“That’s very thoughtful of you, Brendan,” Christine said a little stiff ly, handing me my backpack. “Have a good day, dear. Be good to that ankle.”
When the apartment door closed behind me, Brendan grabbed my bag and slung it over his shoulder along with his backpack.
“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but—” I pursed my lips and considered whether Ashley was in earshot, since she had run ahead to press the elevator button “—are you babysitting me because of, well, this?” I gestured to my necklace.
“Your chest? Well, Emma, I won’t lie, your assets have a way of making even the school uniform shirt look good, but mostly I’m worried about your ankle,” Brendan deadpanned, a beatific smile on his face.
“Oh, come on, give me a straight answer.” I tugged on his coat sleeve.
“Nope,” Brendan said, holding the elevator door for me as we stepped inside for the short ride to the lobby—where out front was parked a shiny, sleek black limousine.
“Thank you, but don’t you think the limo is overkill?” I asked as he helped me into the car after Ashley had scrambled in.
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comfortable. “Oh, you’re getting a ride home from school, too.”
“Brendan, really, it’s just a sprain, I didn’t break it,” I protested, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“The last time I sprained my ankle, I kept twisting it because I would walk on it before it had healed. This is something I can do for you. So, please let me do this for you.” Brendan just stared at me with those hypnotic, sparkling eyes of his and I nodded dumbly.
So I begrudgingly agreed to door-to-door chauffeur service, provided by Salinger Industries. Brendan’s dad’s company was responsible for key buildings in the New York City skyline, which explains how Brendan was able to summon a limo with little more than a snap of his fingers. And by Friday, I realized I’d done the right thing by letting my pride take a walk while I took a ride with Brendan; if I’d walked to and from school every day that week, there would have been zero chance that I could have managed the heels I’d borrowed from Ashley.
And there was another little bonus to having a ride home: Friday, we were alone in the back of the limo, which the driver had somehow managed to parallel park on Sixty-seventh Street before taking off for a coffee break.
“I should get going upstairs,” I murmured for the four thousandth time, cradled in Brendan’s arms as we lay there, stretched out in the enormous backseat of the limo. “I have to get ready…do my hair.”
“Your hair looks beautiful as it is.” Brendan’s fingers twisted in my hair, his breath was warm on my neck. His mouth teased my skin, alternating between gentle nibbles and more demanding kisses.
“I really have to get dressed,” I whispered a few minutes later, but contradicted myself by lightly raking my nails down the back of his neck—one of Brendan’s more sensitive spots, 9780373210305_TS.indd 268
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I’d come to learn. With a playful growl, he pressed his lips to mine, his urgency f looding my senses.
“I have to, um, I should get upstairs.” My thoughts got foggy when he broke away to kiss my neck again. Where did I need to be? Why did I have to be anywhere except in this backseat?
“We have hours,” Brendan said persuasively, his mouth moving to my collarbone as his hand traveled up my thigh.
“You might, but it takes me longer,” I said, reluctantly pulling myself up and out of his embrace. Getting ready was just my excuse—I felt like if I didn’t put the brakes on now, I might not have the strength to stop things if they progressed to a more intimate level. And I was not about to lose my vir-ginity in the back of a limo before a big dance.
“Actually, we don’t have hours. I forgot my turntable at home so I couldn’t completely set up before school this morning.” Brendan gave me an apologetic smile as he propped himself up with one elbow. “We have to get to the dance about a half hour early, if that’s okay. I have to set up all the deejay equipment.”
“Then I should really go,” I exclaimed, grabbing my bag from the wide f loor. But Brendan grabbed my hand and pulled me back, reaching into his jacket pocket for something.
“Well, you can’t get ready without this, I think,” he said, pressing a small box into my hand as he touched his lips to my cheek.
“What— Brendan, what is this?” I stammered as I looked down at the black velvet box, confused. I already promised Aunt Christine I wouldn’t elope….
“It’s just something for you to wear to remind you of how I feel—something else for you to wear, I should say,” he corrected himself as he ruefully touched his index finger to my pendant.
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I opened the box—then gasped. Nestled in the black velvet was a white-gold Claddagh ring—with a sapphire heart-shaped stone in the center.
“Oh, my God, Brendan, this is beautiful,” I breathed, touching the glittering face of the ring with featherlight strokes, afraid to smudge the sparkling metal. Two hands gripped the heart, which was adorned with a glimmering diamond crown.
“It’s a Clauddagh,” he said, taking it out of the box and sliding it onto my ring finger. “You wear with the heart facing this way.” Brendan tapped the point of the heart, which faced me. “It shows that you’re spoken for.”
“I know.” I smiled, gazing at the ring in awe. “My mom had a Claddaugh.” Then a thought occurred to me, and I looked up to meet his intense green gaze.
“Why sapphire? Don’t get me wrong—I love it,” I said hastily. “But why sapphire?”
A funny look crossed Brendan’s perfect features, and he just shook his head.
“I just had a feeling you’d like it,” he muttered.
“I do. Thank you, I love it. But I didn’t get you anything,”
I said remorsefully. Brendan just laughed and kissed my lips before kissing my hand.
“You have no idea how much you’ve given me, Em.” Brendan brushed his fingers through my hair, playing with a few strands. “But I should probably let you get out of here and get ready, though.”
I glanced at my new ring, then at the clock in the limo’s state-of-the-art stereo, and slid my sparkling left hand around his neck.
“I guess we have a little time,” I whispered, pulling him closer to me for another kiss.
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* * *
A half hour later, I finally made it upstairs, mumbling a lame excuse about traffic before jumping in the shower to start getting ready for the dance. I had about three hours to turn from street urchin to My Fair Lady.
I blew my hair dry in record time, adding a few waves with my curling iron so it looked a little different from my boring straight everyday look. I’d overheard some girls talking about getting their makeup professionally done, but as I surveyed myself in the mirror on the back of my bedroom door, I thought I didn’t do too bad of a job—even though the fake eyelashes I’d bought stuck to my fingers more than they did my eyelids. I pulled them off, corrected one smudge on my smoky eye makeup and finished the look with an almost nude lip gloss.
“There. Not too bad,” I said, pursing my lips in the mirror.
Christine had just finished helping me zip up my dress when the doorbell ran
g.
“Of course he’s early.” I eyed my alarm clock and grumbled, grabbing my gloves in my hand and slipping into Ashley’s borrowed Ferragamo heels. I cautiously tested my ankle—not too wobbly, I decided. Still, I threw a pair of thin satin f lats into my clutch along with my keys, phone and lip gloss. I pulled Aunt Jess’s velvet wrap about me and prepared to make my grand entrance into the living room, where I could hear Brendan and Aunt Christine exchanging pleasantries.
With my chin held high and my shoulders back, I stepped into the living room, hoping to dazzle Brendan. But instead, I was the one spellbound. Seeing him now, it was like the first time I’d laid eyes on him all over again. I was a little struck with how dashing, handsome… Okay, I could think of a billion SAT-worthy words to describe how Brendan looked 9780373210305_TS.indd 271
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to me, but truthfully, the only word to describe him at this moment was hot. He looked incredibly, ridiculously, smack-yourself-in-the-face-he-can’t-be-real hot.
Brendan’s hair was pushed back, this time under a fedora.
His green eyes sparkled, and his cheeks were a little f lushed from the cold. His peacoat was open, and he wore all black, from his crisp suit to his open-necked black button-down. He looked like he’d just walked off the set of some film about rock stars moonlighting as gangsters. If rock stars held rose corsages, that is. I melted a little against the doorway.
A small smile tugged at the corners of Brendan’s mouth, and he crossed the room to me.
“You look gorgeous,” he whispered, low enough so my aunt couldn’t hear, as he slipped red roses around my wrist. After we obliged Christine with a photo—actually, with several photos—we were soon being whisked away in the limo.
“You are so beautiful tonight, Emma,” Brendan said, his arm securely around my waist.
“You look pretty amazing yourself,” I whispered, running my hand down his sleek lapel. I doubted there was anyone on the East Coast who looked better than Brendan this night.
“Well, I had to match you,” he said. “That’s a big challenge.”
I fidgeted self-consciously, thinking he’d have to uglify himself a whole lot before we were ever on the same level.
Brendan reached for my hand, taking the gloves that I’d been clutching and tossing them on the wide expanse of open seat next to him.
“No, wait, I need those,” I cried out, reaching for them a little desperately.
His face searched mine for a moment, my eyes darting between his and the gloves. Slowly, carefully, Brendan picked up my hand and, without his eyes ever leaving mine, kissed 9780373210305_TS.indd 272
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my wrist, where the scar began. I bit my lip and looked away, not wanting to see his face when he was eventually repulsed by the scar, and all the ugliness it symbolized.
With his other hand, Brendan touched my cheek and gently tilted my face so it was facing him again. I yearned to look away, but I couldn’t break his gaze.
“Would you do me a favor tonight, Emma? It’s something that means a lot to me,” he said, his mouth warm as it moved against my skin.
I nodded, a little entranced by the way his eyes green eyes burned into mine.
“Remember that nothing else matters to me but you,” Brendan said, very softly. He kissed my wrist again, and with his free hand, picked up the gloves and placed them in the hand he was holding.
The intensity of his emotions overwhelmed me for a moment, and I was glad I was sitting down. I dropped the gloves and put my hands on his face, pulling it closer to mine.
I kissed him softly, and with every movement of his lips against mine, I felt myself fall more deeply in love with him, with this strangely perfect person who for some reason, decided to love me back.
After a few minutes in this embrace, I was dimly aware of a tapping sound on the divider between us and the driver.
Brendan looked out the window.
“Dun, dun, duuun,” he boomed in an impression of the horror movie sound effect. “We’re here. Are you ready?”
I gulped and took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
After we stepped out into the cold night air, Brendan grabbed a thick black case from the trunk—his turntable—in one hand and my gloved palm in the other. The school looked 9780373210305_TS.indd 273
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dark and ominous tonight—and for a second I was reminded of my dream, where I stood in front of the burning house.
I shut my eyes and shook my head, trying to push the creepy thoughts out of my head. You’re going to a school dance, big deal. I followed Brendan into the main entranceway and down the long hallway to the left until we reached the gym, housed in the annex of the school. Since everything else at Vince A had been over the top, I was expecting a My Super Sweet 16-level production for the winter dance. But the gym looked a little like it could have been anywhere: silver and gold helium balloons f loated from the ceiling, there were a few tables and chairs set up and decorated with tea lights and the refreshments, but the room was mostly just lined with folding chairs. But it looked like the dance committee wasn’t completely done—poor Austin was running around frantically.
“No, I said put the raff le table over there,” Kristin commanded from her perch in the middle of the dance f loor, and a tiny redhead—Vanessa, I recognized—dragged a large folding table across the room with a bitter look on her face. I was reminded of one thing, at least, that set this dance apart from those at other schools. The raff le prize was season tickets to the Yankees. At Keansburg, the biggest raff le ever was for an iPod Shuff le.
“I’ve changed my mind, put it back where it was,” Kristin decreed, picking some imaginary lint off her low-cut red dress before turning her back to the girl and us. Poor Vanessa’s updo looked like it was falling apart, and I wondered how many times Kristin had forced her to drag this table back and forth.
If Brendan noticed any of that, he didn’t let on. He didn’t break his stride, keeping a tight hold on my hand as he marched right past Kristin to the deejay’s station in the far left corner to set up his equipment. I just stood there awkwardly, counting 9780373210305_TS.indd 274
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down the seconds until Kristin and her legion of lemmings noticed that we had arrived. She left the room shortly after we arrived—to fix her makeup for the billionth time that day, I assumed.
“Emma, do you want me to take that?” I was so preoccupied that I hadn’t realized Brendan was standing directly behind me, talking to me.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, holding my clutch to my chest.
“Your wrap,” he explained, placing his hands on my shoulders and hooking his fingers inside the velvet collar. “I can put it on a shelf down there.” Brendan gestured to an empty shelf where he’d already stowed his peacoat under the desk the dance committee had fixed up to look like a deejay booth.
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” I mumbled as Brendan slid the soft fabric off my shoulders. I suddenly felt very naked, and looked up. And there it was: Kristin was back—and her lips, freshly painted with a baby-pink gloss, were twisted in a self-satisfied grin as she stared at me. I wanted to look away, but I was kind of amazed. I’d never seen someone look so smug and venomous at the same time before. It was like she’d invented a whole new facial expression to convey just how much she wanted to run me over with a car. Maybe she was driving that taxi?
She looked me up and down, then turne
d to Amanda and whispered something in her ear. They both laughed, staring right at me. Yeah right, like that wasn’t about me.
I smoothed my skirt self-consciously. “Are you sure I look okay?” I asked Brendan. He barely looked at me before darting his green eyes over to Kristin, who had just linked arms with a blond, goateed guy I didn’t recognize. Then he sighed unhappily.
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paring a diamond to…I don’t know…a booger,” he said, and I burst out laughing.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling some of that you-don’t-belong-here uneasiness shed as he kissed my cheek.
“Sorry, I’m going to be distracted for a minute,” Brendan apologized, putting on his headphones and fiddling with his laptop. I sat in one of the folding chairs nearest the makeshift deejay booth, pretending to be engrossed in something on my cell phone when the gym was filled with a loud dance track. I looked up and Brendan was adjusting the levels on his equipment, scrutinizing something on his computer screen. After what seemed like an hour—but was really only about three minutes—Brendan put down the headphones, sitting next to me.
“Do you want to dance?”
I eyed the still-sparse crowd in the gym. “Not just yet, thanks.”
Brendan nodded his head toward the deejay booth. “Any requests?”
I glanced over at Kristin, who was engrossed in something her blond was saying. “Got any Slayer?” I asked hopefully, and Brendan chuckled.
Within twenty minutes, the gym was packed. I didn’t know how many people came with friends or dates or even solo, but Brendan had been right—this was a platform for my classmates to show off. I doubted anyone’s glittering earrings or bracelets were rhinestones. But then I’d look down at my own sparkling sapphire ring and smile. The more I looked, the more I started to wonder if the sapphire was bringing out my witch skills.
I decided to test it out, staring at one of the tealights, and willing it to blow out. The f lame f lickered for a moment before extinguishing. I gasped, then I noticed the brunette standing next to it who had sneezed and blown it out, making 9780373210305_TS.indd 276