Under Zenith (20 page)

“Okay, you have to tell me honestly,” Hayden said, seeming to loosen up a little at my relaxed posture. Before we had both been sitting stiffly at attention. “Were you any good?”

“I don’t know how to answer that without sounding conceited, but I was
very
good,” I said, laughing a bit at my own description of myself. “There’s no way to sound humble saying that, is there?” I asked, crinkling my nose up at him.

“I don’t think so, but you put forth
a valiant effort. Well done,” Hayden replied, now laughing as well.

His laugh was deep and rich. It gave me goose bumps.

“Please tell me you don’t sing country music or I’ll be forced to kick you out of the safe house this instant.”

“What’s wrong with country?” I asked, sounding offended even though I wasn’t.

“Everyone in the South fancies themselves a country singer and most of them are awful,” he said, giving me a look. “In fact, the entire genre is awful in and of itself so I can’t really blame the people who sing it. There’s just no saving that music.”

“You are the most unpleasant person I’ve ever met,” I told him with a laugh, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“Well I don’t sing country, so that’s not possible.”

I resisted the urge to reach out and hit him again.

“I like country,” I said.

“Of course you do. You’re a backwoods hick from North Carolina.”

“North Carolina isn’t even the
South
south,” I said defensively.

“It’s south enough for you to have that terrible accent,” he pointed out, now openly grinning at me.

It was a sight I wasn’t used to, and it threw me off momentarily.

“Well you’ll be happy to know I don’t sing country.”

“I think you’re lying,” he said, narrowing his eyes as if he were trying to read me.

It was almost as if knocking Hayden over today (for the second time) had rewired his brain and he suddenly didn’t think it would be the end of the world if he joked around with me or acted like a decent human being. It was a nice change to say the least.

“I swear,” I told him, holding up my hand. “Scout’s honor.”

“Then what do you sing?”

“I sing folk music,” I said smugly.

“That’s the same thing!” he practically shouted, still grinning.

“No it’s not! Folk is more like
Mumford and Sons
. They aren’t country.”

“That’s true,” he agreed.

“Plus they have those amazing accents.”

“What, English accents? You think an English accent is nice?” he asked, sounding like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

I guessed the look he was giving me was very similar to the look I gave people when they said they liked Southern accents. To me, I didn’t even have an accent so how could it be special or different?

“Not that I would ever want to admit this to
you
, but I happen to have a soft spot for English accents,” I said, highly embarrassed to reveal this detail to Hayden.

             
He looked slightly skeptical of this revelation, but leaned in closer to me, as if testing the theory. This was definitely not the Hayden I was used to. Normally he was doing anything he could to get away from me. Close proximity was
not
his thing.

“A soft spot huh?” he asked quietly, still coming ever closer to me.
“So do you think my accent is charming then?”

Our blue eyes were locked on each other as he stopped his forward progression, so close to me that I could smell the clean scent of soap on him.
His face was out of focus at this proximity, but I could see a distant look in his eyes, as if he were drowsy. Or maybe it was just content? I couldn’t tell, but I did know it wasn’t a look I’d seen him wear before.

“When you aren’t saying terrible things it is,” I whispered, scared to death that I was misreading the signals he was sending me.
“But you’re almost always saying terrible things.”

My heart was pounding so hard that my hands shook
, but miraculously, I didn’t have a million thoughts running through my mind like I should have. I only wondered if Hayden could possibly be getting ready to kiss me or if he was going to suddenly pull away and laugh at me for thinking he’d ever want to kiss me.

His nose was touching mine now and his blue eyes were drifting lazily over my face and all I could think was, “This is the longest build up ever”
. I had to admit though, the lead up to a first kiss was usually the best part, so I let myself enjoy it, without considering the humiliating possibility that it wouldn’t happen.

Just as I thought his lips would touch mine, he tilted his head to the side and brushed his mouth gently over my neck, sending shivers all over my body. I closed my eyes and tried not to enjoy the sensation as much as I was as he
created a little trail of kisses up my neck, stopping at the corner of my mouth. His lips lightly moved over mine, still not quite kissing me, but being close enough that I had to utilize all of my willpower to keep from pouncing on him.

He inhaled deeply,
making me feel like he was breathing me in and taking the air from my lungs all at the same time.

“I’m sorry about that, Isla,” he finally whispered back to me, the space between us proving to be too much for h
im as he closed the distance and eliminated the practically non-existent gap.

I tilted my head back, as his hands tentatively cupped my cheeks, resting gently beneath my jaw bone
. I wasn’t sure what I should do with my shaking hands so I turned my body toward him, letting my fingers slide over his broad shoulders and link together behind his neck, playing with his hair.

Despite the light touch in his hands, the kiss was deep and perfect.
It was more real than the falling sensation I’d experience only days before when this very same man had pushed me off a cliff.

We definitely had a dysfunctional relationship.

He kissed me hungrily, nothing tentative about the way he leaned into me, and I felt like I could go on like that forever.              After a while, though, I could feel Hayden’s lips curl up into a smile beneath mine. I could sense that he wanted to say something, but I didn’t let him, not wanting to end this moment quite yet. I leaned my body even closer to his, trying to eliminate any space that could possibly exist between us, and determined to enjoy every single moment of this too perfect kiss. His hands left my cheeks and travelled down my arms, coming to rest on my waist where the pressure of his fingertips sent goose bumps over my skin.

It was almost painful how amazingly perfect the kiss felt.

Until I felt a snowflake hit my cheek and my mind instantly went fuzzy.

I stopped kissing Hayden
, but kept my lips against his lightly, just barely touching.

“Your mind has terrible timing,” Hayden said, tic
kling my lips with his speech and giving me one last kiss as I struggled to keep myself upright.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said sleepily, not sure if
my words were making any sense as he gently lowered me onto the bed.

“I
honestly never thought I’d say this to you, but I don’t want to go either,” he admitted.

And with that, he brushed his lips over my forehead and I fell into a forced sleep with the most peaceful smile I’
d ever worn on my still tingling lips.

Chapter 19

When I woke the next morning, my head ached and the small amount of light coming in through the closed shutters was all too bright. I draped my arm over my eyes and pulled the
quilt up to my chin, not really feeling like getting out of bed for my final cycle.

I was lucky my sleep each night was forced or I was sure I wouldn’t have gotten any rest with the thought of my last task looming over me.
I still hadn’t decided if reaching my Destination was a good thing or a bad thing and Hayden’s insistence that it was important wasn’t doing much to comfort me.

Then, of course, there was the matter of our kiss the night before.
I wasn’t quite sure how Hayden would handle the potentially awkward social situation today, but I knew that I was handling it exactly how I wanted to: curled up in bed, hiding from the world.

Haden wasn’t
really the doting-romantic-boyfriend type. I wasn’t under the impression that he’d suddenly be all cuddly and sweet. In fact, I would have worried about his sanity if he was. Of course that being said, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from a post-kiss Hayden. I wasn’t even sure how
I
felt about everything that had happened last night. Yes, I had wanted to kiss Hayden, no matter how much I tried to deny it, but that didn’t mean that I
should
have kissed him.

What could I possibly gain from doing that?

Today was my last task and I knew he couldn’t come with me wherever I was going, so I had just unintentionally complicated my last cycle over one stupid kiss.

Well, on
e amazing kiss I guess. But still, that didn’t make it okay.

The light had long since faded from my window, replaced by fog, and yet I still made no move to get out of bed and Hayden hadn’t come knocking yet. It looked like we were both avoiding the
‘morning after’ scenario.

In a perfect world, Hayden would come storming into the room, sweep me off my feet into a kiss, and tell me how wonderful I was and how happy he was that we had finally wordlessly declar
ed our feelings for each other.

But something told me
that wasn’t going to happen.

As if on cue, the front door swung open and Hayden swaggered in, looking like his normal smug self
, and not giving any signs that last night had even happened.

“You’re still in bed. Perfect,” he said, and even without looking at him
, I could hear the implied eye roll there.

I didn’t want to deal with this. Instead of being an adult, I rolled over onto my side so that I faced the wall and all Hayden had
, was a view of my back. Take that Mr. I’m-too-dark-and-brooding-to-ever-have-feelings-for-anyone-other-than-myself-and-my-own-twisty-darkness.

“Are you giving up now that we’re on the last task? Because so help me, I will march you through that maze at gunpoint if I have to,” he threatened, taking a few steps closer to me and pulling the quilt off of the bed in one swift movement.

“While I have no doubt that you’ll live up to your threat, I don’t feel like getting up right now,” I protested, still keeping my back to him. “I’m not sure I even want to reach my Destination yet.”

“Fantastic,” he deadpanned, before sliding his arms under me and lifting me off the bed.

He held me like a baby as he carried me from the cabin, bringing me across a brick floor.

“Let me go
, Hayden! You can’t force me to do the task!” I shouted, pounding his chest with my fists.

“On the contrary. You’re kind of small and puny, while
I
am much bigger than you and completely capable of forcing you to do whatever I want,” he said matter-of-factly, coming to a stop at the top of a large brick staircase that looked out over the biggest brick maze I had ever seen.

It was a whole lot of
bricks, that was for sure.

He dumped me unceremoniously onto the ground and I couldn’t help but feel like not only were we ignoring the kiss last night, we had also regressed back to the way we treated each other the very first day we’d met. That wasn’t exactly a good thing.
It meant a lot more bruises for me and a lot more frustration for Hayden.

I rubbed my backside as I stood up and glared at my Guide angrily.

“I don’t know how many times I can tell you this, but you’re the worst human being I’ve ever met,” I told him.

“That’s great. Now get a good look at the maze
, because this is the only time you’ll get to see it,” he said, completely unfazed by my statement. “Task six: Memory.”

“Me
mory…as in how well I can use my memory while being chased by some terrible monster? Or just…memory?”

“No chasing. No potential dismemberment. Just try to remember where that little marker in the middle of the maze is and how to get there or we’re going to be stuck together for a long time today. And trust me
, love, I don’t really fancy that at the moment.”

Oh yeah, he was
definitely
not the cuddly boyfriend type.

Mustering the pieces of my completely shredded pride, I stuck my chin out
and tried to look like I didn’t care about how mean Hayden was being, all the while taking in the maze below me. If he wanted to get away from me that was just fine. I could complete the task quickly, finally reach my Destination, and be done with him. Talk about good motivation for going to the Other Side. Hayden’s repellant personality was better than any zombie.