The Accidental Kiss (The Kiss Book 1) (3 page)

One of the twin boys spoke. “Isn’t that calling the kettle black, Lucy?” Before she could retort, he turned to me with a grin. “Hi, I’m Jacob and my brother is Logan. If you’re having a hard time telling who is who, look for the freckle on Logan’s nose.”

Logan pointed to a spot on the left side of his nose. “Don’t mention it to anyone else.”

I made a gesture my lips were sealed. The slop on my tray didn’t appeal to me in the least but after not eating breakfast this morning, I was starved. Hesitantly, I grabbed my fork and was about to dig in when Emily stopped me.

Her mouth turned down at the corners in disgust. “Don’t tell me you’re going to eat that?”

“Well yea…. I didn’t bring anything else.”

Emily held up her index finger. “Number one rule is to never eat the cafeteria food. It tastes like it looks.”

“Like shit,” Lucy filled in.

Logan pointed to a pile of food in the middle of the table. There were carrot sticks, chips, an apple, three different kinds of sandwiches, and a plastic container of donuts. “That is why we pool our resources together and have a potluck sort of thing. Although my loot is never as good as Emily’s and Lucy’s.”

Jacob grabbed the bag of carrots. “Our mom is just trying to make sure we get our daily dose of carotene.”

“If we get anymore carotene, we will turn orange,” Logan mumbled.

I bit my lip to prevent myself from laughing at the dejected look on his face. At least Jacob and Logan had a mom who cared. My mom was too busy making dead people beautiful to stock the cupboards with anything else besides Pop-Tarts and canned soup. That was why I had taught myself to cook. Chocolate chip cookies and grilled cheese sandwiches were my specialties.

I eyed the gray slop in front of me then looked at the pile of food. There was a ham and cheese sandwich within fingers’ distance. It looked exactly how I liked it, simple without a lot of garnishes.

“Sky, if you stare any harder at that sandwich it might explode.” Lucy tossed the plastic baggie into my lap. “Enjoy. Everybody else hates ham.”

To confirm this was true, I glanced at the group, who nodded their approval.

“Thanks,” I said. “My mom is on a vegetarian kick.”

“For how long?” Emily questioned.

My teeth sunk into the white bread and I closed my eyes, savoring the only meal I had today. I swallowed, “For as long as I have been alive.”

Lucy kicked her feet out in front of her. Sunlight from the windows above rained down upon her Mohawk, making the pink appear iridescent. A small chain hooked the earring on her cartilage to the one in her earlobe. I touched my own ear and tried to imagine how it would feel.

Like a son of a bitch, I’m guessing.

“Can’t imagine not growing up around meat,” Lucy said faintly.

“Lucy’s family owns a butcher shop in town,” Emily explained. “You can’t miss it. It’s the one with the giant fake meat carcass out front.”

I knew the place she was talking about because it was the first landmark we had passed when my mom and I drove into town. I was horrified, but my mom took the statue as a sign we were exactly where we belonged.

“See, Sky,” she had said in her singsong voice. “This town is as kooky as we are.”

The twins went back to their notebook while Lucy and Emily fell into a conversation about what art really was. Since I had no opinion on the matter, my mind wandered to the textbooks I needed to get from the library. Shockingly, I was looking forward to it. You couldn’t tell from my appearance, but I was a huge bookworm. I read everything from the back of cereal boxes to pamphlets to novels. Deep in thought, it took me a minute to notice the eerie quiet that had settled over the cafeteria. Confused at the sudden energy shift, my gaze settled onto Emily. Like a deer in headlights, she was starting at something or someone to my right.

“What’s…” The words died in my throat when I saw the cause…Daemon.

Weariness sparked in his eyes when I met his gaze. “We need to talk,” he growled.

Daemon was a walking enigma. He had ignored me in the hallway, invaded my space in first period, and was now bossing me around.
What the hell?
I didn’t care how frightfully beautiful he was. Nobody was worth this much of a headache.

I raised my chin defiantly. “Maybe instead of ordering me around, you could formally introduce yourself first.”

A slight smirk danced across his lips. “I don’t need to introduce myself. Everybody knows who I am.”

I rolled my eyes at his enormous sized ego.
The number one problem with small towns is that if you are remotely good looking, you think you rule the place.
Daemon needed to get a heavy dose of reality.

“This is my first day so excuse me if don’t,” I said.

After a short pause, he broke out the kryptonite. A thousand watt smile lit up his face. I could almost hear girls swooning around me and I felt myself waver.

Remain strong,
Sky, he’s only a boy
.

It was no use. Daemon wasn’t a boy; he was a man with looks to kill.

He laid his hand against his chest. “I am Daemon.”

Waiting for a last name, my eyebrows rose when none came. “Just Daemon?”

“Yes.”

I looked around the room to see if anybody else was witnessing how ridiculous this exchange was. However, the whole cafeteria was rapidly fixed onto Daemon as if he had hung the moon. I had to admit he had everything—charm, good looks, and a voice that made you think of sex, but there was one fatal flaw. No manners. Conversations were two sided, which Daemon obviously wasn’t aware of.

“This is the point where you ask my name,” I said after an awkward five-second beat.

He bent his head until his lips brushed my ear. I shut my eyes against his intoxicating scent and sucked in a lungful of air.

“I already know everything about you, Sky.” The way he said my name sent a jolt of lust straight into my stomach. “But I did underestimate you. They didn’t say you would be so feisty. I like feisty.”

‘They’ sunk into my hazy mind.
Who are they?
When I opened my mouth to ask, he had straightened.

“We’ll talk again soon.”

The conversation was over. Flummoxed, I watched as Daemon walked out the cafeteria and out of sight. The noise level went back to normal but a forbidding chill turned my blood cold. Emily let out a squeal, grabbing my upper arm in excitement.

“Oh my God! What is up with you and Daemon?”

“Nothing,” I murmured.

“Nothing, it didn’t look like nothing.”

I tuned out her voice while I sorted through what Daemon had said. ‘They’ could mean the town’s people or…. that was it. Nobody from my old haunts knew Daemon, at least not to my knowledge. Reason was telling me I was overthinking this. He probably was just trying to be sexy and mysterious. Even so, I couldn’t quash the feeling there was more to Daemon than met the eye.

A hazy mist hung low over the town as I exited the library. Five textbooks weighted down my arms and I thanked my lucky stars my house was only five blocks away. The streetlights illuminated my path but it was eerily quiet out. I forgot how everybody locks their doors by five in small towns. That ominous feeling I couldn’t shake from lunch only got stronger as I walked. I clutched the books tighter to my chest and hurried my pace. Up ahead a shadow of a man stretched across the sidewalk. As I got closer, a voice rang out among the stillness. With a start, I realized it was Daemon. He was on a phone call, laughing about something. Although confronting him with my questions alone in the dark wasn’t ideal, I couldn’t wait any longer. Raising my free hand to summon his attention, Daemon stepped off the curb. Right in front of an oncoming car.

My books dropped to the ground. “Daemon, watch out,” I screamed.

His green eyes turned toward me but it was too late. The blinding white headlights swallowed him whole. A blood-curdling cry left my lips.

“Holy shit. Holy shit,” I gasped.

The driver of the car sped on like nothing had happened. Running to where Daemon was hit, I reeled back in shock when he wasn’t there.
What the fuck? Was I losing my mind?
The sensation someone was watching me rolled up my spine. I looked toward the opposite side of the street and nearly keeled over. Daemon was leaning against a tall oak tree without a care in the world. As if he didn’t just stare death in the face.

Daemon cocked an eyebrow at my state of distress. “Worried about me?”

A thousand obscenities were on the tip of my tongue but I held them back. I thought I left the tragedy, weirdness, and overall suckiness back in Los Angeles. For once, I wanted to be a normal girl with normal friends who did normal things like go to school dances. And now Daemon was ruining that! God knows what he actually was, superhuman or otherwise.

I threw my hands in the air, exasperated and pissed off to hell. “You got hit by a car.”

He crossed the street to where I was. “No I didn’t. See?” Daemon lifted his shirt to reveal a perfectly toned chest without a single scratch on it. My eyes drank him in like a tall glass of water. For a second, I forgot how annoying he was.

That was until he opened his mouth again. “If you don’t believe me, you can do a full body check.”

“You are ridiculous.”

I spun around on my heels and marched to the spot I dropped my textbooks. My hands shook as I bent down to pick them up. After everything that had happened this past year, it was only a matter of time before I lost my mind. Still, I knew what I saw and that car did hit Daemon. Proof non-withstanding. Splattered with mud, the front pages of the textbooks were stained. Shit, the scary old librarian would kill me if I returned them in this condition.

Curiosity edged its way into his voice. “Did you really think the car hit me?”

His question unstuck the glue barely holding me together. Jerking around, I poked my finger into his chest. “Look! I don’t know who you are, what you are, or whatever strange planet you came from but people don’t survive speeding cars crashing into them.”

Daemon’s eyes danced with amusement. “The car was going twenty miles, tops.”

“That doesn’t explain how you walked away without injury.”

An unexplainable flash of confusion darkened his features. “You really don’t know?” When I didn’t answer, it was as if it had just dawned on him that I wasn’t playing coy. Daemon rubbed his face with his hands. “You have to know.”