“Where have you been? Hi, Dylan.”
“Hey there, Warrior Princess. What’s up?”
“Joss?”
My mom stood in the hallway for a second with a dishtowel in her hands, then she dropped it and raced down the hall to fling herself on me too.
“Mom, you’re squashing me,” Jill complained.
“Think how I feel,” I muttered.
They both let me go. I felt guilty.
Mom looked at Dylan. “You’ve been fighting again?” she asked me. “Are you okay? Jocelyn, where on Earth have you been?”
“I’d like to know the answer to that.”
Dad stood at the top of the stairs with full-on Dad Look. Everyone took a step back as he started down. Dylan finally shut the door, and I had to be pretty impressed that he didn’t put himself on the other side of it.
“Wait, Dad, there’s something I need to tell you first. About the shop.” Now that I was here at home, looking up at Dad, it felt harder to talk. It felt kind of hard to breathe.
“We heard it on the scanner, sweetheart,” Mom told me as Dad came down the stairs.
“The police called; I was just going out to see what’s what,” he said, reaching the bottom.
“It’s pretty—”
My report was cut off in a bear hug.
“It can wait, Joss,” he told me, his voice rough. “First things first. Are you okay?”
I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his shirt, mortified that I was crying. “Yeah, I’m okay.” Except for feeling like there’s a hand wrapped around my throat and I can hardly talk.
“That’s what’s important, little girl. I’m glad you came home.”
I hadn’t been “Daddy’s little girl” for a really long time. The tears came harder as he ran a hand down my hair and kissed the top of my head.
“I’m so sorry. It’s bad—the store—it’s really—”
“Don’t worry about the store. That’s my business.”
“But it’s my fault!”
“Jocelyn,” he ground out, clearly losing patience, “the damned store is insured. Tell me what’s going on with you.” But I didn’t know what to answer. “I see you haven’t learned to duck yet,” he said to Dylan over my head. “What did you two get mixed up in this time?”
Dylan gave Dad a pretty truthful rundown of what went on in the mall. Not a play-by-play, but just the basics. I managed to stop crying at some point, but Dad didn’t let me go.
“Dylan, let’s go in the kitchen and clean up that cut on your head,” Mom suggested. “Jill, go bring me the first aid kit.”
“How come every time you bring my sister home I gotta get the first aid kit?”
“It’s a damned good question,” Dad muttered as they left the room.
“Dad…”
“Don’t you ‘Dad’ me.” But there wasn’t much bite to it. He pushed me back from him and tilted my chin up because I didn’t really want to look him in the eye. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah, I’m not hurt.” I shrugged. “Headache, few bruises...”
“The usual, huh? You think you should have a usual level of being beat up?”
“I didn’t get beat up,” I said testily, swiping at my cheeks. “That guy could change gravity. We actually did really well. Dylan, especially, did—”
“Just…spare me the account of that kid’s heroic deeds. So where are we now? If I go to the store and talk to the police, are you going to be here when I get back?”
“I’ll be here, Dad.”
“You’ve made a point, Joss. I don’t think it’s a good point, but you’ve made it. We’re still going to talk about this. With the Syndicate involved…Jesus,” he said, running a hand into his hair, “it’s a whole different ballgame.”
I was checking him over without being obvious about it. He was tense, but maybe no more than usual, and not even the tick. It was almost like he wasn’t agitated enough. Was he really that relieved that I was home?
“We can talk about it later. I’ll be here. You need to go see about the store.”
“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re home, sweetheart,” he said softly, rubbing his thumb over the spot. I wondered if he was trying to erase the kiss or rub it in.
He turned from me and walked out the door.
“Gene, don’t forget—” Mom came out of the kitchen with something small in her hand.
“What is it?”
“Your dad forgot his pills.”
“Oh, well I’ll catch up with him.
I took the bottle from Mom and went out the front door, but by the time I got there, Dad had already backed down the driveway and was pulling away. He didn’t see me.
“I don’t recognize these,” I told Mom when I got back inside.
“They’re new.” She took them from me and put them on top of the fridge. Which made no sense anymore. Jill was eight now, not about to mistake medication for candy, and could get whatever she wanted off the top of the fridge. “Jayce started him on these a few weeks ago. I think they’re really helping.”
Dylan was sitting at the table, a fresh butterfly bandage over his eyebrow, Band-aids on a few knuckles, drinking a soda and pretending like he wasn’t listening to us.
“Jayce is Dad’s doctor,” I told him, sliding into the seat next to him. Not because I thought he couldn’t put that together, but because I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed hearing what we were talking about. I trusted him, and if he was going to be around, he could know stuff. It was cool that Mom seemed to think so too. “You know, you could have gone with Dad.”
Mom tilted her head, as if that hadn’t occurred to her. “I guess I could have. He was going over by himself while I stayed home with Jill. I just…” She shrugged. “Too much going on, I guess. Joss, you look terrible.”
“Oh, thanks, Mom.”
“Tired. You look tired. And so does Dylan. You’ve both been through a lot tonight. I think we should say goodnight to Dylan and you should get to bed. Do you need a ride home?” she asked him.
“Aw, Mom, he just got here,” Jill complained.
“Jillian, have you suddenly forgotten how to tell time? Why are you not in your bed?
“I heard a car and then I saw Joss. And no one told me to go back to bed.”
Mom pinned her with the Mom Look.
Parental looks rely a lot on brow positioning. Whereas the Dad Look involves the lowering of the brow as a whole, the Mom Look takes advantage of the power of the single, raised brow. Of Doom.
“Goodnight!” Jill told us, and fled the room.
“So, Dylan, do you need a ride?”
“Um, no thanks, Mrs. Marshall,” he said, getting up and pushing his chair in. I took his soda can and put it in the sink.
“Are you sure? Of course, Gene took the car, but if you want to wait I’m sure he’ll drive you home when he gets back.”
“Yeah. I mean no! I mean, no thanks, I’ll be fine.”
“Well okay. Joss, why don’t you see Dylan to the door and I’ll pretend to be busy in here for the next…” she looked at her watch, “two minutes. And…go!”
We more or less bolted out the kitchen and out the front door as she expected.
“Are you okay?” Dylan asked, stroking my cheek.
I could feel my face turning red. Now that I thought about it, I was embarrassed about losing it with Dad in front of him. I looked down at my boots, kicking at a leaf that had made its way onto the porch. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“And things with your Dad…?”
“Mmmm…not fully resolved. But a lot better than I would have thought. Mom’s right, he does seem to be better.”
He smiled, pulling me into his arms. “I’m glad. I’ll sleep better.”
“You’re not staying?”
He pushed me back to look down at me. “Am I staying?”
My cheeks burned. It wasn’t really like that, but I was still asking a
guy to come up to my room to sleep with me. Sometimes I didn’t even recognize my life anymore. “Well, just ’cause there’s still that person running around, tapping into our dream space, and we don’t know who it is. So I figure we’re safer together. I mean—”
“Marshall,” he whispered, “you don’t gotta talk me into it. Just leave the window open.” He kissed me quickly and said, “I gotta go…disappear,” before skipping down the steps and starting off down the street.
As I shut the door behind me, I wondered if he had some usual place to go for that. Like climbing up my house was turning into some usual thing.
“And five seconds to spare,” Mom said, making a show of examining her watch. She was lounging in the kitchen doorway, but she pushed off and came toward me, wrapping me up in another hug.
“I’m so glad you’re home, sweetheart.”
My throat got all tight again. “Me too, Mom.” It had been hard being away for those first few nights when I was alone, but once Dylan was in the Warren with me, I’d hardly missed my family at all. I felt guilty about that now.
She looked at me, smoothed back my hair. “You’re tired. Why don’t you get to bed, hmm?”
“I think I really need a shower first.”
“Well, I didn’t want to mention…”
“Oh, gee, thanks.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
She watched me go up the stairs, so I had to go slowly, like I was really feeling the tired. As soon as I was out of sight, I moved faster, using my Talent to cushion my steps. In my room I hurried over to the window, reset the contacts and opened it. I didn’t see Dylan coming yet, so before I turned on the light I stripped out of my clothes and pulled on my bathrobe.
I showered quickly and left it running while I gave my teeth a quick brush and tried to make myself look presentable. As presentable as one can look dripping wet in a bathrobe. Probably all for the best that the mirror was fogged over and I couldn’t really see myself.
Back in my room the window was shut and Dylan was stretched out on my bed, barefoot, with his eyes closed. I saw his jacket and boots and kicked them farther under the bed, then pulled at his hand.
“What?”
“Just come on.”
We snuck down the empty hallway to the bathroom where the shower was still running. Dylan raised a brow at me.
“You’re invisible. So make with the invisibility. Just hurry up. It’s not like me to take really long showers.”
He tried to cover his surprise and drawled, “I’m shocked to learn this, really,” as he phased out.
I sat down on the toilet lid, making sure my robe was as closed as it could get. “I figure I owe you a shower since you snuck us into your place the other day while your mom was at work,” I told him, kind of fascinated by the way his shirt appeared only after it left his hand and started falling to the floor.
“Yeah, but I was a gentleman host and kept lookout at the front door.”
I heard the sound of the gentleman’s zipper, and then his jeans sliding down his legs. This was a really bad idea.
“Also, you worked up a sweat fighting it out with Poe. I didn’t want to mention it, but…you’re a little rank.”
“Suddenly she’s picky.” Balled up jeans landed on top of the shirt.
The curtain drew back, fell into place again, and then there was a groan from inside the shower that made me glad the vent fan was so loud.
“Hurry it up.”
“Maybe if you would come in here and scrub my back it would speed things up.”
“I’m not invisible.”
“I know this.”
A few minutes later the water shut off and the curtain drew back. I held up a towel, averting my eyes even though there was really nothing to see.
“Sorry it’s kind of damp.”
“That’s fine.”
I could feel him standing there, right in front of me, drying himself off. The tension in the room was thick. It was too much, a really bad idea. I couldn’t see him, but I wanted to reach out until I found him. To see what he’d do if I touched him. To see what I’d do. It scared me, how fast things had changed—how fast I was changing. A few weeks ago we were still dancing around and not even admitting that we liked each other. Now I felt like I couldn’t stand it if I had to spend the night away from him. It was crazy. I darted to the other side of the tiny bathroom to pick up his pile of clothes.
“Joss.”
I turned around right into Dylan’s chest. His very visible, very naked chest. I dropped the clothes. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It’s not like I hadn’t seen him without a shirt already. I’d even slept with him shirtless. Okay, thinking that didn’t really help me out. My automatic response to being uncomfortable was to drop my eyes, and that showed me how the towel he’d wrapped around him hugged his hips and was just barely big enough to do the job. A shiver raced up my spine.
Then he was kissing me, fast, deep, and desperate. Without clothes to hold onto, my fingers splayed out over his chest, sliding up damp skin, over his shoulders, into his wet hair. This was nothing like the gentle, careful boy I had been cuddling with all week, the one who never pushed me too far, who always backed away with a sheepish grin whenever we started to lose our heads. It was like we’d started off way past that this time.
I strained toward him, trying to press myself closer. He grabbed me around the waist and set me up on the counter. I didn’t think about anything but him, of touching him, of him touching me, kissing me. I didn’t notice how the tie of my robe loosened or the way I opened my knees as I pulled him into me again. Just the way we fit together, the intoxicating thrill of his skin against mine.
I gasped for air when his mouth left mine and trailed down my throat. His lips moved lower, teeth grazing my shoulder, tongue swirling over my skin in a pattern that was driving me crazy. His hands were hard on my bare, arched back, pressing me to him, and beneath my own I could feel the way his breath heaved in and out of his body. One of his hands slid around, pressed against my stomach, smoothed upward, closed over my breast.
My head fell back against the mirror, my whole body slack with the pleasure of it. Then his mouth closed over me and I shot back up, fisting my hands in his hair.
Someone knocked on the door. Dylan dropped me like I was on fire. I was. He had jumped back, then reached out to me to help me pull my robe back into place, but snatched his hand away again before he got there. We were both wide-eyed and breathing hard, staring at each other as I slid from the countertop, pulling the tie on my robe unnecessarily tight. He turned away from me and made adjustments to the towel around his waist.
The knocking turned to pounding.
“Jo-oss, how long’re you going to be in there? I gotta go pee!”
“Jill,” I breathed.
I bent down to scoop up Dylan’s discarded clothes, my tight belt digging into my waist. I balled them up against my chest as Dylan phased out and I opened the door.
Jill breathed out, thoroughly exasperated. “What were you doing in there? It looks like you tried to scrub your face off.”
I felt Dylan brush against my back as he made his escape from the bathroom and I gave Jill my best big-sister, narrow-eyed glare. “It’s just so great to be back. Goodnight, Jill.”
She returned the squinty eyes and threw in an obnoxious air-kiss as I hurried down the hall after Dylan.
“Can I get my pants, please,” he whispered out of nowhere as soon as I had cleared the door.
“Here,” I said, shoving them in the direction of his voice and connecting with his stomach. “And stay invisible until you’re decent.”
“I think that’s going to be a really long time.”
“Ha ha,” I said, yanking the bedcovers down. I felt around under my pillow. I still had PJs there.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting into my closet,” I told him as I pushed some hangers and kicked a pack aside to make room for my feet.
&nbs
p; “You don’t trust me?”
“I think you’ve seen enough for one night.”
I closed myself into the little space and got dressed, bumping against the closet constantly and feeling silly. Dylan flicked off the light. When I opened the doors again he was right there, wearing his jeans, but all bare-chested in the light coming in from the window and grinning down at me.
“It’s like you don’t know me at all. It’s never enough.” His arm snaked out and grabbed me, but he turned me around so that my back was to him as we fell back on the bed together. He kissed my cheek. “Sorry I got carried away.”
“Not like it was just you,” I muttered, blushing.
“And I’m putting shaving on my to-do list for tomorrow,” he added, rubbing his stubbly cheek against mine.
“Yeah, you do that.”
“So, you know, if you want me to go…”
“I don’t.” It came out really quiet, so I said it a little louder. “I don’t want you to go. You keep apologizing to me, like you’re doing something wrong. But I know…” I didn’t know how to say what I knew.
“What?”
“I know your other…relationships…have progressed faster than this. I know you’re taking it slow, like, waiting for me to catch up, I guess. I know you feel like you have to be careful with me.”
“Maybe it’s that I want to be careful with you.”
Damn. That was it. I was goo.
“I mean,” he went on, “you’ve been keeping to yourself for a long time. Maybe you do have some catching up to do. I don’t expect you to cover four years of make-out experience in the first two weeks of our relationship.”
“Four years?”
“I don’t know, give or take a year. It’s not like there’s a schedule. Are you actually worried about this?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes. Come here.” He made me turn to face him, brushing my hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear. It was too dark to really see him, which was kinda good. “Am I thinking about it? Yes. Is it an effort to keep from throwing you down and having my way with you? Yes. I’m a guy, you’re a girl. A beautiful, super-hot, kick-ass ninja girl with a brain, and I am totally in love with you. So don’t think it’s some big hardship for me to be careful with you when all I want to do is take care of you.”