Crushed (37 page)

“What time is it?” she asked.

“A little after seven.”

Her eyes flew wide open. She looked instantly awake. “I slept for three hours? I don’t
even take naps!”

“You obviously needed it,”
he
pointed out.

She didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Where’s Luci?”
he
asked.
He
should’ve asked Emma.
He
had meant to but she’d rushed out the door.
He
’d been wondering ever since.

“With Jill’s family. They went out of town for the weekend,” Cleo explained.

“Oh.”
He
was glad she wasn’t home alone all this time.

“We have some things to talk about,” she said.

He
couldn’t believe the words actually came from her lips.

“I thought that was going to be my line,”
he
admitted.

She didn’t say anything as she studied his face for a moment. He was watching her
too as he brushed a stray strand of hair off her cheek. Then she
leaned over and kissed
him
. Without really thinking about it,
he
pulled her on top of
him. He didn’t even care where they
we
re.
He
just kiss
ed
her back.
He
d
id
n’t know how much time passed before
they
finally stopped.

“Is that your way of getting out of talking?”
he
finally asked.
He
was only half joking.

“No. That’s my way of saying I missed you.”
She snuggled in closer. The feeling that came over him, such an intense feeling of
relief and happiness, he didn’t want to lose it
.
“I missed you
.
S
o
much.”

“Glad to hear it,”
he
told her as he his fingers skimmed across her back.

“I’m sorry. For everything. I’m just…I’m i
n so far over my head right now,
”
she said quietly.

Reece’s body tensed be
neath
her.
He could see by her expression that she believed what she’d said was true. Her face
was creased with worry.
“What does that mean? You know you’re going to have to tell me, right?”

“I know.”
She glanced at the clock. “I don’t know
for sure
how long they’ll be gone…”

“Do you want to get out of here?”
He
hoped she did.

“Sure,” she said.

“We can go to my house
.”

She looked hesitant. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why? My parents are gone.” Then reality slapped
him
alongside
the head. “You don’t want to be alone with me?”

“Reece,” she said, giving
him
a look, “we’re alone right now.”

“I know. But they’ll be back soon,”
he
pointed out.

“I just don’t want to run into your parents,” she told
him
.

He
couldn’t blame her. The last time she’d been at
his
house was a night
he
wished
they
could both forget.

She sat up and stretched again. Then she started running her fingers throu
gh her hair. T
r
ying to tame it some. It worked. B
ut not that well. Not that
he
’d ever admit that to her.

“They’re gone for the weekend. I told you that.”

“What if they come back?” she demanded.

“They won’t. The whole reason they went was to see the project Chelsey has been working
on. That’s not until
tomorrow night. It won’t get over until late so they’re staying t
w
o nights
. They’re not going to come back.
Not until sometime on Sunday.
”

She didn’t look convinced.

He
finally sat up
,
too
. He
pulled
his
phone out of
his
pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m sending Chels a text. I’m telling her I’m having a girl over and I need her to
let me know if Mom and Dad leave.”
That should take care of it, right?
he wondered.

It did.

“Okay,” she said. She crawled past
him
. When she was standing she grabbed the bottle next to the bed.

“You doing okay?”
He
knew it was a repeat question. But it was one that needed to be asked again.

“My shoulder hurts. That’s all,” she said as she downed a few capsules.

He
clenched
his
jaw.
He
had a lot to say about that. But
he
would save it until later.

“I’m going to go put a note on Emma’s bed to let her kno
w I’m with you
,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

By the time she came back a few minutes later,
he
had gotten
his
response from
his
sister. “We’re good,”
he
said as
he
held up the phone.

She wrinkled her nose but smiled. “What did she say?”

“She said she’d call if they leave before Sunday. And she put a smiley face,”
he
admitted.

“A smiley face?”

Reece
shrugged. “I told her I was with you.”

He
wasn’t expecting the alarmed look Cleo gave
him
.

“She’s not going to say anything,”
he
assured her.

She nodded but still looked
worried. “Okay. W
ell
,
let me throw my things together.”

Reece
just stood there, waiting while she started stuffing things back into her bag. Some
clothes,
make-up
, a few random things that she’d scattered around the room. She straightened the bed
and put Luci’s pillow neatly at the top. Then she grabbed her iPod and put that in
the bag, too.

“Should we
go
?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m ready,”
he
said.

She grabbed the bag she’d been stuffing her things into.
He
had thought she was just straightening up.
He
didn’t realize she was packing things back in it to take it with her. If she was
doing that, did it mean she was staying with
him
? When
he
’d asked her to go to
his
house,
he
’d only meant to talk.
He’d
assumed
he
’d be brin
ging her back
to Emma’s
eventually.
He
wasn’t about to complain
.
He
just wouldn’t have thought to ask. Not after how rocky things ha
d
been.

But the sight of her bag, ready to go? It somehow lift
ed
a weight off of
him
that
he
hadn’t even realized had still been pressing down.
He
felt
his
face break into a grin as
he
took it from her.

“Let’s get out of here,”
he
said.

***

“Could we maybe just go to the lake?” she asked. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to your house
just yet.”

He
felt
his
stomach drop. Did that mean she was having second thoughts? Already?
He
slowed dow
n because the turn-off that
le
d
to the boat landing was coming up.

“Are you sure?”
he
asked.
He
could hear the disappointment in
his
voice.

He
glanced at her and she nodded. She looked nervous.

That made
him
nervous.

“It’s just…” she started but trailed off. It sounded to
him
like she was gearing up to shut back down again.

“What?”
he
pushed because
he
didn’t want that to happen.

“Well,” she said as she began fidgeting with the zipper on her hoodie. “You might
be mad when you hear what I hav
e to say. You might want to
bring me back to Emma’s.”

“That’s not going to happen,”
he
tried to assure her. But really?
He
had no idea what she was going to tell
him. He
just knew that it wasn’t going to be good.
His
stomach
was
once again
in that never
-
ending freefall that it had been in for months.

He hated that feeling.
He wanted to shove it away. He wanted to recapture the feeling he’d had not that
long ago. The feeling of overwhelming relief that he’d felt when Cleo hugged him
to her. But it was long gone
now. The feelings of the unknown, fear, and dread were washing over him again.

“What are we talking about here, exactly?”
he
demanded. “Ethan? Paul? What happened last spring? What happened to you the other
night, after I left?” All of those things were
already
making
him
mad. No, actually ‘mad’ didn’t even come close to what
he
felt when those things rattled around in
his
head.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”
he
asked.
He
was expecting her to pick one.

“All of it. It’s all tied together.” Her voice was shaking. If
he
hadn’t already been nervous,
he
was now.

“How is Ethan tied together with what happened on your birthday? After I left, I mean?”
he
wanted to know. He hadn’t
been
there, had he? That didn’t even make sense.

Th
e
y
reached the parking lot. It was empty again.
He
pulled off to the side and parked. This conversation couldn’t happen soon enough.
He
had so many questions.
He
couldn’t believe she had finally agreed to give
him
some answers. But she wasn’t giving them to
him
yet. When
he
finally turned to her, she had her eyes closed. She was pinching the bridge of her
nose.

“Cleo?”

She turned to look at
him.

She looked scared. No. She looked terrified. Was it because she thought
he
was going to be mad, like she said?

“I won’t be mad,”
he
tried to assure her.

An abrupt laugh burst out of her mouth. Only there was no humor in it. “Oh, yes, you
will,” she said. Her voice told
him
she was probably right.

He
shrugged and tried to blow it off. “Okay. Maybe I will be. So what? I’ll get over
it.”

“Maybe,” she muttered. “But the thing is, once I tell you, it’s out there. There’s
no taking it back. And these are things that I’m not supposed to be telling. And this…this
could change everything for me and for Luci.”

Her voice had gone up in pitch.

“I’m not following,”
he
admitted to her. “What does Luci have to do with this?” She looked at
him
and shook her head. The expression on her face drove home that she
was
scared.
He
just didn’t know why.