Strange Academy (Hot Paranormal Romance) (20 page)
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Sadie plastered on a pleasant face and ducked under Thalia’s arm into Pippa’s apartment. She found Sterling sitting with his chin on the table, broadcasting misery on all frequencies.
On seeing her, he straightened. Hope tinged his voice. “Where’s Uncle Gray?”
Her throat constricted. She felt her eye start to twitch as she took the chair beside him. For a moment, she searched for a pretty fiction to make this all better, but no lie could fill this void.
“Sterling, sometimes adults…” She looked into young, but knowing, gray eyes that would see through any comfort she offered. “Sometimes adults are really stupid.”
She stroked his hair. It was silky soft from not having any hairspray or complicated adult gunk in it. Seeing Sterling’s trembling lip gave her a heartache, especially when he nodded acceptance.
This’ll be less awful if we’re together,
she wanted to say.
You won’t have a tree or presents, but there’ll be burnt grilled cheese and the Barenaked Ladies.
She heard the scrape of wood on wood as her door swung open. It was Gray, ducking under Thalia’s arm, his cellphone at his ear. Beside her, Sterling gulped in a suspense-filled breath.
“April.” Gray’s gaze held Sterling’s while he talked and pulled up a chair at the table. “Sorry, something important came up. I want to spend Christmas with family.”
Not I “have” to. I “want” to. Sadie’s throat went tight even as her gaze blurred with moisture. He was going to take his nephew away, and he wouldn’t make the kid feel bad about it. The right thing to do. The perfect thing to do.
And she’d be alone again. She blinked away the unshed tears and fixed a smile on her face.
Gray snapped the phone shut and punched Sterling in the arm. “Christmas in Paris. What do you say? I’ll take to you to the Louvre and show you pictures of naked women. It’s educational.” He grinned. “We’ll pick up fashion models on the Champs d’Elysée.”
“Are they Metas?” Sterling asked.
“Only Tyra Banks. Supermodel.”
“Gotta get my bag.” Sterling raced out the door.
As she watched him go, she wasn’t sure whose smile was wider: hers or Sterling’s.
“Sadie,” Gray said. “Thank you.”
“You do realize you just thanked a Non.”
He nodded and didn’t rise to the bait. “I just thanked you.”
She stacked the dinner plates. It took her mind off Gray sitting so close that his knee brushed hers. His lips were parted like he had something to say but just couldn’t get it out. To her, Gray had never looked more heroic.
“This is what magic feels like.” She reached out to smooth the crumpled collar of his pewter coat. “The power to change things. To make someone’s life better.”
“Sadie—”
Before he could finish, Sterling appeared under Thalia’s arm. “All packed,” the kid announced.
She stepped back, eager to distance herself from the departing Gray. Nothing had changed, after all. They’d just worked together to solve a problem. A temporary ceasefire, not an end to hostilities. She adjusted the brown scarf around Sterling’s neck so it almost covered his nose.
He pulled the scarf down, annoyed. “Where’s your bag?”
“My bag?” she asked.
Sterling looked to Gray, who stood by the door adjusting a leather glove. Then he looked at Sadie. “You’re coming with us, right?”
“Ster—” Gray said.
She broke in, throwing up her hands dramatically. “Great, there are two of you trying to tell me what to do.”
Shut up, Gray,
she willed.
Be the hero.
“Kid, I don’t take orders from you, either.”
“You’re coming with us,” Sterling insisted.
It was really sweet of him to be so mad. A warm ache lit under her ribs. “I have things I have to do here.”
“Things you have to—” Light dawned in Sterling’s eyes. “They’re making you stay here. You’re not allowed to leave.”
Never try to put one over on a ten-year-old
, she advised herself. “Someone has to hold down the fort.”
“You’ll be alone.”
Sadie heard a snap and turned to see a crack in the glass of Aunt Pippa’s framed print of Millais’ Ophelia hanging behind the dining table. Odd.
“She’ll be alone,” Sterling said to his uncle. “Make her come.”
Gray’s mouth quirked, indicating he’d be happy to make her come. She felt her cheeks go hot.
“She can break all the rules. She’s a Non. Tomorrow’s Christmas
Eeeeeeeeeeeeve
,” Sterling whined.
With superhuman effort, she refrained from rolling her eyes. “I don’t know who told you Nons don’t have to follow the rules, but it’s not true.” Especially when those rules are made by Metas, she neglected to add, swallowing back resentment.
Sterling pulled himself up to his full height and tried to look down his Roman nose at her. “Go pack. Now.”
Behind Sterling, Gray made a sort of half-chuckling sound. “Trust me, it won’t work on this one.”
“Sterling, I can’t go,” she told him.
“Fine.” Sterling’s defiant tone signaled a tactical shift, not surrender.
“Good,” she said cautiously. “You two have a great Christmas. Say hello to the naked women for me. And Tyra Banks.”
Thud
. Sterling’s backpack fell to the floor, followed closely by his mittens.
“Gray, your nephew is taking his clothes off,” she pointed out.
“I see that.” Gray watched Sterling add his coat to the pile.
“If she’s not going, I’m not going.” He wrenched off his boots, muttering about the stupidity of adults.
“Sterling...” Sadie was getting a headache. It would be so much easier if they would just go. “Gray, help me out here.”
Looking to Gray, she saw he was regarding his nephew with a mix of admiration and amusement. He shrugged. “What do you want me to do? Kidnapping is illegal.”
“Yeah. I’ll call the cops,” Sterling threatened.
Her throat hitched, something she never imagined happening at the phrase “I’ll call the cops.”
When Gray gave her a half-smile over Sterling’s head, her heart skipped a beat, like the cutest boy in class had asked to carry her books. He mouthed something at her. It took her three tries to lip-read.
Truce?
he asked.
She nodded.
“It’s Christmas
Eeeeeeeeeeeeve
. Do I have to do my homework?”
Gray’s teeth ground as he sat at Sadie’s dining room table. “No, you could put it off until later. Maybe when the sun is shining and it’s snowball snow.”
Sterling snorted and trudged off, shoulders slumped, to get his math assignment.
Outside, a thick layer of glass coated the landscape. Foot-long icicles hung outside Sadie’s window. A loud noise would bring them crashing down with explosive force. The slick black paths across campus were ice rinks.
Sterling had a case of cabin fever, and Gray wasn’t far behind him. Sadie’s apartment was a little too cozy. The strain of playing house for the last twenty-four hours was getting to him.
His stress knot threatened to collapse in on itself under the weight of its own burdens. It would then become a kind of black hole, drawing in any stress coming near it. No stress would be able to resist its gravitational pull.
If he could just have an argument with Sadie, he could restore his defenses against her glossy brown eyes, her laughing pointed chin and, most of all, her sweetheart ass.
Sadie’s voice filtered in from the kitchen. He snapped to attention. “Hey, beautiful, it’s Aunt Sadie. Are you excited about Santa coming?”
Aunt Sadie? She hadn’t said anything about having a niece. But she wouldn’t have, he realized. It suddenly hit him how much she’d given up to be here.
A light laugh, unlike the darker one he was used to hearing from her, flitted in from the kitchen. Then her voice lowered, tensed. “Chloë. I phoned to say—I just wanted to apologize.”
The hair on the back of his neck went up. He should not be listening to this.
Sterling came in, carrying a precarious mound of books nearly taller than he was. “What are you doing?”
“Setting a bad example. Quiet,” he hissed.
“Are we spying on her?” Sterling said, in a whisper that wasn’t quiet enough.
“No. Shhh, I can’t hear.”
Sterling nodded and put out his books quietly. He wasn’t a bad accomplice.
“I found out. I know everything. I was wrong. I’m so sorry. The funeral, Chloë. What I said. I’m so sorry.”
Gray counted off fingers. Seven three-word sentences in a row. For Sadie, it was practically incoherence.
“I know.” There was defeat in her voice. “You’re right. I hope you can forgive me someday. And sis...Merry Christmas.”
He heard the click of the phone being returned to the cradle, and nodded at Sterling to look busy with his homework. Sterling ignored him. He was about to shove his nephew’s nose—gently—into his fractions when Sadie came out of the kitchen. Her black eyeliner was smudged under one eye.
“Math.” She handed Gray a scotch he hadn’t asked for. He’d brought the bottle and put it in her cupboard. She had a beer for herself. “Fun.”
“You hate your sister?” Sterling practically yelled.
“Is there a course on the art of stealth I can sign you up for next term?” Gray said. “You make a terrible accomplice.”
Sadie laughed and sat down across from Sterling. “I love Chloë more than anyone.”
Sterling’s brows knitted in a too-adult way. “But you’re fighting with her.”
“I’m trying to apologize to her.”
“You practically groveled,” Gray said, before he could stop himself. “And she didn’t forgive you? Unbelievable.”
“But she’s right.” Sadie shrugged. “What I did was wrong.”
“What did you do?” Sterling was wide-eyed.
“Sterling, enough.”
The kid looked sheepish.
“I insulted her psychic Talent in front of a lot of people. I didn’t believe in her powers at all. I did when I was a kid. But then I got older and thought they were stupid. And I told her so. A lot,” Sadie said, as if admitting you were wrong wasn’t a big deal. “Why are you looking at me like I’m crazy?”
“She’ll never forgive you.” Sterling tapped his pencil.
“You’re wrong.” Sadie brightened. “We love each other, so she’ll forgive me eventually. I’ll just have to drink the fat.”
“Drink the fat?” asked Sterling, before Gray could.
Sadie laughed. “It’s from the TV show
Friends
. Once, Ross proved he was sorry by drinking a bottle of fat. You show your love for the other person is more important than your pride.”
“I have a brother,” Sterling said. “I never see him.”
Gray winced. He’d been thinking about Argent, too.
Confused wrinkles appeared in Sadie’s forehead. “Is he too young to go here?”
Sterling shrugged. “He goes to school in Geneva. I don’t really know him.”
“Sterling, go wash up for dinner,” Gray ordered his nephew.
“It’s only four o’clock!”
“Just go.”
As he went, Sterling muttered something about the stupidity of adults.
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“Dinner. I haven’t even thought about it.” Sadie ignored the sick lump in her stomach. She jumped up from the dining table so fast she bumped her head on the amber lampshade, setting it swinging as she retreated to the kitchen.
She just needed a second to absorb the alien concept. Sure, she fought with her sister, but she couldn’t imagine not knowing Chloë. She remembered the dull ache in her five-year-old chest when Chloë had gone off to school—this school.
Gray appeared in the doorway. She fought her irritation.
Just leave me alone for two seconds,
she wanted to scream. His constant presence set her teeth on edge—not because they were fighting, but because they were getting along.
“You don’t understand about us.” As he leaned against a cupboard, his biceps bulged out of the gray t-shirt clinging to his chest like it was airbrushed on. Lucky t-shirt.
“What do you want for dinner?” She rummaged through the cupboards to distract herself from drooling over the man. It didn’t work. He just kept releasing husky male pheromones, setting her hormones on fire.
“We can’t raise the kids together.” He said it like he was trying to convince her. Or himself. “Security reasons.”
She opened a door to block her face from Gray’s sight.
The Gray House,
she thought. Lorde
Gray. Mages and marriages and bloodlines.
“I sort of feel like pasta,” she said.
“An heir and a spare. Until I have a son, we have to separate them. If something happens to one, the other is okay.”
None of your business, she reminded herself. The sickness in her stomach disagreed. “You’re not on Atkins, are you?”
“His name is Argent,” Gray said. “Sterling is older by five minutes.”
Twins. The word struck her like a whack to the head. Dear God. Twins. And they didn’t know each other. There was the lump in her stomach again. She pushed some cans around in the cupboard. “Because if you do the low-carb thing, I could find something else for you.”
After a while, Gray spoke again. “I hear Geneva’s nice at Christmas. The chocolate’s probably great.”
“I don’t have any pasta. Grilled cheese?”
“You burned it yesterday.”
“Well, I won’t be dancing around to the Barenaked Ladies with you.” She shut the cupboard door and smiled at him.
“No, of course we'd never do that." If she’d blinked, she would have missed the hurt look crossing his face before those smoky eyes went bland. There’s a chance Dom picked up Argent.”
“I’m sure he did,” Sadie lied.
“Like hell he did. He’s so selfish. I still can’t believe he’s divorcing Simone. No one in the Gray House gets divorced.”
She swallowed. “You’re very lucky.”
“Not really. My parents hate each other. Been separated almost since the wedding. But Dom had to fall in love. And this makes it okay to forget his responsibilities.” Gray glanced at her. “His sons, I mean.”
“I get it.”
“Bringing Sterling and Argent together would be the most irresponsible act.” Gray scrubbed a hand over his face. “And I’ve never wanted to do anything more in my life.”
