Logan picks up both my hands and lets out a breath that spans the entire last year.
“I’m proud of you, Skyla. I think we all needed to grow a little, and this is stretching all of us in the right direction. Take all the time you need. Do whatever you need to do to figure things out.”
Brielle’s salacious suggestions run through my mind, and I blink them away.
Logan’s eyes widen at the prospect.
“That was Brielle’s idea, and I’m not doing that.” I’m quick to defend my questionable honor. “But I am going to do something to try and figure this all out. I’m going to talk to my mother.”
“Your mom?” He glances back at the storefront and frowns. “I always figured she was team Gage.”
“She sort of is.” I pull him in and circle my arms around his waist. “But I’m talking about my other mother, the one who outright said she was rooting for you.”
“That’s the one I was hoping for.” He pushes out an easy grin.
A wild sizzle of light, bright as a nuclear detonation, lights up the vicinity.
“Sounds like my mother heard.” I nod toward the building. “We’d better get in before she accidentally sets us on fire.”
“I’m already on fire,” he whispers into my ear, and a rush of heat explodes throughout my body. “I’m on fire for you, Skyla.” He sears his gaze into mine, and the world could detonate around us for all I care.
Logan is so achingly gorgeous it kills me not to have him.
I’m burning for him, too. But I don’t say it. I need to simmer a little longer, take my heart out of the equation for once while I analyze this from every angle—only, a small part of me is well aware you can never analyze love.
The rain lets up, so Logan and I step back to admire Ethan’s new endeavor the way any patron walking down the street might have the misfortune to do. A giant neon sign blinks a violent shade of red regurgitating the words, “The Gas Lab,” over and over.
“Swear to God it feels like a warning,” I say as Logan shakes his head at the error of Ethan’s marketing skills.
“Probably is.”
Inside the place looks packed, mostly with every available member of my family and Logan’s family, too.
I wave at Emma and Dr. Oliver through the glass.
Logan ushers me in by the small of my back. We step inside, and my senses wait for the delicious aroma of fresh-roasted coffee to hit but there’s nothing.
“Finally!” Mom makes crazy eyes at me as she jostles the baby. “Isn’t it great? Oh hi, Logan.” She squints into him as if she’s secretly trying to place him. “Gage is in the back with your parents.”
I sigh at my mother’s inability to hold Logan’s identity and relationship to the Olivers straight. Although, it is confusing, and life has filled her plate with more than a little to be frazzled about lately. I’m sure Tad’s child is suckling off her brain cells, and soon we’ll have to draw her a roadmap to the bathroom—to the kitchen knives in the event she wants to fall on one after she comes to her senses and realizes whose spawn she’s busy incubating.
I take a step back to soak in the scene. Large, blank canvases hang from the mustard colored walls. The ceilings are at least twenty feet high with long, hanging lights that dangle like snakes from above. A glass-covered case lures me over. I’m half-hoping to find a fully equipped gelato station, or perhaps a deli spread, but, instead, a few petri dish sized wheels of cheese sit looking rather lonely and unappetizing in their pale, mold casings. To the left of the curdled mammary proteins sits a bona fide bar, hooked up to enough oxygen tanks to blow this place sky high with one unfortunate vibration or spark. Chloe sits next to Ethan, laughing, as he runs his fingers through her shoulder-length hair. I swear she’s using her Celestra strength to make it grow faster. It’s not until I inspect the scene a little further do I spot a series of tubes running out of their nostrils.
A pair of warm arms encircle me from behind.
“Boo,” Gage whispers as he blows a gentle kiss just over my ear. My adrenaline spikes, and immediately I scan the room for Logan who seems to have drifted away without me noticing. He’s standing next to Marshall with his eyes hardened in this direction.
Shit.
Gage’s open proclamation has Logan seething.
“Hey you!” I twist out of his arms, trying to make it look perfectly natural, not at all like I’m trying to evade his touch. “What’s up with the nose tubes?” I tip my head over to the bar just as Emily and Drake insert the tiny hoses into their nostrils.
“I guess that’s how you do it.” Gage tweaks his brows. “But I think we should focus on doing other things.” He lets the innuendo hang in the air a moment, and I lose myself in those cobalt eyes. Gage has me in ways that are impossible to disconnect. We’ve woven ourselves into the fabric of one another’s lives—to think of us each with other people seems outright blasphemous.
Emma and Barron come upon us with Logan in tow.
“Interesting place you have here.” Emma rakes her eyes over the blank canvases that adorn the walls.
“I refuse to take credit. This is all my stepbrother’s doing. In fact, both of my stepbrothers have teamed up and this”—I fan my arms out—“is the result of their failed expertise. It’s safe to say they have wild imaginations.”
“Wild indeed.” Barron nods. “I gather they’ve retrieved the proper permits for the air tanks. Do be careful around them. With the proper adjusting, those little metal canisters can turn into projectile missiles.”
“Oh, I’m sure everything is up to code.” Well, isn’t this the trophy crap. I bet nothing is up to freaking code.
Mia and Melissa emerge from behind the counter carrying large, round trays with crackers and samples of boob cheese diced on top.
“This stuff is gross.” Mia thrusts the platter in our direction.
Each one of us politely refuses in turn.
Holden walks up behind her and lays his arm over her shoulder, his hand gliding a little too close to her boob cheese for my comfort.
“How’s my favorite little lady?” he asks.
Mia swoons at his well-chiseled features. Sure, Pierce was—is—good looking, but Holden is just being an ass to piss me off.
“Great,” Mia sings. “I memorized that poem you gave me. The meeting is in seven days, right?”
“Six,” he corrects before frowning over at Gage and me. “Keep it down, would you?” He scolds just under his breath.
Holden leans in my direction and whispers, “I just had an interesting meeting with your mother. Justice Alliance, Skyla? Really?” He needles me with his stone-cold gaze.
“Yes.” I step back into Gage. “Your goose is cooked,” I whisper it low, so Mia can’t make out my veiled threat. Holden stalks off, good and pissed, before bellying up to the bar with his partner in spiritual crime, Chloe. I have a feeling Holden Kragger is just enough of an ass to light those oxygen tanks into orbit just for the hell of it, taking us all along for the ride.
“What’s in six days?” I whisper to Mia just as she’s about to take the cheese tray elsewhere.
“Halloween.” She lowers her head and glowers at me as if she’s trying to hide something.
I lay my hand over hers pretending to help steady the behemoth wood palate she’s lugging around.
Why the hell is Skyla always so nosy? She makes a face. Pierce is right. Celestra think they’re better than everyone else. I can’t wait until my initiation next week. That Treasure meeting was amazing. I bet if I told my stupid sister she’d go and ruin everything.
“Halloween?” I give a little laugh. “I’m so stupid. Of course, it is.” I have no problem debasing myself for the cause, especially now that I know she’s planning an initiation. “Just be careful around Pierce, OK? I don’t think he’s good company.”
“Ew, he’s Chloe’s boyfriend not mine. He’s my leader remember?” she hisses. “And don’t try to change my mind about this. I’m proud of who I am and wh
o I’m about to become. Why can’t you just support me for once?”
It’s not like I’m going to tell her I plan on having a serious make out session with Nate Coleman right after I gift my soul to the dark side, or at least to Skyla it’s the dark side. I’m an angel, damn it. And what I want out of life I’m going to make sure I get.
I watch, stunned, as she walks away offering her spread of molded cheeses to Demetri and Brielle’s mother.
“They’ve already brainwashed her,” I lament to Logan and Gage, but they’re not paying attention, they’re locked in a heated stare, and I can’t break their gaze. “Did I miss something?”
“You didn’t miss anything,” Logan seethes into his nephew. “I’ll catch you guys later.” He looks to the floor before offering me a forlorn smile. “Would you mind if I picked you up for school tomorrow?”
“No, not at all.” Truthfully I miss the days we drove around together carefree, unafraid that the Counts were going to off us just to keep us from procreating.
“Great.” Logan leans in and presses a kiss over my cheek. “I’ll see you later. I’ve got some business to take care of.” And, with that, he’s out the door.
I shake my head as I watch him dissolve into the rain.
“Logan showed me the house he’s building.” I glance up at Gage as he takes a deep breath.
“So what’d you think?” His dimples press in, his lips pull tight.
“I was flattered.” Blown away as hell but I’m too afraid to share that with Gage. I’d hate for him to think he has no hope just because he can’t swing a major real estate deal. “I still think he’s hiding something bigger.”
“You and me both. It’s like he’s got some trick up his sleeve, and, believe me, I’ve tried to get it out of him.” Gage pulls me in by the waist. In the distance I can see Marshall give a disapproving smirk. Miller is here plying him with who-knows-what ego enhancer. She’s desperate to have him back, and I don’t like it one bit.
“Gage, why does Logan think it’s OK to publically show interest in me all of a sudden? I mean wasn’t the entire purpose of having you pretend to be my boyfriend a means to keep us out of danger? Why would the Counts back down just because we won the war? That is if we won. Wouldn’t Logan and I still be a threat if we were able to produce pure Celestra children?”
Gage gives a long blink. I’m sure the thought of Logan and I procreating isn’t something he wants to think about.
“You would both be in real danger and quite possibly more so for your children,” he says it low, almost regretful, as if he had already considered this, and it was the only outcome he could come up with.
“Do you think that has something to do with all this secrecy he’s involved with?”
“Logan is smart. He’s also a problem solver. I’m sure he’s put two and two together and wants to figure a way out of this.” He shakes his head. “He wants you as bad as I do, Skyla. He’s desperate. He’ll do anything.”
“We thought we took down the Counts.” I pull my heavy gaze over to Holden who’s whooping it up with Chloe while Nat looks on, sick to her stomach. “We almost killed ourselves trying, and now we’re back to square one.”
“Hey”—he pulls me in, rubbing my back with his warm hand—“if being with Logan is what you want, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you both stay safe. I’m not going to stand in your way. I promise. I’ll respect your decision.”
My heart settles into my stomach. Gage and all of the indescribable ways he loves me. It doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d do anything to help Logan and me, if that’s what I wanted. And, ironically it makes me want Gage even more.
“Gage.” I tighten my grip around his waist and don’t let go. I never want to let go.
A loud guttural moan emits from the center of the room, and we turn in haste.
Mom runs while plucking poor baby Beau’s clothes off as if he were on fire.
“The bathroom doesn’t work,” Ethan barks. “I had the toilet removed last week.”
Mom holds the clothing-deficient baby right over the trash just in time for a trail of excrement to drop from the smiling, cooing bundle.
Mom wretches a few good times before leaning in and hurling into the open mouth of the waste receptacle, the baby still high in the air above her. The entire room gasps at the sight.
Then, in a blink, baby Beau lets out a good grunt and disposes of his bowels right into the back of Mom’s hair.
Shit—literally.
If ever there were an analogy of how Ethan’s money pit was going to go down, it was this—vomit and crap.
I swoop in to help Mom. I have a feeling I’ll be cleaning up the mess around here in more ways than one.
19
A Sea of Secrets
By midweek the storm finally settles down, leaving Paragon basting in its ethereal haze, comfy and solid like a familiar pair of shoes.
I head downstairs for breakfast to find the table, and every available countertop, filled with coupons and enough chopped up newspapers to make it look as if Mom is carefully crafting a threat to send to the police. I wish she would. I wish she would pin it right to Demetri’s cold, black heart.
“Great news!” Mom beams.
“What’s that?” I ask, making a beeline into the kitchen and smacking right into Tad and Isis. He’s got her bent over the sink while he molests her back with his bare hands, and, swear to God, it looks like he’s doing her from behind. Isis moans and groans as if she’s about to get some major satisfaction right here in the Landon kitchen just ten feet away from my mother.
“There’s a .98 cent store just a hop and a skip away.” Mom speeds over to me with a pair of opened scissors in her hand. “It’s on our neighboring island, Host.”
I return my glare to Isis and Tad getting it on in the kitchen and shake my head into Mom. As if the whole running with scissors infraction wasn’t enough to start the day off with potential for disaster, having her poor choice for a spouse reducing another woman to moans in the very room where she designs her non-palatable cuisine is an inexcusable lapse in judgment.
“Oh, she’s got a backache.” Mom brushes the two of them off with a wave of her hand. “And, speaking of the .98 cent store, I hear they have milk. I’m planning a trip. I thought since you and Gage were thinking about attending the university there, it would be nice if we could all go together.”
“Um…” I’d feel kind of bad, taking a trip with Gage and leaving Logan behind on the island all by his lonesome. “How about just you and me? We could talk.” About a lot of things, like why in the hell she’s letting Tad provoke Isis-not-so-niceis into a sexual nirvana while she, herself, fantasizes about dairy products.
“Great.” She taps me over the arm. “I’ll invite your sisters. We’ll make a girls afternoon out of it.”
“Perfect.”
Isis pants to completion just as my sisters appear, and the three of us gawk at our parent’s gross oversight.
“So what are you girls going to be for Halloween?” I ask, making myself a cup of coffee now that Isis and Tad have collapsed over the couch.
“Raggedy Ann.” Mia opens the fridge and plucks out the milk.
Melissa scoffs at the idea. “That’s so juvenile.”
Mom pulls a virginal newspaper from a trash bag and snips into it like a woman possessed. “Raggedy Ann is adorable! I think it’s refreshing you chose an age-appropriate costume.”
“Yeah, if she were eight,” Melissa smirks. “I’m going to be a wench. You know, a female pirate.”
I have a feeling Melissa is destined to be a wench in life at least when it comes to interacting with Mia. It’s like these girls never get along anymore.
“How about you, Skyla?” Melissa crops up in my face, her eyes squinting into me as if it were a challenge. “Let me guess. You’re going to be the savior of the world.” She breaks out in a wicked cackle that sounds as if it came straight from Chloe Bishop’s throat, and my hair stands on en
d. “I’m teasing.” She wipes a tear from her eye. Melissa leans in. Her widow’s peak hangs over her forehead like the dark side of the moon. “We both know you could never do it.” She leans in and whispers, “Rumor has it the only thing you’re good at saving is your virginity. I don’t think you’re brave enough, or smart enough, to save anyone from anything.” She pulls back, and her lips curve into a maniacal smile. “One might even say you’re a few clowns short of a circus.”
I gasp at the pasty-faced euphemism. Great. Now I have Chloe broadcasting my fears to any Count that will listen. But I guess at the end of the day, I’m Chloe’s biggest fear because I hold Gage’s heart. I just pray to God I don’t crush it.
Both Melissa and Mia take up residency at the bar with their yogurts and bananas. There’s no doubt in my mind Chloe has polluted their minds in other ways as well. Melissa is entering into the final phase of becoming Chloe’s mini-me.
“A wench, huh?” Mom whispers. “That’s so strange.”
“I know,” I say under my breath still shaken from the verbal assault. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” That is if Mom is OK with fishnets and corsets on her eighth-grade stepdaughter. Anyway it’s not my problem. Mia and Melissa are growing girls, and Mom and Tad are just going to have to deal with that. I plan on being long gone during their hormone-laden high school years.
“No, it’s not that.” She shakes her head as the girls converge into giggles over who knows what.
“It’s just that the night Stella passed away, she was wearing that same costume.”
“Who’s Stella? And how did she die while dressed like a wench?”
“Tad’s ex-wife. Well,” she considers it—“I guess she’s not really an “ex” since technically they didn’t divorce. She was killed in a car accident on her way to some big larping event. You know, live action role playing”
“Larping?” I’m not sure what’s alarming me more at the moment.
“Oh, yes, she was a huge larper.” She twists her lips as if she were holding something back.