Tales of the Otherworld (21 page)

“Okay,” he said. “Blast away.”

I leaned back against my desk, crossed my arms, and said nothing.

After a minute, he sighed. “Okay, I know I shouldn’t be here. Jeremy—”

“Jeremy forbade it. This is a direct violation of his authority.”

Logan lifted a finger. “Uh-uh. He said he doesn’t think we should visit while you’re here. He never said we couldn’t.”

“You knew what he meant.”

“But it’s what he actually
says
that counts as law, not our interpretation of it.”

“Who the hell told you that?”

“You.”

I pushed off the desk. “I never said—”

“Not in words, maybe, but certainly by example.”

I growled and leaned back again. “The point is—”

“The point is that I came because I was concerned. Obviously something was up, and I wanted to know what it was. One Pack brother looking out for another.”

I met his gaze and held it. After a moment, he sighed again.

“Okay, more curiosity than concern, but only because I know you’re capable of looking after yourself. As a friend, I wanted to know what was going on. Now I do.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“Do?” He laughed. “You like a girl. Hardly cause for emergency intervention. If you don’t want to tell the Pack, that’s your choice and, frankly, I don’t blame you. That ‘no long-term relationships’ rule?” He shook his head. “Most Laws I can understand, but that one goes way overboard. Couples keep secrets from one another all the time. What’s the big deal? Hell, there’s no reason a werewolf couldn’t
marry
if he was careful.”

I stared at him.

“What?” he said.

“How could you keep a secret that—?” I bit the words off, turned, and grabbed my jacket. “I’m hungry.”

“After that lunch? Shit, I couldn’t even look at food.”

“Well, I’m going to, so if you want to come, get your coat.”

He slid a look my way. “I was right then?”

“About what?”

He rolled his eyes.

“If you mean the Pack Law, no, you’re not right.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Well, what then?”

He searched my face, then shook his head. “If you didn’t dispute it that must mean there’s nothing to dispute. You like her.”

I threw him his jacket.

“More than like, I suppose,” he continued. “If Nick’s right and you haven’t shown a passing interest in a woman since puberty, you’re not going to start now with just a passing interest. You’re serious.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Oh, so you’re not interested? Good, then you won’t mind me asking her out—”

I turned on him.

“Down, boy,” he said, lifting his hands. “I was kidding. Well, not that I wouldn’t mind asking her out, but I know I’d get turned down. Doesn’t matter how many other guys are in the room; that girl only sees you.”

I grabbed my keys from the desk. “Elena isn’t like that. I don’t even think she notices what I look like. She sure as hell doesn’t care about it.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean you’re the only guy she’s—” He caught my blank look and waved his hand. “Never mind. You’ll figure it out eventually.”

Logan left after dinner the next night. He accompanied Elena to both her classes, including mine. I tried not to read anything into it, but couldn’t help being relieved when he finally left.

That night, Elena and I went for a run. Afterward, we found a grassy spot overlooking the water and ate the subs and sodas we’d brought along.

“So you like Logan?” I asked finally.

“Sure. He’s a nice guy.” She smiled. “Easy to get along with, you know? I envy that in people.”

“So you like him.”

“Didn’t I just say—?” She caught my expression and choked on a mouthful of sandwich. “Not like
that.
Is that what it seemed like? I hope he didn’t think—”

“He didn’t.”

“Good.” She leaned back against a tree trunk. “That’s the problem sometimes. You meet a guy, and think he’s nice, but you need to worry about how that will be interpreted. Sometimes I’m interested because I’m, well, interested. Most times, though, it’s just because I think he’s nice.”

I looked across the water, then over at her. “And what about me?”

I heard the thought coming from my mouth, and tried to bite back the words, but it was too late.

“Do I think
you’re
nice?” she said.

Her lips twitched, then her gaze met mine. She blushed and, in her eyes, I saw what Logan had been talking about.

“Yes,” she said softly. “In your own way, I think you’re pretty nice.”

I leaned over, and my mouth found hers before I even realized what I was doing. The moment our lips touched, I finally got it, and even if my brain still didn’t quite understand what “it” was, my body did. My lips parted hers. I shivered at the feel of her, the smell and taste of her, and my hormones kicked into overdrive, like when I’d been sixteen, finally hitting puberty, feeling everything and not having a damned clue what to do about it. Now I knew. I’d found—

Shit. Was she kissing me back? I could feel her lips moving. Or was I moving them with mine? An image shot into my brain: Elena’s face, frozen in horror, too shocked to push me away.

What if she wasn’t kissing me? It was Logan’s fault. Damn him! He’d tricked—

Was I still kissing her?

I pulled back. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

She blinked, eyes sleepy, as if waking up. “S—sorry?”

“I didn’t mean— If this isn’t what you want—”

She leaned over and kissed me, her arms going around my neck. For a second, I just sat there, stunned. Then I kissed her back.

A few minutes later, she eased out of my arms and smiled. “And that, I hope, clears up any confusion.”

“It does.”

Another smile. “It does, doesn’t it? I wasn’t sure myself, but—” She looked up at me. “I think I’ve figured it out.”

Someone laughed and we both jumped. I inhaled and caught the scents of perfume and booze.

“Kids coming,” I said. “You wanna go head back to my apartment?”

Panic darted behind her eyes. Why? She’d come to my apartment before, to eat or study. As I replayed my words, I heard an interpretation that wouldn’t have been there ten minutes ago.

“No, not for sex. I just want—” I shrugged. “You know, to spend more time with you.”

“Me, too. I mean with you, not with me. I like spending time— I’d like to spend more time—” She pulled a face. “Blah. I think my tongue’s gone on vacation.”

“Is that a yes, then? Head back to my apartment and hang out there awhile? No strings attached. I’d tell you if there were.”

“Like ‘Hey, do you want to go back to my apartment for sex?’”

“Exactly.”

She laughed. “You probably would, too.”

For a moment, she just looked at me, then she broke my gaze, her face reddening. She pushed to her feet and brushed herself off. I followed her to the path.

A
ND AGAIN OUR RELATIONSHIP CHANGED—A
sudden veer that didn’t seem sudden at all, as if we’d been curving in this direction from the start, but only saw the signposts when they were upon us. From teacher to employer to friend to boyfriend, the signs drifted past, evoking no more reaction than a raised eyebrow and a halfhearted “Hmm, wonder how that happened?”

Eventually there might be another sign: lover—but I wasn’t going to crane my neck over the horizon trying to see it. Like the others, it would come when it was time. Or it wouldn’t. I’d never reached that stage with a guy. One could say, I suppose, that technically I’m not a virgin, but I don’t—won’t—see it like that. I’ve never made love, so when it does happen, it’ll be my first time.

I do date, but sporadically, never letting it amount to much. I wasn’t ready for that. Not after what I went through as a foster kid. I’m not afraid of an intimate relationship—it’ll just take a lot of trust building to get me there and so far no guy had made it. Whether Clay would remained to be seen.

The next month spun past like a carousel ride. New emotions, new sensations, new thoughts, everything so blindingly new, a merry-go-round of first love, all bright colors and laughter and music and, occasionally, a slightly queasy feeling, as if it was all just a little too much to take.

It wasn’t perfect, but the flaws kept it real. Of course, that didn’t keep me from worrying about them.

First, Clay was possessive. Maybe that’s not the right word. More like he was jealous of my time. He liked being together. A lot. If I wasn’t in class or in my dorm sleeping, he wanted to be with me. Not that he clung to me or demanded my attention. He was content to be in the same room, each doing our own thing, sometimes a whole afternoon passing with scarcely a word exchanged.

There was a sense of comfort in having him there, reading across the room as I did my homework. But I felt like I
should
mind. Such behavior was one of the four danger signs of an unhealthy relationship—a list that had been drilled into my head in a twelfth-grade health class.

Another sign was not wanting you to spend time with your friends. While Clay didn’t complain about me hanging around with others, I could tell he was biting his tongue. But I suspected that was just part of his desire to spend time together, so that would make it only one danger sign, not two. One quarter of the list, not half. Or maybe I was rationalizing away something I didn’t want to see.

Equally troubling was that Clay kept our relationship a secret from his family and friends. Again, maybe I’m overstating the matter, but that was the impression I got. He called his guardian, Jeremy, daily and yet, no matter how much time we spent together, I was never around when he made that call. I couldn’t help feeling that was deliberate.

At least once a week, I was at Clay’s apartment when his friend Nick called, and Clay would always make a quick promise to call back. When I’d tell him to go ahead, take the call, he always refused, saying he had plenty of time to talk to Nick later, that this was his time with me.

And yet…well, it was almost enough to make me wonder whether he had a girlfriend at home. My gut told me it was unlikely to the point of impossible, yet the only thing that kept my brain from overruling it on this was Logan. He’d come up to Toronto again a few weeks after his first visit, and whenever he called Clay, and I was around, he and I did more talking than him and Clay.

From Logan, I knew there was no other girl. He’d laughed when I’d tiptoed past the subject. Laughed his head off, and assured me there was no one else in Clay’s life—no girlfriend, no boyfriend, no past lover he was still pining for, absolutely no cause for concern on that front.

So why the secrecy? When I broached that subject with Logan, he
brushed it off with a crack about Clay’s eccentricities, and a quick change of subject. So the answer, I assumed, was “no.” So what, right? Clay was a grown man, not a boy who needed his parent’s approval. Maybe he just didn’t think this was a “meet the parent” kind of relationship yet.

It didn’t help matters that our first rough spot hit right after his next trip home. He’d called me five times that weekend. The first time, from the airport in Syracuse, he’d sounded fine, bitching about the flight, normal Clay stuff. The next two calls had been furtive and short. I could picture him in some back room, whispering for fear of being overheard, and I’d started getting angry, wondering why he’d bothered calling at all.

The next call was clipped, almost angry, as if I’d done something to piss him off. I’d blasted him for that. I told him he was under no obligation to call me when he was away and if this was how he was going to act when he did call, I’d rather he didn’t. Then I hung up.

Two hours later he’d called back—from a pay phone, judging by the background street noise. He’d talked then, talked and talked, as if desperate to keep me on the line.

None of it made any sense and by the time he returned, my gut was twisting, my brain feeding me all those little warnings I tried so hard not to hear, telling me something was wrong, wrong with us and wrong with him, and why the hell wasn’t I taking the hint?

I didn’t sleep much Sunday night, and barely heard a word the prof said in my first class Monday. I spent the whole period glancing at my watch. When class ended, I was the first one out the door.

I zipped over to Clay’s office. Only when I could see his door did I slow down. It was cracked open, as it always was when he was expecting me. See? Nothing had changed. A bad weekend, that was all. Everyone has them. Going home can be stressful…or so my friends always told me.

Everything would be back to normal now. He’d hear me coming, as he always did, and he’d be there, sitting on the edge of the desk or lurking behind the door waiting to pounce. He’d grab me and kiss me, one of his deep, hungry kisses that would drive away every worry—

I stepped inside and he was across the room, leaning over the printer, fiddling with the buttons. Even when I closed the door with a loud click, he didn’t turn.

“Jamming on you again?” I said, forcing the disappointment from my voice. “Here, let me—”

“I got in last night,” he said, still bent over the machine.

I stopped. “Well, that’s good. That’s when you were supposed to get in, wasn’t it?”

“I thought you’d come to see me.”

“When? Your flight didn’t arrive until two.”

He said nothing, just kept playing with the printer. I gripped my backpack, knuckles whitening as the trepidation in my gut hardened into anger.

“I had an eight o’clock class,” I said. “You expected me to meet your plane at two
A
.
M
.?”

He turned and rubbed his mouth. “Yeah, I guess not. I’m sor—”

“And even if I didn’t have an early class, how the hell would I get to the airport? Pay twenty bucks for a cab? I can’t afford—”

“I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

He stepped toward me, but I backpedaled, lifting my backpack to my chest. He looked down at it, then up at me.

“I didn’t expect you to meet me at the airport,” he said. “I just— I wanted to see you. If I didn’t make plans, like meeting you for breakfast, then that’s my fault.”