His gaze swept over the other students and then landed on us. He nudged his glasses up and his eyes darted to me, to Nathan, and then settled on Gabriel. There was a slight hint at curiosity but it was gone in an instant with an accepting nod. He must have been used to the boys opting to ride home with him at the last minute.
Nathan waved shortly at Kota. “We’re in trouble.”
Kota glanced briefly at me and then at Gabriel. “What now?”
Nathan started explaining and was just up to the part about Mr. Blackbourne telling me to take it easy when Gabriel nudged him in the ribs hard.
“Ow,” Nathan said. He rubbed at the spot. “Gabe, what–”
Gabriel made a zipping motion over his lips and jerked his head toward the school.
We all turned and I spotted Marie, my sister. Her T-shirt was tight against her thin frame, and her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her head was down as she walked toward us.
“Everything okay?” I asked her as she got close. She’d been taking the bus lately. I didn’t think she liked riding with the boys.
Marie’s head picked up as she got closer. Her eyebrows scrunched together, and she glared angrily at me. She turned her attention, noting the three boys. Her lips clamped shut, and she clutched at the straps of her book bag. She wasn’t going to answer.
Was something wrong? I wasn’t sure how to ask in front of the boys. I locked gazes with Kota, silently asking for help.
He didn’t miss a beat. He opened the front passenger door. “Want to sit up front?” he asked her.
Marie gave him a slight nod, a small thank you, and wedged herself into the seat. Kota closed the door for her.
We all got in. I sat in the back between Gabriel and Nathan.
The ride was silent on the way to Sunnyvale Court. I occasionally exchanged glances with Gabriel and Nathan. They asked me the same questions I was asking them mutely. What’s wrong with her?
Marie said nothing, and the moment Kota parked the car in the driveway of our two-story, gray house, she jumped out and ran inside.
We clustered around Kota’s car in the driveway. My sister had retreated into the house and I felt guilty about not being able to do more for her, and sad that she wouldn’t let me. The last few times I’d tried, she never talked, and she pushed me out the door. Although before, she’d never seemed this upset. It was unsettling.
“I don’t think she likes riding with us,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know why she does it.”
“She doesn’t have that many friends,” Nathan said. “And the ones she has don’t have cars. You know how crowded those busses are. I can’t really blame her wanting a break from it.”
“How do you know she doesn’t have many friends?” I asked. I never saw my sister much during school and didn’t know who she hung out with except for Danielle, a neighbor. Usually our schedules were so different that I never saw her at all. Ever since our mother went into the hospital, it was like she avoided me even when I was home.
Gabriel smirked at me. “Have you seen your sister? She sits at the band geek table.”
“How do you know which table she sits at?”
“I go through the cafeteria before I get to the courtyard,” Gabriel said. He hooked an arm around my neck and hugged me close. “She probably just had a rough day. Don’t worry about her. She probably didn’t want to ride the bus. Those busses are shit.”
Maybe she was still adjusting. At least she had the boys and me looking out for her. Even if she couldn’t appreciate it right now, the boys bought groceries, and took care of a lot of things we couldn’t do for ourselves. I tried to believe Gabriel and the others, that she had a rough day.
Kota collected his book bag and mine. “Okay, Mr. Blackbourne’s given us orders. Sang, do you want to come home with me?”
I nodded. If Marie was feeling down, I thought it best to give her some space. If I went with Kota, she’d have the house to herself. I looked at the others, confused. “Are you all not coming with us?”
“They’re going to go fetch vitamins and healthy food.” He turned to Nathan. “You want dinner shift?”
“I’ll make dinner,” Nathan said. He turned to Gabriel. “You coming?”
“I’ll go,” he said. He squeezed me around the shoulders again and then released me, heading for the car. “I don’t want you buying her just rabbit food and tofu.”
“Hey, tofu tastes pretty good if you fry it right. And I don’t care what she eats. She could eat a whole damn cow if she wanted. I’m tired of her looking like a stick, and being about as lively as one lately.”
Kota stood beside me as Nathan pulled the car out of the drive. Gabriel waved to me as they started down the road. I finger waved back and he smirked at me.
When they were gone, Kota sighed and turned to me. “Do you need anything from your house?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t think of anything I really needed. I had clothes at Nathan’s house, and I was pretty sure I had a few things at Kota’s house, too. “Think it’s okay to leave Marie alone?”
“Danielle should be by after school. She’ll keep her company.” Kota turned to head down the drive.
Danielle didn’t sound like the best sort of company, but it was all Marie had, so I didn’t want to say anything further about it. I’d never talked to Danielle, but the guys didn’t like her and at one point, she stole my clothes. I didn’t understand why Marie was friends with her but it wasn’t my choice. It was hers.
As we started walking down the road, a brown, old car rolled up, and parked on the curb a few houses down from Kota’s house.
Kota paused in the road. I glanced at the car, recognizing it as Mr. Morris’s. The principal, Mr. Hendricks, had Kota followed nearly everywhere. It was uncomfortable, but as long as we were watched, Kota couldn’t do much Academy work, and that made Mr. Hendricks happy. “Mr. Morris is taking a shift again,” I said.
“I see him,” he said. Kota’s eyes darted from his house to the brown car, as if he was trying to figure something out.
I tugged at his arm. “Is everything okay? Should I go tell him you plan on being home tonight? Maybe he’ll give us a break.”
“No,” he said. He turned to me. “I don’t want you talking to him anymore, or to anyone else following us. Okay?”
I shifted on my feet, unsure. He hadn’t said anything about the night I went with Luke and stopped Mr. Morris from following us. That time, I’d promised Mr. Morris I’d report information back to him about the guys. I thought it might be useful. “But shouldn’t we work with him? Couldn’t we get information from him? Maybe he knows something we don’t and it would help you figure out what Mr. Hendricks is up to.”
“Maybe he could help us,” he said. “But we haven’t confirmed why he’s working for Mr. Hendricks in the first place.”
“For money,” I said, recalling the conversation I’d had with him. “He said he doesn’t get paid enough.”
“I think there’s more to it,” he said. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Hendricks has a couple of partners working with him, I just don’t know who. It might be Morris or it might not. But don’t worry about it for now, just stay away from him. Mr. Blackbourne has taken over giving him the information you promised him. He’ll figure it out.”
The vibe I got from Mr. Morris was that he was under pressure from Mr. Hendricks and thought the surveillance was pointless. I glanced once more at the sedan, but then relented. Kota and the others may have decided they needed to be more careful. Given recent events with Volto, I couldn’t blame them. We still had no idea who Volto was; he could be anyone.
If Mr. Blackbourne took over what I was supposed to be doing, I had to let it go. They must have had a plan, and I had to trust them.
I followed Kota down the road and to the garage door of his house. Max, his golden retriever, was out on the lead. Kota ignored Max’s happy barks at our arrival. Max approached me, following us inside the garage, as far as the lead would allow. I
dropped my fingers behind his ears, giving him a small scratch.
Kota stuck his key into the lock, twisting the handle, and shoved the door open. He stepped back, stretching his arm toward the open door. “Coming in?”
I passed him, stepping into the short hallway inside the house and then paused to wait for him. The rest of the house was dark, ominous.
Kota dropped our things just inside the door, and stepped back out. He unhooked Max’s lead. The retriever made a dash for the open door. Max paused long enough to sniff my leg once before trampling on through the house, smelling every corner as if inspecting.
I had to smile. I wasn’t sure if he was glad to be inside or if he was trying to do a security check. I suspected the latter. Max was Kota’s dog, after all.
Kota came back inside, shutting the door. “Where do you want to sit?”
I eyeballed his bedroom door and then the hallway that led to the rest of the house. “Is Jessica here?”
“She must have been home,” Kota said. “She let Max out. But I have a feeling she’s at a friend’s house. She would have popped out and checked on who was coming in if she was here.”
If his sister wasn’t going to be home for hours, and his mother didn’t usually get off work until late, and Nathan was away...
My tongue suddenly glued itself to the top of my mouth. We were alone?
I stared at Kota, wearing his faux school uniform. The maroon tie was still neatly tied at his neck and the dark blue jacket was buttoned properly. I tried to focus on them as it felt easier, because his eyes had a way of making me feel he could see into my thoughts. I didn’t want him to know I was nervous.
He bent at the hip to meet my face and catch my attention. His smile softened. “Something wrong?”
I shook my head, trying to force a smile. I didn’t want to tell him the truth. My heart raced just thinking about it. Despite all we’d been through together, being around the boys was what I enjoyed the most, but being alone with one of them terrified me. I was excited by the idea, but he was afraid he’d discover that I’m just ... me?
Kota bent over, scooped up our bags with one hand, and with the other he nudged me toward the living room. “Why don’t we sit downstairs today?”
That sounded good to me.
He dropped our bags on the floor by the coffee table and sat back in the corner of the couch, putting an arm up on the armrest. He patted the spot next to him.
I settled onto the couch, with my feet flat on the floor, and my hands positioned in my lap. For a moment, I sat straight as an arrow, until I realized he probably would think I didn’t like him, or something was wrong. I forced myself to sit back, until his arm was grazing my shoulders. His fingers stretched out and folded over my collarbone, welcoming me to lean into him.
I breathed in deeply to try to remain calm. The scent of his sweet spice cologne awoke so many memories all at once – even the first time we met.
That’s when it struck me. Our lives had been in such a fast forward state for weeks. Mr. Blackbourne’s orders had forced us to completely stop. With nothing before me now but several days of free time, I felt like we were starting at the beginning. Who was Kota Lee when he wasn’t leader of the Academy group? What was he like when we weren’t fighting or working, which was usually all the time?
“Well?” he asked quietly, his fingers brushing softly against my shoulder. “Any homework tonight? Do we want to get that out of the way?”
I wanted to say yes. It was brilliant of him to think of it. I yearned for something to distract us and homework seemed perfect. It would at least give me something to focus on until I got more comfortable being alone with him.
But I didn’t have any tonight. I’d caught up at lunch time like we normally did, and my afternoon classes didn’t have any. “Did you have some?” I asked in a small voice, hoping.
His eyebrows scrunched together as he thought for a moment. “Actually, I don’t think I do,” he said. A smile caught in the corner of his mouth. “I’d say study, but maybe we should skip it.”
“Skip it?” Was this really the same Kota that asked me about homework and studying every single day?
He scanned the room. He got up, fished the television remote from the entertainment center, and sat back down again. “What do you like to watch?”
I didn’t have a clue. I hadn’t watched any sort of TV program in weeks. I had no idea what was currently running. My finger fluttered up toward my lips. “I don’t know.”
His gaze followed my finger. There was a slight dip in the corner of his mouth, but he corrected it quickly. He rotated the remote in his hand, as if reconsidering. “How about a game?” he asked.
I perked up at this. A game! That was perfect. Plenty of distraction. Why I needed something to distract me from him, I didn’t know. Deep inside, I wondered what would really happen if he had to focus on me, but I was too scared to find out. “Okay.”
He smiled, and got up again to find the Xbox controllers. He stopped halfway back, looking down at me on the couch with his eyebrows scrunched again.
“What?” I asked. I expecting him to pick up his phone and find some Academy business he needed to get to.
He strolled forward again, and placed the controllers in my lap. “Find a game you want to play,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He dashed around the couch, back toward the hallway. A second later, I heard his footsteps on the stairs going up to his room.
He didn’t pick up his phone, so I guessed it wasn’t Academy work. I got up, crossed the room, and knelt in front of the television, gazing at the collection of video games. He had a lot, mostly single player games. I didn’t want to play alone. Did Kota play games by himself when no one else was around? I checked the titles. A lot of them were role playing, with swords and bows and arrows. So he liked fantasy games?
As I searched for something that was two–player, Kota returned, hauling one of the large blue bean bag chairs across the living room. He dropped it in front of the couch, and turned it over until it was sitting upright. “Thought this might be more comfortable,” he said.
Just one? I turned from him, appearing interested in the games in order to hide my excited smile.
“Did you find one?” he asked.
“Which one is the car racing one?” I asked. I couldn’t find another one that was two-player.
He came closer, hovering over me. He reached around my shoulder, plucking one of the games from the shelf. “Go sit. I’ll put it in.”
I grabbed the controllers, taking them with me to the bean bag chair. I settled in. I still had my shoes on so I kept my feet on the floor. The cool of the chair material met my thighs in the short gym uniform shorts. I zipped the hoodie up a bit to keep the warmth in.
Kota inserted the disc and stood by to make sure the game started up properly. He left the game case on the shelf, and returned, dropping down heavily into the beanbag chair next to me. I tilted sideways and the controllers fell from my hands. I splayed a hand over his chest to catch myself before I tumbled along with them.
Kota laughed, sitting up a little and inching himself over to give me more room. “I’m still not used to these things.”
I smiled a little, pressing on him to sit up again. My knees knocked into him. He hooked an arm under my thighs, dragging me around until my legs nestled over his.
“You can take your shoes off if that’s more comfortable,” he said. He checked with me to see if I wanted to. I nodded. He eased the heels of my shoes off my feet and tucked them away on the other side of the bean bag chair, along with my socks.
I wanted to press my palm against my nervous heart. We were cuddling so close. I wasn’t sure I could concentrate on a game, or anything else for that matter. My shorts were up higher along my thighs since we were sitting awkwardly in the bean bag chair. Warmth from his thighs meeting mine, and his side and chest – I felt every little breath he made, every movement.
Kota started up the game, picked a short rac
e, and turned on my controller for me. When the race started, it took me a couple of moments to figure out the buttons.
“Come on slowpoke,” Kota said, nudging me in the thigh. His car slowed until it was crawling beside mine.
It had been a few weeks since I’d played this game with them so it took time to get re-familiar with how it worked. I tapped at the speed button, and tried collecting turbo bonuses. I managed to catch up with the last of the computer-controlled racers, and Kota’s car remained parallel with mine.
I didn’t understand what he was doing. I knew he could play better than this. He didn’t use a speed bonus unless I did. I wanted to look over at him, but I found myself still shy and wasn’t sure about looking at those questioning eyes.
A sharp left turn appeared in the game. My car swerved, knocking against another car. It flipped over, crashing.
Kota stopped his car, waiting while mine was game-magically transported into position.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
He leaned his arm against mine. “Do what?”
“Why’d you stop?”
“I was waiting for you.”
Waiting for me. He said it casually like blessing me after a sneeze. It still didn’t feel right, though.
He’d done something similar once when we played together before. He managed to stick right behind me until we got really close to the finish line, before he zoomed around me and took off and won.
When our cars managed to get close to the finish line this time, he slowed his car until his was behind mine. I crossed before his. Kota took last place.
I turned on him, using my elbow into the back of the bean bag chair to prop myself up. “Did you just lose on purpose?”
Kota smirked. “You were going slowly. I was giving you a chance.”
“I’m not used to this game.” I studied his face but his eyes were telling me things I wasn’t sure about. “You’re letting me beat you?”
Kota’s eyes shifted until he was staring down the screen. “What’s the big deal? I just wanted you to...”
“Nu-uh,” I said. “Don’t play like that.”
Kota’s eyebrows shifted up. “Like what?”