Never Never: Part Three (Never Never #3) (9 page)

Charlie is laughing when she finishes. But when the words she read begin to register, her laughter fades. She runs her fingers over the sentences like they mean something to her. “That was really sweet,” she says. She flips through the pages of the book until she comes to a stop with her finger on a different paragraph. Then, in just barely a whisper, she begins reading again. “
Fate is the magnetic pull of our souls toward the people, places, and things we belong with
.”

She stares at the book for a moment and then closes it. She places it back on the shelf, but she moves two books out of the way so that this book can be displayed more prominently. “Do you believe that?”

“Which part?”

She leans against a wall of books and stares over my shoulder. “That our souls are pulled toward the people we belong with.”

I reach out to her and pull at a lock of her hair. I run my fingers down it and twirl it around my finger. “I don’t know if I normally believe in soul mates,” I tell her. “But for the next twenty-four hours, I’d bet my life for it to be true.”

She rolls her shoulder until her back is pressed against the wall of books, and she’s facing me. I would
absolutely
bet my life on fate right now. I somehow have more feelings for this girl than will fit inside of me. And I want more than anything for her to feel the same thing. To
want
the same thing. Which…in this very moment…is for my mouth to be on hers.

“Charlie…” I release her lock of hair and bring my hand to her cheek. I touch her gently…tracing her cheekbone with my fingertips. Her breaths are shallow and quick. “Kiss me.”

She leans into my hand a little and her eyes flutter. For a moment, I think she might actually do it. But then a smile steals her heated expression and she says, “Silas didn’t say.” She darts under my arm and disappears down the next aisle. I don’t follow her. I grab the book she read from and tuck it under my arm as I head for the register.

She knows what I’m doing. The whole time I’m at the register, she’s watching me from down the aisle. After I purchase the book, I walk outside and let the door shut behind me. I wait a few seconds to see if she follows me immediately out, but she doesn’t. Same stubborn Charlie.

I pull the backpack off my shoulder and shove the book inside of it. Then I pull out my camera and turn it on.

She stays inside the bookstore for another half hour. I don’t mind it. I know she knows I’m still out here. I take picture after picture, engrossed in the people who pass by and the way the sun is setting over the buildings, casting shadows on even the smallest of things. I take pictures of all of it. When Charlie finally makes it back outside, my battery is almost dead.

She walks up to me and says, “Where’s my book?”

I hoist the backpack over my shoulder. “I didn’t buy that book for you. I bought it for me.”

She huffs and follows after me as I make my way down the street. “That’s not a good move, Silas. You’re supposed to be thoughtful. Not selfish. I want to fall in love with you, not become irritated with you.”

I laugh. “Why do I feel like love and irritation go hand in hand with you?”

“Well, you
have
known me longer than I’ve known myself.” She grabs my hand to pull me to a stop. “Look! Crawfish!” She yanks me in the direction of the restaurant. “Do we like crawfish? I’m so hungry!”

Turns out, we do
not
like crawfish. Luckily, they had chicken strips on the menu. We both like chicken, apparently.

“We should write that down somewhere,” she says, walking backward down the middle of the street. “That we hate crawfish. I don’t want to have to go through that awful experience again.”

“Wait! You’re about to…” Charlie falls on her butt before the rest of the sentence can make it out of my mouth. “Walk into a pothole,” I finish.

I reach down to help her up, but there’s not much I can do about her pants. We had finally dried off after the rain from earlier today, and now she’s soaking wet again. This time from muddy water. “You okay?” I ask, trying not to laugh.
Trying
being the key word here. Because I’m laughing harder than I’ve laughed all day.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says as she attempts to wipe mud from her pants and her hands. I’m still laughing when she narrows her eyes and points down at the mud puddle. “Charlie says sit in the pothole, Silas.”

I shake my head. “No. No way. The game is called
Silas says
, not
Charlie
says
.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Oh, really?” She takes a step closer to me and says, “Charlie says sit in the pothole. If Silas does what Charlie says, Charlie will do whatever
Silas
says.”

Is that an invitation of sorts?
I’m liking flirtatious Charlie
. I glance down at the pothole. It’s not
that
deep. I turn around and lower myself until I’m sitting cross-legged in the puddle of muddy water. I keep my eyes on Charlie’s face, not wanting to witness the attention we’re probably attracting from bystanders. She swallows back her laughter, but I can see the pleasure she’s getting out of this.

I stay sitting in the pothole until it even starts to embarrass Charlie. After several seconds, I lean back onto my elbows and cross my legs. Someone snaps a picture of me in the pothole, so she motions for me to stand. “Get up,” she says, glancing around. “Hurry.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. Charlie didn’t say.”

She grabs my hand, laughing. “Charlie says
get up
, you idiot.” She helps me to my feet and grabs my shirt, pressing her face against my chest. “Oh my God, they’re all staring at us.”

I wrap my arms around her and begin to sway back and forth, which is probably not what she was expecting me to do. She looks up at me, my shirt still clenched in her fists. “Can we go now? Let’s go.”

I shake my head. “Silas says dance.”

Her eyebrows crinkle together. “You can’t be serious!”

There are several people stopped on the street now, some of them taking pictures of us. I sort of don’t blame them. I’d probably take pictures of an idiot who willingly sat in a mud puddle, too.

I unclench her fists from my shirt and make her hold my hands as I force her to dance to non-existent music. She’s stiff at first, but then she seems to let the laughter take over the embarrassment. We sway and dance down Bourbon Street, bumping into people as we go. The whole time, she’s giggling like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

After a few minutes, we come to a break in the crowd. I stop twirling her long enough to pull her to my chest and sway softly, back and forth. She’s looking up at me, shaking her head. “You’re crazy, Silas Nash,” she says.

I nod. “Good. That’s what you love about me.”

Her smile fades for a moment and the look she has in her eyes causes me to stop swaying. She places her palm over my heart and stares at the back of her hand. I already know she’s not feeling a heartbeat inside my chest. It’s more like a drumline in mid procession.

Her eyes meet mine again. She parts her lips and whispers, “Charlie says…kiss Charlie.”

I would have kissed her even if Charlie didn’t say. My hand wraps in her hair a single second before my lips meet hers. When her mouth parts for mine, it feels as though she punches a hole straight through my chest and makes a fist around my heart. It hurts, it doesn’t, it’s beautiful, it’s terrifying. I want it to last for eternity, but I’ll run out of breath if this kiss goes on for just one more minute. My arm wraps around her waist, and when I pull her closer, she moans quietly into my mouth.
Jesus.

The only thing I have room for in this head of mine right now is the firm belief that fate
absolutely
exists. Fate…soul mates…time travel…you name it. It
all
exists. Because that’s what her kiss feels like.
Existence
.

We’re momentarily jolted when someone bumps into us. Our mouths seaparate, but it takes effort to free ourselves from whatever hold just took over. The music from all the open doors along the street comes back into focus. The lights, the people, the laughter. All the external things that ten seconds of her kiss just blocked out are rushing back. The sun is setting, and nighttime seems to transform this entire street from one world to another. I can’t think of anything I want more than to get her out of here. Neither of us seems to be able to move, though, and my arm feels like it weighs twenty pounds when I reach for her hand. She slides her fingers through mine and we begin walking in silence back toward the parking lot where my car is.

Neither of us speaks a word the entire walk back. Once we’re both inside my car, I wait a moment before cranking it. Things are too heavy. I don’t want to start driving until we get out whatever it is we need to say. Kisses like that can’t linger without acknowledgment.

“Now what?” she asks, staring out the window.

I watch her for a moment, but she doesn’t move. It’s as if she’s frozen. Suspended in time between the last kiss and our next one.

I buckle up and put the car in drive.
Now what?
I have no idea. I want to kiss her like that a million more times, but every single kiss would end just like that one did. With the fear that I won’t remember it tomorrow.

“We should go back home and get a decent night’s sleep,” I say. “We also need to make more notes in case…” I cut myself off.

She pulls on her seatbelt. “In case soul mates don’t exist…” she finishes.

During our drive to Silas’s house, I think about everything we’ve learned today. I think about my father and how he isn’t a good human. Part of me is scared that being a good person is inherent. I’ve read enough about how I used to be to know that I didn’t treat people very well. Silas included.

I can only hope that the person I turned out to be was the result of outside influences, and not because that’s who I’ll always be. A vindictive, cheating shell of a person.

I open the backpack and begin reading more notes while Silas drives. I come across something about files that Silas stole from his father, and how we suspect they might implicate my father. Why would Silas steal those from his father? If my father is guilty, which I believe he is, why would Silas want to hide that?

“Why do you think you stole those files from your father?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. The only thing I can come up with is that maybe I hid them because I felt bad for you. Maybe I didn’t want your father to go to prison for longer than he already was, because it would have broken your heart.”

That sounds like something Silas would do.

“Are they still in your room?” I ask him.

Silas nods. “I think so. I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that I keep them near my bed.”

“When we get to your house tonight, I think you should give them to your father.”

Silas glances at me across the seats. “Are you sure about that?”

I nod. “He’s ruined a lot of lives, Silas. He deserves to pay for that.”

“Charlie didn’t know you had these?”

I’m standing outside Silas’s father’s study. When we walked in the door and he saw me with Silas, I thought he was going to hit him. Silas told him to give him five minutes to explain. He ran upstairs and got the files and brought them back down to his father.