The Other Side of Envy: The Ghost Bird Series: #8 (The Academy) (8 page)

Gabriel reeled back and cupped his cheek. “Fucking shit, woman, stop hitting me.”

“Watch your backtalk,’ she said, waving a finger at his face. “And you can’t go sitting on top of her like that. You sit her nice on the couch. You don’t wrestle her into submission.”

“We were just playing a video game.”

“You don’t play games sitting on top of her.”

Gabriel shifted around Pam, grabbing my wrist. “We were done anyway.” He tugged me to have me follow across the living room. “Come on, Sang. Let’s get out of the way.”

“Sang, you make him buy you dinner first, ya hear?” she called out. “Make him treat you like a lady.” She headed toward the fridge, opening it and staring into the light.

Gabriel turned off the game, and grabbed my book bag, leading the way through the back hallway. He walked toward the very last door, throwing it open until it banged against the wall. He twisted, shoved me through the doorway, and closed it behind us. He threw the lock and slammed his palm against the wall. “God damn, didn’t think she’d be up so early.” He turned around, planting his back against the door. “Why in the world would Mr. Blackbourne bring you here?”

I stood on the worn carpet in his bedroom. I wanted to answer him, to tell him it was last minute and that Mr. Blackbourne was on his way to help Kota’s family, among other things. I wanted to start talking about the Academy and how I wanted to join and I needed to know if he’d support me. I wanted to tell him to call someone to come get me if he didn’t want me here.

Before I could speak, though, green caught my eye. My senses got confused for a minute, as it felt like we’d stepped outside. My eyes drifted from him, to the room around us.

There was a large dresser pressed up against one wall, and on top of it a collection of brushes, a large jewelry box, the front piece open to reveal dozens of different earrings, all crystals in different colors. There was a table against another wall, with one side covered in notebooks and folded clothes. On the other side was a collection of glass vials, some corked and some open and clean. Some had liquid in them in various colors.

All of the walls, nearly every inch, were covered in a painted mural depicting a forest grove. There was a doe hiding behind one of the trees, songbirds in the branches, and a calm pool, the shadows of fish under the surface.

So real. I wanted to reach out and touch the leaves, the water, the animals. I felt if I moved, I’d scare the birds. It was a quiet, serene world in his bedroom.

His twin-sized bed was pressed along to the wall, under three windows, bare and showing the real South Carolina forest outside. The windows faced East so morning light filtered in. The mural and the trees blended into one another, so the rest of the room look like it was set within the trees.

It was all perfect, except for one section of the room where the wall was white, where the mural was incomplete.

Gabriel dropped my book bag onto the floor by the dresser. “Will you stop gawking? Shit. Now I want to paint over it all.”

I spun on him. “Why in the world would you do that?” I didn’t mean to sound so shocked, but I was scared to death that he would.

“Because it doesn’t look right,” he said.

I gaped. “What do you mean it doesn’t look right?”

“It’s a bunch of trees. It’s boring. And I can’t figure out how I want to finish. There’s no centerpiece.” He pointed to the barren section of white wall. “It’s like the tenth mural I’ve done and I can never figure out what to put here.”

“What did you have in mind when you started?” I asked.

Ten murals? How much did he paint? No wonder he was so good at it.

Gabriel shoved his fingers through the blond locks in his hair. “Shit, I don’t know. I just start painting and the next thing I know, it’s almost done.”

“I like it,” I said quietly.

His cheeks tinted and he lifted his gaze to meet mine. “You do?”

I couldn’t believe he’d think it was terrible. I sought out flaws but found none, save that it was still incomplete. “I’m jealous. Do you think Nathan would want his room painted like this?” I didn’t want to ask Gabriel to do work, or impose on Nathan to paint his bedroom without asking him first. Still, I’d love a bedroom mural.

His lips twisted. “Don’t be a tease.”

“I’m not! I’d want a forest in my room. With birds and deer...”

“I can’t. Nathan wanted me to do his wall once, but Kota said I had to think of the resale value. I told him it was bullshit since we could paint over it, but he also said Nathan’s dad wouldn’t like it.” He lifted at his hand, brushing a fingertip over his eyebrow. “Maybe I could now that his dad is halfway around the globe, but Nathan would probably want a gross zombie.”

“Maybe we could ask?” Then I clamped my lips shut. I liked the idea of painting, but they were Nathan’s walls. Gabriel was right that Nathan might want a scary zombie. Then I’d never sleep.

He sat on the bed, leaning back on his hands and nudging his toe into the carpet. “It’s best I don’t. I’ll fuck it up and then you’d end up with a shitty mural.”

I sat down next to him on the bed. I studied the trees, the way the light worked through the real window and how it blended so well. “Your forest is perfect.”

“It’s not finished.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Paint a big tree. Or two. Remember the two big oak trees in the woods behind Kota’s house?”

“The one with all the nettle around it?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. That was pretty, wasn’t it?”

He sighed, gazing up at the unfinished area of the wall. “I don’t know. I might just start over.”

“You have to finish this one,” I said.

“It’ll look like shit.”

“You already think it looks bad,” I said. “Finish it anyway. Complete one. I want to see it.”

He grunted and nudged me in the shoulder with his. “Well I’m not doing it right now.”

I nudged him back. “What else are we going to do today?”

He smirked at me. “What? You want to paint?”

I perked up. This was better. I’d get to see Gabriel in action. I wanted to watch him paint a tree on paper and then I’d try to copy what he was doing. “Can we? Can you show me?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “This isn’t like painting nails, Trouble.” He slapped me on the thigh. “Speaking of which, I just figured out what I wanted to do.”

A PROMISE

A
n hour later, Gabriel had my hair washed, my nails trimmed and polished in a soft pink, and my toenails painted with pink flowers.

He fell back onto the carpet, throwing a closed bottle of polish across the room until it rolled under the dresser. “Fuck, I don’t want to get a job painting nails. I’m done with doing just yours.”

I fell onto the carpet next to him, gazing up at the ceiling. The trees continued up, and it looked like we were on the ground, gazing up into the morning sky. “Adam wanted you to work at the spa with him.”

“Fuck the spa. He just wants to steal my good taste, because he can’t do shit with hair.”

“I liked the massage,” I said.

Gabriel’s face lit up. “Oh yeah, the massages. We need to go do that one day.”

I turned my head so I could look at him. He had such amazing angles to his face, and with the blond locks that blended into the russet brown, he looked really striking.

He breathed in deeply, and held it so long I thought he might pass out. In a burst, he let it go.

“Gabriel?”

“Yeah?”

I rolled onto my side, looking at him with my head propped on my hand. I needed to ask. The thought had been bugging me since I’d arrived. Gabriel’s home was completely different than what I had pictured. “What happened to your mom? How did you end up with Pam?”

There was a tiny wince in his eyes. “You want to talk about that now?”

“Sorry,” I said quietly.

“No,” he said. He pressed a palm to his face, rubbing at his eyes. “No, I shouldn’t have said that.” He moved closer on the carpet until he was facing me, leaving only a couple of inches between us.

I was the one holding my breath now, afraid to say anything and giving him room to say whatever he wanted. I didn’t mean to make it a deep discussion. I was curious since Pam was his stepmom. That meant his dad died at a time different than his real mom. I just didn’t know how.

He put his hand on the floor, and started making circles in the carpet with a fingertip. He watched his finger as he talked. “My real mom…she died,” he said. “Years ago. Her...and my baby brother.”

My eyes widened.

He swallowed and continued circling with his finger, his eyes still lowered. “I was at home alone, really too young to stay by myself, but they left me behind anyway. My dad was driving...” His lips tightened and he spoke through his teeth a little. “Fucker was drunk. Driving too fast. Smashed into a car. The other people made it out fine, but...”

No wonder he never said anything. I reached out, wanting to connect with him. I placed my hand over his, stilling his fingers, squeezing him. “Sorry,” I said quietly, unsure how to express what I was thinking. Sorry it ever happened. Sorry I made you talk about it.

He turned his hand over, squeezing mine, and continued to look at our joined hands. “He survived. Just a few scrapes. After they died, he started drinking more,” he said. “Used to beat the shit out of me, too. Said it was my fault. Said I should have been in the car, then I could have died instead of them. I tried hiding his booze when I could, thinking if he wasn’t drinking, he’d stop. Usually it just made it worse.”

My neighbor, Derrick, once told me they’d done that when they were much younger. “What happened to him?”

“He married Pam. I thought for sure when he married again he’d stop being an ass, but then one night he was out drunk driving again. Then he was a pancake.”

His hand lifted from mine and he touched solemnly at the three black earrings in his ear.

I gingerly reached out, touching the crest of his ear where the black rings started. I’d always wondered why he changed the crystals, but the black rings always remained. Three, one for each family member who died. “How old was your brother?”

“Almost one,” he said. He took my hand, squeezed it and then brought it to his lips, kissing the knuckle. “I’d barely gotten to know him. Then he was gone. I was alone for a long time, until the Academy. Now I’ve got a new family. And I mean, there’s Pam. She tried taking care of me, but she got a bad deal out of this. A lot of debt and a stepson who misbehaved a lot. I end up taking care of her these days. She works some, but she prefers to drink and get men to buy her drinks.”

What would it be like to get married to someone like Gabriel’s father? And then a year later become a widow and the last one to care for Gabriel? “She tried,” I said. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. He perked up a bit, smiled. “Okay, I’ve told you a bunch of shit. That all you want to know?”

There were so many questions. I wanted to ask about the Academy, about what other secrets he had. The more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know. The other boys had been together for years, and probably knew a lot of this; I was trying to catch up.

Gabriel was quiet for a long moment. He took up my hand again, and then brought it to his lips. He kissed my palm. “I never thought you’d come here.”

I stared at him quietly for a moment. Mr. Blackbourne said to trust the boys and to get to know them. I wanted to try. “Why not?”

“It’s not exactly...I mean it isn’t like Victor’s house. Hell, it’s not even like Kota’s or Silas’s.”

“I like your room.”

He smirked and shook his head. “You like anything.”

I scoffed. “No I don’t.”

He rolled his eyes and then his body jerked as he pulled out his vibrating phone. “Fuck me, they said I’d be off today.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Kota,” he said. He stood up. “Hang on a second? I’ve got to...” He nodded toward the bedroom door.

My heart dropped in my chest. He needed to talk about something to do with the Academy. It reminded me that even as far as I’d come within the group, I still wasn’t really a part of it. There were secrets that floated around us, and they couldn’t tell me everything. I started to get up. “You want me to leave?” I asked.

He twisted his lips and then shook his head. He walked toward the door. “Don’t worry. I’ll just be in the bathroom for a minute. Don’t move.”

Gabriel left. I listened as another door opened down the hallway. He closed that door and then talked. Through the thin walls of the trailer, I could hear his voice, but not what he said.

I sighed and then flopped back onto the floor. I tugged my own phone out of my bra for something to play with while he was gone.

I smoothed my thumb over the surface of the pink iPhone in my hand. Somehow, the movement brought my focus back. Mr. Blackbourne had brought me here for a reason. After our conversation earlier, it’d be a shame if Gabriel got called away and I hadn’t yet mentioned what I was thinking. I just thought I’d have all day to get around to it. Since it was still early, I assumed I’d have plenty of time.

It didn’t help that I kept putting it off.

Why would Kota be calling? Wasn’t he busy with the kids we found earlier?

I turned on my phone, checking the screen. It was still open to the conversation with Mr. Blackbourne, a reminder of what I needed to do. Somehow, it felt like I could make up for my refusal to do what he wanted by doing what we agreed on as quickly as possible. If Gabriel wasn’t already on my side, I wanted to win his approval before I spoke to Mr. Blackbourne again.

When I checked the general text inbox, two more messages had come in while I was with Gabriel. I hadn’t felt the vibration. Maybe it was while I was playing with Gabriel out in the living room.

Silas: Miss you.

Nathan: Coming back tonight? Do I need to pick you up?

I wasn’t sure how to respond to either. Telling Silas I missed him too felt like an invitation for him to come get me. I didn’t know the answer to Nathan’s questions, either. I suppose I had to go back at some point, though. My school books and school clothes were at home, and there was school tomorrow. Would it be inconvenient if I asked to stay the night?