Thicker Than Water (8 page)

MORNING SUN ALWAYS FEELS TOO BRIGHT, ESPECIALLY WHEN
you've been sitting near the back of a school bus for an hour. I squinted up at Sexton Hall, the white-columned building at the entrance of the Edenton campus. It reminded me of my second-grade field trip to Washington, DC. Those monuments felt more important than any building I'd ever seen; Sexton Hall was like the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial's love child.

Natalie tugged on my sleeve. “Look at this”—she pointed to the map—“there's a Starbucks right on campus! How cool is that? Do you think they let freshmen choose their own roommates? Maybe we should fill in dorm applications today.”

“Okay. Sure.” I forced a smile.

When Jeremy bailed on the trip, I was sure Natalie'd blow me off, giving me an exit strategy. There was no point in
visiting Edenton now; it was a club I'd never be allowed to join. And I hadn't told Natalie about the rejection letter from the Scholarship Foundation—she didn't have to worry about stuff like that. Her college was already paid for.

But she'd called last night to read me Edenton's raving reviews at collegepartygods.com. Apparently Jungle Juice and nitrous oxide were seeing resurgence at local off-campus social gatherings. Maybe that accounted for the number of people on this tour; the bus was full and a handful of seniors had come separately with parents in tow. I don't think their parents came for the laughing gas, but you never know.

Eddie, one of the student tour guides, shifted from foot to foot as he checked out cheer captain Julie Hardwick. Julie had decided it was an excellent idea to wear last night's party clothes to this morning's academic outing, along with a sexy smear of eye makeup on each lid. I always knew she was classy.

A handful of guys were quizzing Eddie's counterpart, Vince, about intramural sports, while Mr. Morton, our chaperone, was chatting with a couple of parents. I used my well-bitten thumbnail to peel the insignia from the front of my “Welcome to our expensive-ass college where the only thing you get free is this folder” folder.

“So, is this still your number-one school?” Natalie asked me. She flipped through the course catalog. “If it doesn't have a fashion program, I'm not interested.”

I shrugged, picking sticker adhesive from under my nail.
I could feel bile or panic or both rising in my chest. I don't know what I was thinking—how was I supposed to make it a whole day pretending that I was actually going here in the fall? Pill money would never pay for Edenton courses. I was destined to be an alumna of Nowhere Important Community College.

I contemplated faking a sprained ankle and started scoping out something to trip over. At least then I could hang out on the bus while everyone else planned their futures.

If nothing else, I can hide out in the Starbucks
, I thought.

“Cecelia?”

The voice was husky and smoky and male and, I'm not going to lie, even before I knew who it was, every hair on my body stood up and took notice.

I turned to see Lucas Andrews standing behind Natalie, hardly five feet away. His eyes were the kind of blue you see in Disney movie princes—royal or cobalt or sapphire. I would have broken into song had I been able to breathe. Natalie just looked back and forth between Lucas and me.

“How's it going?” he asked, this time looking at Natalie.

“Good.” She gave him a sleepy, glazed-doughnut smile—the kind that Natalie usually reserved for her boyfriend and baked goods. The sun made Lucas's hair even blonder; I wouldn't have thought that possible. It was almost like a halo shining above his head.

“So, Edenton, huh?” Lucas said, this time to me. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“Uh, yeah. You, too?”

He didn't answer—just stood there, looking at me, with a smile buried under his lips so that all his mouth showed was potential. Somehow I could tell he was used to not answering questions people wanted answers to. And that was sexy as hell.

For a second, the three of us stood there like a disjointed tripod, with Natalie just staring at me as though I'd grown a few extra pairs of breasts and they were the only explanation for Lucas's attention. In the meantime, Eddie had started to herd our group into an amorphous body that, as it shifted, absorbed more and more people. The audience of thirty or forty sort of swayed as it moved toward the nearby library. Natalie glanced at Lucas again, then grinned at me before tucking her folder into her bag and moving toward the front of the crowd. I watched her curls bounce along her shoulders, then disappear from view.

Lucas and I were walking slowly and the rest of the crowd moved past us to hear Eddie's spiel. I flipped through my folder to a photocopied map. The Edenton campus was like one rectangle, divided into angles by diagonal sidewalks and buildings. We were walking toward the Commons, where there was a student bookstore, the dining hall, and mailboxes for on-campus students.

“This campus is pretty small,” Lucas said. I nodded, watching him from my peripheral vision. His chin jutted with a kind of confidence. Even his face had swagger.

“Married housing is just behind this building.” Eddie pointed at a series of double-wide mobile homes. They
reminded me of the portable classrooms at our high school. The teachers called them “the learning pods,” while the students preferred “the trailer park.”

“They're first come, first serve and they fill up fast, so if you need 'em, make sure you put that on your application,” Eddie was saying. “Otherwise you'll end up in the dorms.”

“I can't imagine being married in college,” I muttered. Lucas raised an eyebrow.

“What, you don't want to get hitched at seventeen? You might get an MTV show if you're up for it.”

I grimaced. “Not unless they pay enough to cover my tuition.”

We were walking through a pergola and toward the freshmen dorms. Lucas was watching me now and his gaze felt sort of spicy, like when I burn my tongue. Less painful, though. More tingly.

“What about scholarships?” he finally asked. “You're such a good student—AP classes, honor roll, all that shit.”

So, he knows stuff about me?
The tingle in my cheeks started intensifying and I bit down hard on my lower lip.

“The scholarship route hasn't really panned out for me,” I admitted. “If I had another year, I could apply for more financial aid, but—”

And that's when Lucas stopped walking. He moved to the left, where a nearby building cast shadows over a few benches and two sad-looking rhododendron bushes. It took a second for me to realize that, in the process, he'd grabbed my hand.

“Look, I'm not here because I want to go to Edenton.”

What I think:
I'm here because there's just something about you. We've hardly spoken, but there's this bond between us . . .

What I hear: “I came because Jason asked me to.”

The world rerighted itself. Of course.

“He's got a message for your brother,” Lucas continued, one hand raking through his hair. The same hand, coincidentally, that had been holding mine a second ago. “He wants a quantity and he's willing to pay big money.”

I blinked hard. “I—I just saw Jason. Last night.”

Lucas raised both eyebrows and I felt the color wash over my face.

“To bring him . . . stuff,” I said, suddenly wary of who could be listening.

“Yeah, I know. But Jason gave me eighty bucks to find you today and tell you to get him more.”

I swallowed. “How much is more, exactly?”

Lucas shrugged. “As much as Cyrus will pass along, I guess. At least a couple dozen.”

I exhaled. I knew I couldn't do that, not all at once.

“I'll check with Cyrus,” I said carefully. “It might take a little while.”

“Sure, sure. I understand.” Lucas glanced at his watch. “Well, sweet. Easiest eighty bucks I ever made.”

I felt like garbage.

“So, I think I'm gonna head out,” Lucas said. “I'm starving.” He looked at me, head cocked to one side. “You wanna get some breakfast?”

“I don't know . . .” I said slowly, peeking around the side of building.

Eddie and the group were still moving farther away, but I could hear him talking about elective credits while parents were taking pictures of a historic clock tower. I couldn't see Natalie in the crowd and I felt a stab of guilt for abandoning my friend. I turned back toward Lucas.

“I should probably catch at least some of the tour.”

“Aw, come on—break the rules for once.” Lucas grinned, moving in closer.

Something inside my chest stuttered and I watched the half smile on his face spread to whole.

“How do you know I don't break the rules all the time?” I asked, attempting to flirt without throwing up or swallowing my tongue. Lucas laughed.

“I have a feeling that you've been a good girl pretty much all your life.”

Right. The good girl who sells drugs? The good girl who gives up on her dream school? The good girl who lies to her best friend and takes off with an almost stranger to get breakfast?

And that's when Lucas winked at me.

And that's when I asked, “So, where are you parked?”

The interior of Lucas's Mazda was tricked out—he had a kick-ass sound system and a built-in GPS. On the floor were black mats with a glow-in-the-dark pot leaf outline in the center of each one.

“How long have you had this?” I asked, gesturing to the car.

“For a year or so.”

“Did you bring it with you from California?”

“Huh?”

“From . . . California?” I repeated uncertainly. “I thought you lived there or something.”

He laughed. “No, who told you that?”

“Um, I don't remember. Someone at school.”

“I'm originally from Kansas. Right outside Topeka.”

“Oh. Right.”

I looked at Lucas's profile as he fiddled with some buttons on the dashboard. For the first time, I noticed a thin, raised scar running down his cheek; it was long, snaking its way back behind his ear.

He messed with the car stereo for a minute, then pushed the clock button. It was 10:10 a.m. He looked over at me.

“I think I passed a diner just outside town. It's a little early for lunch, but I'll bet they serve breakfast all day.”

I shrugged, pretending not to care. Being alone with him was already making me queasy with nerves. Being with him in public couldn't be any worse than us sitting in his car, our bodies barely a foot apart. I'd liked guys before, but never a guy who voluntarily spent time with me. It was a revelation, and it made me both giddy and completely uncomfortable.

In fact, something about Lucas reminded me of my very first crush. His name was Josh, but I called him Joshua, and he played on Cy's soccer team in middle school. I also liked
writing the word
Joshua
on my notebook—especially when it was followed with
+ CeCe
. My crush on Josh was lengthy, even after he'd figured out how much I liked him and long after he'd started mocking me to his teammates.

Cyrus was torn. Sometimes he laughed at me, like his friends. Sometimes he spent the car ride home yelling at me for being so stupid, for liking a boy who couldn't care less about me.

It's the day Cy punched Josh that I remembered best. I don't know what was said or how it started, but, from the sidelines, I'd watched my brother's shoulders sort of ripple and extend. I thought,
Just like the Incredible Hulk
, and then fists began to fly. Cy's team lost the game. My parents grounded him for a week and Cyrus learned that even he faced consequences.

Of course, from then on, Cy wasn't so fiercely loyal to me. From then on, he was just fierce.

When Lucas and I got to University Diner, the hostess seated us in a wide booth by the front window. I could hear the crunch of gravel as cars pulled into and out of the parking lot. For a minute, we read over our menus. Well, Lucas read over his menu. I pretended to look at mine, but the laminated surface was too shiny for me to focus; all I could think was that Lucas had driven an hour to come find me. Eighty bucks might have covered a tank of gas, but not breakfast.

“You want to split some French toast sticks?” he asked. His eyes met mine over a photo of omelets and my brain felt scrambled.

“Um, okay. Sure.”

“So, Edenton—yes or no?” he asked after the waitress took our order. I shook my head.

“No. It's really too expensive.”

“How much is too expensive?”

“Like forty grand a year.”

He gave a low whistle and shook his head, then checked his phone. Nervously, I fingered the paper ring around my napkin.

“So, how'd you meet Jason?” I asked, needing to fill the silence.

“I never really met him.” When I looked confused, Lucas laughed. “He's my cousin.”

“Oh.” The fact that Lucas and Jason were related seemed impossible. Two people had never looked more different.

“That's why we moved here,” Lucas was saying. “Mom and Aunt Wendy are twins—they do everything together. Every time they've ever lived in different places, one of them always ends up moving to be closer to the other. They finish each other's sentences, all that twin stuff. It's super annoying.”

“I think that's actually sort of great,” I admitted. I tried to imagine a world where I didn't want to get as far away from Cyrus as possible.

Lucas reached for his soda. It wasn't until his mouth hit the straw that I realized I'd been watching his lips like today's feature presentation. He must have noticed, because I could see a smirk start to bend the corners of his mouth. I was becoming unhinged, so I tried to regroup.