The Year We Hid Away (6 page)

“That’s just selfish, Shannon. None of us moves on until your father can walk away from this bullshit with his head held high.”

Later, I would remember to be shocked that my mother used a curse word. But at the moment, I was just too stunned by the threat she made next.

“If your father loses the cases against him, do you really think there will be tuition money for you next year? You think you’ve run away from it all. But you can’t. Do the interview, or I will not be responsible for your tuition check going astray next year.”

The truth of my situation settled like a weight on my chest. I was never getting out from under the things that my father did.

Allegedly
did.

Probably did.

God.

I didn’t run out the door right after that phone call, even though I probably should have. Instead, I began Googling “compelling a testimony” and “children of the defendant.” I didn’t have a clue whether the law required me to talk to my father’s lawyers, or whether I could be put on the witness stand. And there was nobody I could ask who would tell me the truth.

My phone rang again, and I picked it up the way you handle a poisonous snake. But the incoming call wasn’t from my mom or a lawyer. It was from Bridger.

“Hello,” I said, my voice husky.

“Stalker! Where are you? Sick?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m okay. There was some… family drama today. I wasted a lot of time on the phone with my mom. But it’s no big deal.”

“Huh,” Bridger said. “I wonder how you’re going to get the notes for today’s classes?”

“Bridger,” I smiled for the first time that day. “Maybe there’s someone who will be nice enough to help me out with that?”

“Are you missing lunch, too?”

“I guess so.”

“That’s no good. I’m bringing you a sandwich. What kind should I get?”

“You don’t have to do that,” I stumbled on the words. But of course, I wanted Bridger to bring me a sandwich. What a swoon-worthy idea.

“What do you like? I’m not in line yet, so just give me a genre. Turkey? Italian?”

“Get whichever sandwich special looks good,” I said quickly. “And a cookie wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I’ll be there in ten,” he said. “The Turner first years live in… Vanderberg, right? You can show me the guitar thing you were talking about last week.” He ended the call.

For the next twenty minutes, I ran around tidying up my room. The common room was in decent shape, but I had to make my bed and kick a bunch of Blond Katie’s clothes under hers.

My phone buzzed with a text from Bridger. KNOCK KNOCK.

I ran down the stairs and opened the entryway door. “Hi!”

He walked in, a take-out box in his hands. “Hi, stalker.” His green eyes studied me. “Are you okay?”

Damn. I should have tidied myself up as well as the room. The way he stared, my eyes were probably red.

“Sure,” I said, my voice as bright as possible. “Come on up. Thanks for bringing lunch.”

And then he was actually walking
into my room
, something that had figured prominently into several of my recent fantasies. I very nearly sat down in the common room, but it occurred to me that one or both Katies might show up at any moment. And I didn’t want to compete with them for Bridger’s attention, because surely I’d lose. So I walked right through the common room and into the bedroom, just as casually as if guys followed me in there all the time.

Bridger didn’t seem to find that strange. He tossed his coat down and sat on the foot of my bed, setting the take-out box down on Blond Katie’s trunk. “Let’s eat.” I sat on Katie’s bed, to make things a little less weird. He popped open the box. “It was chicken and avocado day,” he said.

“Score.”

“Exactly.” He spread a napkin on his lap. Then he took two sandwich halves and passed me the box.

“Ooh, stick-tap for remembering to bring chips!” I said.

He looked up quickly, a smile on his face. “You’re welcome.”

That’s when I realized that I’d used a hockey reference. A stick-tap was the sort of thank-you that only another player would understand. Crap! My mother had put me off my game today. And I’d almost blown my cover the first day we’d met, too, when I’d recognized Bridger’s name from the team roster. “It was nice of you to bring lunch,” I said.

“It’s nothing,” he said, his voice gruff. “Are you going to be okay? Is it anything you want to talk about?”

I shook my head. “Nobody’s dying, if that’s what you mean. It’s just… drama. Makes me happy to be many miles away.”

“Well,” he leaned down to steal a few chips out of the box. “I know drama. Everybody’s got some.”

We chewed in silence for a minute, and I thought Bridger was going to let the subject drop. But he didn’t. His voice was wistful as he spoke again. “This year I seem to be punching above my weight in drama. Last week, I really let it get to me.”

“But not anymore?” I asked. Our voices were hushed, by some mutual agreement that this was not a typical conversation for us. “Because if you know any tricks for sliding out from underneath it, I’m all ears.”

He cleared his throat. “My trick is understanding that there aren’t any tricks. You just have to wade through each moment as it comes.”

“Well I’m definitely doing it wrong, then.”

He barked out a laugh. “Why?”

“Well…” I nibbled a chip. “I’ve always liked to plan things out, so that I know what to expect. But last year, that was impossible, and I never really got over it.”

“There’s a saying. If you want God to laugh, tell him your plans.”

“I should have it tattooed on my person.”

“Which part of your person?” His green eyes lifted to mine with a sparkle that I sincerely hoped was intentionally flirtatious.

A girl can dream.

“So,” he said when the lunch was eaten. “Where’s this guitar I’ve been hearing about?”

“Move your big feet and I’ll show you.” I pulled Jordan out from under the bed, and snapped open the case. It occurred to me that I could not tell Bridger my guitar’s name, because I’d named Jordan after the hottest player in the NHL. And the real-life Jordan was a
ginger
, just like Bridger.

Biting back a smile, I sat down right next to Bridger on the bed, holding the guitar across my lap, and turning to face him.

He reached across to brush his fingers against the strings, each one making a watery sound as he plucked them.

I grinned. “Man up, Bridger. Like
this
.” I strummed, and the sound filled the room.

“Did you just call me a wuss?” Those jade eyes challenged me as he reached over again, this time plucking one string hard.

“Atta boy.” This was the most fun I’d had in a long time. “Okay, so I promised to teach you about intervals. So, that’s the D string you just plucked. Sing it with me.” I sang a
la
on the note of D.

“Christ, Stalker. You didn’t mention anything about singing.”

“It’s one note. Come on, give me a D.”

His ears turned pink. But then he sang the note with me. “Yes! See, that was easy. Now we’re going to raise it an octave.” I sang a higher D, but Bridger faltered.

“A real man can’t sing that note,” he complained.

“Nonsense. Eric Clapton can sing it. And he has his Man Card. But never mind — can you
hear
that it’s one octave higher? Still a D?”

“Sure. I hear it.”

“Good. Now see this dot?” I pointed at the inlay on the fingerboard. “That divides the string exactly in half, from the bridge to where it’s wound around the pin. So first listen…” I played the open D string. “Now put your finger there.”

Bridger pressed down the string onto the fret at the half way marker, and then I strummed again. The sound was an octave higher.

“Deeee…” I sang and then knocked his finger off the fret. “Deeee,” I sang the lower one. “Half the string, twice the rate of oscillation. Music theory is just a bit of simple math.”

He regarded me, the room quiet around us. “That’s very cool, Stalker. And so much more lucid than our shitty textbook. But now I need to hear you play.”

“Play… what?”

“A song. I want to hear one.”

“Um… maybe. If you can do me a little favor.”

He crossed his arms, and I became momentarily distracted by the curved shape of his forearm muscles. “Favor? What’s this going to cost me?”

“Well… could you stop calling me Stalker?” I knew my objection to his nickname was a little silly. But the past year had made me sensitive to anything even remotely creepy.

His eyebrows went up. “Sure. That’s it?”

I nodded.

“No problem, Miss Scarlet. Now play me a song.”

My hands felt a little sweaty, and I had to wipe them on my jeans. I shouldn’t have been nervous, because I spent a lot of restless hours last year playing the living crap out of my guitar. When nobody at school will speak to you, and there’s a full drama playing inside your house, there is really no better way to spend time than practicing music. But still, I was anxious to impress.

I cleared my throat. “Okay. What do you like? Give me a basic genre.”

His smile lit up the whole room. “Classic rock?”

I put the guitar strap over my head, checked my tuning, and then launched in to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s
Sweet Home Alabama
. With its distinctive opening riff, I knew it would sound impressive. And I’d played it a hundred times before.

I kept my eyes on the fret board, not because I needed to look, but because I felt shy. After the first few bars I began to relax, the music pulling me in.

When the song was done, I waited until the last note died away. And then I couldn’t avoid his face any longer. Bridger was looking down at me with big eyes, dark green, the color of the sea before a storm. “Damn, Scarlet,” he whispered. “You amaze me.”

My cheeks did their thing, becoming hot. I busied myself with removing the guitar strap from around my neck. But I fumbled it, twisting my hair in the strap. “Ouch,” I swore.

Bridger reached up to untangle me, and I felt my status tumble quickly from “possibly cool” right down to “dork.” But just as I was beating myself up about it, I noticed something peculiar. After Bridger pushed my tangled hair off my shoulder, his hand stayed there, warming my skin. Then, his fingers cupped my cheek. My gaze flew to his, and I found him studying me.

Ever so slowly, he leaned in. Then his lips barely whispered across mine, and I felt myself break out in goosebumps. But he didn’t kiss me properly. Instead, his lips came to hover over the corner of my mouth, a spot on my body which I’d never guessed was so sensitive. “Is this okay?” he whispered, his lips so close that I could feel the words vibrate on my skin. “I find you a little hard to read.”

Hell yes
. But I didn’t trust my voice to answer him. Instead, I turned my face the tiniest distance towards his, hoping he’d understand. My heart slammed against my ribs as his mouth found mine. Bridger’s lips were gentle and soft. As he pressed his mouth onto mine, a happy warmth bloomed in my chest.

One of his arms slipped around to encircle me, but then his mouth withdrew. “I’ve wanted to do this,” he whispered, “since the first day you sat down to lunch.” When he kissed me again, I slumped into him. His lips parted, and then his tongue slid slowly over mine. A little mewl of pleasure escaped from the back of my throat. I decided to be embarrassed about it later.

In my happy haze, I barely noticed when Bridger moved the guitar from my lap onto Katie’s bed. We were still sitting side by side on my bed, but Bridger scooped a hand under my knees, lifting them over his, so that we could almost face each other. His broad hands warmed my lower back as he kissed me again and again. I let my fingers explore the hard muscles of his shoulders, the velvety skin on the back of his neck, and then wander into his thick hair.

And then his alarm went off.

Bridger broke off our kiss with a groan. He pressed a button on his watch to silence the beeping. Then he wrapped his arms around me, his chin on my shoulder. “And then real life intrudes,” he said in a low voice.

I said nothing, just threaded my fingers together behind his broad back, holding on tightly.

“I have to go,” he said.

I swiveled to slide my legs off of his. “I know.”

“Not that I want to…” He stood up. “Can I call you later?”

I nodded up at him.

He bent down, gave me a tiny kiss on the lips, and then turned and left my room.

Alone, I flopped back on the bed, a quivering, grinning mess of a girl. My lips were swollen from his kisses, my palms damp.

At least something went right that day.

He called at nine thirty. I made myself wait until the second ring to answer. “Hi,” I said, suddenly shy.

“Hi Scarlet.” His voice was hushed. “Are we still cool?”

“Yes,” I said. “In fact, we’d be even cooler if you came back over here.” And after I said it, my heart took off galloping like a pony. Because there was always a chance Bridger was about to say something that started with “about this afternoon… I didn’t mean to do that.”