Chasing Midnight (26 page)

“There are things in this new life of yours that you don’t want to give up, either. Am I right?”

“Well, good for you. You nailed it. But it doesn’t really take a genius to figure out both of my lives have parts that make me happy. I wish I could pick and choose the best of both, but I can’t. Nobody can. So I’m choosing my brothers and my best friend, and all the other crap that goes with them. Okay?”

“I see. So you’re choosing to return to the life where your brother is deathly sick, your parents are poor, and the love of your life barely knows who you are?”

“James Odera is not the love of my life.” At least that, I’m sure of.

“I’m not talking about James.”

“WHAT?”

“You know who I’m talking about.”

Cale. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Because he’s not even part of the equation, okay? He’s just a nice bonus in my otherwise crappy new life.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yep, I’m sure.”

“What if he’s that one person who was meant to be part of your life either way?”

I shake my head, trying not to get tangled up in her words.

“It sure is something to think about, don’t you agree?” she says.

“Are you
trying
to confuse me?”

“No. Just trying to make sure I understand, that’s all. Trying to make sure
you
understand.”

“Well, stop it, already! There’s nothing more to understand. I’m choosing to go back. You just need to tell me how to get there.”

“You’re sure about this?”

I nod my head.

“Sounds like you have it all figured out, then. I’ll get out of
your way.” She pushes off on her bike and glides past me, down the sidewalk.

I chase after her. “Stop! That’s not an answer. You can’t leave until you tell me what to do.”

Her brakes squeak as she slows, turning back to catch my eyes. “What will it be, dear? Love or luck?”

Her question immobilizes me from the inside out. It has never been so simple as that, at least I don’t think so. I reach for the necklace and pull at the clasp while Bird Lady waits for my answer, still haunting me with her scent of hazelnuts and cinnamon. But now that it comes down to it, I’m afraid to make a choice, for fear of making the wrong choice, even after all this. What has she done to me?

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know . . . ,” I say in the smallest voice possible. “Tell me how to choose,” I beg her. “Please.”

“The instructions are simple. Remove the necklace to go back. Leave it to stay. At midnight your choice is final. But remember what I told you, Mackenzie Love—this isn’t a fairy tale. We all get to choose how our story ends.”

Fog circles me like a woolly scarf, thickening the air in my throat, and I choke. Gasp. Suffocate. Until a gust of wind rattles the trees again, whooshing past me and taking with it Bird Lady’s hazelnut scent, leaving in its place the cool, damp aroma of pine needles and redwood trees.

The spot on my chest beneath the clock charm burns, as if my heart is being cleaved in two. The game of tug-of-war inside me is almost over and I feel both sides raising a white flag . . . neither side claiming victory.

Bird Lady streams away from me in bits of glitter as she soars down the creek path, away from me.

I hold as still as possible, afraid to blink.

Until the clock tower chimes eleven.

And then I run to the one person I hope was always meant to be part of my life.

seventeen

C
ale stands in his doorway, his welcome face
obscured by the shadows. I’m freezing, having run all the way to his house from the creek path.

I’m afraid to come in, afraid for what his parents will think when they see me here like a lost dog on their doorstep, bothering them so late. But as his warm hand falls on mine, he tells me that it’s another late night with clients in the city, and then he pulls me inside. He leads me into his house, down the hallway where it’s warm. Inside the study, he stops in front of a blazing fire, somehow reading the turmoil in my eyes.

“Hey, what happened?” he asks.

I release my hands from his and wrap my arms across my body, trying to keep from shivering. He squeezes my arm. “Whoa! You’re freezing, Kenzie.”

All at once he’s pulling his sweatshirt over his head, accidentally carrying the bottom of his T-shirt with it. A patch of skin peeks out right above his waistline, the ripples in his abdomen out for all to see. I find myself looking there, even though I hadn’t planned on it, and then my vision goes black as the sweatshirt falls over my head and I’m instantly flooded with Cale-infused warmth and the familiar scent of his body.

“Thank you.” I shiver, hiding my hands inside his floppy sleeves.

“There’s a story to this, right?” he asks.

I nod.

“I have an idea,” he says when I remain mute. “How about you and I skip town for the weekend? You can explain what happened on the way to Mexico.”

I push him in the chest, laughing. “After today, I’d say it’s not such a bad idea.”

He catches hold of my elephant trunk sleeves hanging past my hands and pulls me to him, throwing his arm around me. Before I know it, his face is near mine, his breath on my cheek. I tense up, afraid to be so close to Cale.

To Cale.

My friend, who has a thing for album artwork, who wears nonsensical T-shirts and beanie caps, who favors his bike over his Mercedes and mows his lawn for the exercise.

Right now the only thing I want in the world is to have him near me.

“I have a better idea,” he says. His words seem to float outward, lightly dancing on my skin. “Mexico’s so far away. Why don’t we hide out here, and not tell anybody where we are? That’s sort of like skipping town but without the commitment.”

I laugh—the first time in hours—happy to be here with him.

He orders me under a blanket on the couch, and while I tell him what happened at the bonfire and at James’s house, he makes me a snack. He’s silent the whole time, never accusing or condescending—not even interrupting with an “uh-huh,” or anything like that. When I finish the whole awful chain of events, he places his hands on my shoulders and cranes his head downward until his ski-capped forehead is close to mine. “I’m sorry, Mackenzie. That sucks.”

There it is. So honest.

Just like that.

When he looks into my eyes, I see reflecting in his nothing but calm and safety, but even then I still turn away when I feel
more tears teetering at the edges of my eyes again, threatening to overflow and ruin this.

Speechless, I drop my head until I’m staring at my feet.

I can’t stop shivering, so he insists I borrow a pair of his sweatpants and a sweatshirt. After changing into them, I exit the bathroom to the low hum of music echoing toward me down the hallway. It sounds like one of my favorite indie songs, which means Cale has gotten ahold of my phone; there is no way he has this obscure song on his playlist. Not a chance. He’s more of a rap/hip-hop guy. It makes me smile, thinking that he plugged in my songs and not his.

The smell of butter sizzling on a hot griddle hits my nose as I peer into the kitchen. What’s going on in there? Trying to be sneaky, I slide across the stone floor when someone grabs me from behind, squeezing me in the middle before letting me go.

I scream and turn to find Cale standing there, towering above me, laughing at me.

“Will you quit sneaking up on me all the time?” I say. “For once I’d like to have a shot at surprising you, okay?”

“If you’d quit trying to sneak around everywhere, then sabotaging you wouldn’t be so tempting.”

“I wasn’t
sneaking.
I was looking for you. How’d you guess my happy music, anyway?”

He looks at me funny, his serious look trying not to slide into the goofy, and trying hard too, because he starts laughing and then gets all serious again.

“What?” I ask, feeling self-conscious.

“Um . . . you have a playlist called ‘happy music.’ I know you don’t think I’m a genius, but I’m not an idiot, either.”

“It does not say that,” I say, running around him to the iPod dock sitting on the kitchen desk. He’s right. I didn’t know I had a “happy music” playlist.

Another thing about my life I don’t know.

I brush past him to the island, where I sit up to the counter in a tall, backless stool that swivels and nearly throws me off,
before I realize it isn’t stationary. He pops me on the head with a spatula and flips a pancake over.

Seriously?

Pancakes?
It’s not fair he knows how to cook like this. I’m not a bad cook—in fact, my chocolate chip cookies are pretty delicious. But maybe I’m just used to comparing myself to my brothers.

My throat catches.

Brothers . . .

I jerk my head upright. “I have two brothers, you know,” I say absently, trying to remember exactly how their little voices sound.

“Are we stating the obvious?” Cale says, transferring a new batch of pancakes onto a plate. “I have blond hair. Go.”

“No, no . . . ” I think about trying to explain things to him, about my two
other
brothers that he knows nothing about . . . but decide it’s pointless. No use in making him doubt my sanity and wasting time when I only have
—shoot
—less than thirty minutes to make some kind of super life-altering decision. No biggie.

“Never mind,” I say, shoving a forkful of pancake smothered in syrup into my mouth. Melting in the sweetness of distraction.

“There are about six texts from your mom on your phone, just an FYI.” Cale finally breaks the no-talk zone first while I’m in the middle of my second pancake. I chew as fast as I can, trying to get it all down before responding, but he beats me to it. “I didn’t read them, though, in case you were wondering.”

I put my fork down and swallow the last of my orange juice. “I know you wouldn’t read them,” I say, realizing the thought never once crossed my mind. “I trust you, Cale.”

And then it hits me.

This is what I love most about him. Why everything between us is so easy, so carefree. Why I am drawn to him despite being tied to James.
I trust Cale.
It’s as simple as that.

Oh.

“You’re the only person—” I stop, getting all tangled in my words, my emotions trying to take me down.

Cale waits, his eyes crinkling up like they do when they get contemplative, where his thick fan of lashes crowd up in the corners.

I gulp, realizing what I’m about to do, to say. I need sleep. I need to comb through my hair and redo my makeup. I need to eat more pancakes.

But first, I need to do this.

Even though I don’t know if Cale will laugh at me or tell me I’m crazy. That’s what I’m most afraid of—rejection.
Even now.
Even though I live in the biggest, fanciest house at the top of Sea View Drive. Even though I have a perfect view and a perfect nose and a new car in the garage. Even though I’m a lucky one.

Even though I think I’m about to leave it all behind.

“I have to tell you something,” I say, pushing my plate away. He picks it up like a waiter and deposits it in the sink. “Come back here. And stop waiting on me, though I do love it. Especially tonight.”

He turns around and comes back to me, spinning around like a little kid in the stool next to me. I reach forward and grab his knees, stopping him until we’re facing each other. His eyes glow in the light, watching me patiently while I attempt to string together a coherent thought.

“Did I tell you how cute you look in my sweats? Sort of like a little puppy dog,” he says.

My heart skips.

He cracks a crooked smile and slides his eyes sideways. Blushing.

That face.

My heart pounds. I’m so nervous, so insanely afraid to look him in the eye right now. “I’m having a midlife crisis. Except I’m only sixteen,” I blurt.

He laughs, of course, calming my nerves a little like he always does.

I continue. “What I thought, or wished, would be a good thing actually turned out to be, well . . . bits of good mixed in with chunks of bad . . . and . . . mostly not so great.” Why does he look so endearing right now, his freckles dotted beneath his eyelashes so adorable? “I’m ready to give it all up, if you can believe it . . . my house, my sweet Nikes, this perfect nose—” I touch it, to make sure it’s still there.

“It is pretty perfect.” He cracks a smile, bringing the tip of his finger to the bridge of my nose, as if testing it out.

“Knock it off.” I push his hand out of my face. “I’m serious. Most people get what they wish for, even though it’s not what they expected.”

His eyebrows jet together. “Say that again?”

“Yep.” I nod. “It’s a saying I heard once. It means everything you want has consequences. Sometimes pretty crappy ones, too.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not saying the lucky ones don’t have it good. I mean, you’re a lucky one and look at you. How do you keep it all together?”

“Who, me? You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Seriously. Why are you so perfect, Cale?”

“Um, hello . . . terrible fashion sense,” he says, pointing at the sumo wrestler on his shirt, no words on it this time. “Not to mention being the only rich guy I know who mows his own lawn. You think that’s perfect?”