer. I merely stared at the bruise on his eye.
When he finally got to me, his gaze slowly went up and down my body. I realized I was not only sweating but wearing bright pink running shoes, bright pink short shorts, and a tight, white tank. I probably looked ridiculous and I guessed my face matched the color of my shorts.
His hands reached up to pull my headphones from my ears. “What are you doing here, Freckles?” he asked, his jaw hard.
“What happened to your face?” I replied, not caring about how terrible I most likely looked.
His eyes turned blank. He stepped back slightly. “Nothing.”
“That’s not nothing,” I argued. “That’s something. Someone hit you.” My voice was small, quivering with anger.
“I’m fine. You should see the other guy,” he told me, his tone didn’t match the cliché joke. He was so far from laughing, or even smiling. This entire version of him was foreign to me. “What are you doing here? At my house. You shouldn’t be here,” he continued in the same foreign voice.
I felt myself redden more. “I was out running,” I said, pointing out the obvious. “I wasn’t paying attention as to where I was going. I had no idea this was your house.” I glanced at it. “Until now,” I continued, meeting his eyes.
“You should pay better attention.” His voice was almost a growl. “You definitely shouldn’t be running around this neighborhood, especially like that.” His gaze flickered down to my legs for a moment. “You shouldn’t be here. A girl like you doesn’t belong here.”
I blinked a couple of times to catch up with everything he was saying, to try to understand the coldness in his voice. “But you’re here,” I pointed out. “It can’t be that bad.” I tried to make my voice light.
My words had the opposite effect. He laughed without humor. The harshness of the sound almost made my body jerk. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “Go home. Now, Lexie,” he ordered.
I flinched at the way he was addressing me; it was so unlike him. My eyes flickered to the house once more and something clicked. He was embarrassed. Embarrassed for whatever reason that he lived here, a
s if there was a reason to be. And hot, broody boys like Killian weren’t supposed to be embarrassed, so he was going for cruel instead.
I stepped forward, frowning at his head in concern. “Okay, I’ll go home, but only if you come with me. Tell me what happened to your face, let me make sure it’s okay. Patch up the cut,” I said, my voice soft.
Killian stepped back, away from me. “You’re going home. I’m sure as shit not coming. I’ve got places to be, Lexie. Stop trying to venture into stuff you don’t understand. Go where you don’t belong,” he said in a cold voice.
“Where I don’t belong,” I repeated in a hurt voice. “You mean with you,” I said slowly, my stomach sinking.
Killian nodded once. “That’s exactly what I mean. A girl that wears that much pink, is that bright, does not need to be tarnished with my black,” he said. “So go,” he commanded.
I stood tall, not giving in to the urge to run, to let the tears at the back of my eyes fall at the harsh words. “No,” I replied firmly. “You don’t get to tell me where I do and don’t belong. I’m not going anywhere.”
Killian stared at me for a long moment, his face blank. “Fine,” he said finally. “I’ll go.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode to his bike, mounting it and roaring off. I could only stare at him. He didn’t even glance my way.
****
“You sure you don’t want to come with us, babe?” Wyatt asked after we’d finished our practice session.
I nodded. “More than sure. Mom and I have plans.” Plans with a lot of junk food and trashy movies.
“Yeah, but it’s Saturday night,” Sam cut in. “Your mom’s effing awesome, don’t get me wrong, but this party will be sick.”