My hand went nervously to my throat, my fingers closing around something cold. The crucifix — Lupe’s gift.
“What’s that?” Aidan asked.
“What? This?” I fingered the cross, laying it against my shirt. “It’s just a necklace.”
“Are you Catholic?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. Would it matter if I was?”
“I guess not,” he finally said.
“Someone sent it to me as a gift,” I said, clasping it protectively in my hand.
“Well, that someone is smarter than you think,” he said with a low chuckle. “Not that it’ll do much good, but it’s a nice gesture, anyway.” He reached for my hand, and I let him take it. “Do you want to go to the café and get some coffee or something?”
I did want to. But I’d just blown off my friends, insisting I needed to go to the gym and work out. How lame would it be to show up now with Aidan in tow, especially after the conversation I’d just had with Cece? Talk about humiliating.
An inner battle waged inside me — my pride versus my desire to spend time with Aidan. Ultimately, Aidan won out.
“Do you mind if we meet up with my friends there?” I asked, trying to see it as a compromise. “They were all headed over.”
“Of course not,” he said.
If they were surprised to see Aidan and me walk into the café together, my friends did a good job of hiding it. We joined them, pushing two tables together after buying some caramel mocha lattes and chocolate-chip cookies. Amazingly enough, it felt perfectly natural there, wedged between Cece and Aidan, holding his hand beneath the table.
A little more than an hour and two lattes later, everyone began to drift away. Sophie left to study, Jack and Kate went off together, and Cece and Marissa headed back toward the dorms. Aidan and I made our way back outside and plopped down beneath the drooping branches of an old oak, as far away from prying eyes as possible.
“It’s nice out,” he said, his legs stretched out toward me. A street lamp beside the sidewalk cast an oblong patch of light on the grass where we sat, making his hair look like gold.
“Yeah, it feels good out here,” I said. The café had been hot and crowded. I still felt flushed all over.
He nodded. Above us, the light flickered, then went out, leaving us in total darkness.
I let out my breath in a rush. “Did you do that?”
“Do you want it on?” With a hiss, it popped back on.
I rubbed my eyes, seeing spots now. “No, it’s okay.”
Out it went again. You’d think I’d be used to such things by now, but it still gave me chills.
“So,” I asked, figuring I might as well get it all out in the open. “What else can you do? I mean, besides read minds—”
“Not yours, not anymore,” he interrupted, and I smiled in self-satisfaction. I’d gotten really good at blocking my thoughts. I did it automatically now, whenever I was with him.
“Let’s see. you can speak telepathically,” I continued, finally getting the lingo down, “and turn lights on and off. Does that make you telekinetic, too?”
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
“Oh, wait,” I said, leaning toward him, trying to make out his face in the darkness. “I forgot the thing where you manipulate feelings.”
“I promised not to do that anymore, remember?”
“And I’m supposed to trust you on that?” I asked, only half-kidding.
“You can trust me, Violet.” His voice was silky smooth. Seductive.
“Then why won’t you tell me what you were doing all week? Why the secrets?”
“Because I can’t tell you.” He took my hand and drew me closer.
“And that’s all you’re going to say about it?” I pressed, scooting a few inches closer, drawn to him like a bee to honey. I could feel his breath on my neck, and I shivered.
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” he teased, his lips moving toward my throat. I knew he was kidding, but there was an edge to his voice — something hard, almost angry.
“That’s not funny,” I said on a sigh, willing his mouth closer.
With a groan, his lips retreated. “Trust me, I know.”
Disappointment washed over me. Suddenly cold, I pulled up my knees and wrapped my arms around them, studying Aidan’s face — in focus, now that my eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness.
“What do you do when you’re not in class?” I asked. “I never see you around campus.”
“I told you, I work in the chem lab,” he answered.
“Yeah, I know. But I meant, like, for fun.”
“Well, to me, the work I do in the lab is fun. Challenging. I read a lot too.”
“Yeah?” Well, that was one thing we had in common, then. “What do you read?”
“Classics, mostly. Some fantasy and science fiction.” He reached for my hand. “Anything else you want to know?”
“What were you like as a kid?” I asked. It was hard to imagine Aidan as a kid. He seemed mature beyond his years, I guess you could say. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but there was none of that insecurity in Aidan, that awkward self-consciousness that most guys our age seemed to suffer from. He seemed pretty comfortable in his own skin.
I heard him laugh — a low, soft rumble. “Me, as a child? I can barely remember, it was so long ago.”
“It wasn’t that long ago. When’s your birthday, by the way?”
“October ninth. You just missed it. When’s yours?”
“March twenty-seventh,” I answered. “I won’t be seventeen till spring.”
He nodded. “Anyway, to answer your question, I was arrogant and spoiled. Used to getting my own way. You wouldn’t have liked me very much.”
“And what about dreams, aspirations? I guess you want to be a scientist or something?” Considering he liked to work in the chem lab. For fun.