If the walls could talk, Wyatt would have let them sing. He stood, books in hand, hip leaned into the locker below his and watched as his girl glided her way to fourth-period art. They’d spent every moment of three weeks together with no mention of any other boy. Wyatt couldn’t help the smile that grew.
A slap on the back brought him out of his reverie. He cringed and pulled his shoulders inward as the sting shot to his toes. He braced, prepared to return fire only to find his best friend.
“What gives, man? That hurt!” Wyatt reached through the top of his T-shirt and rubbed the spot between his shoulders.
“She’s lookin’ good there,” Stuart said. “Mmm, Mmm.”
“Get your eyes off her ass, idiot.” Wyatt rubbed at his back as his eyes moved to the same place as Stuart’s. “And next time, don’t hit so hard.”
With his girl secured in class, Wyatt turned back to find Stuart dumping the contents of his backpack into Wyatt’s locker. “Why?” He pointed into its ten-inch depth.
Stuart continued unloading. He whistled a breathy, out-of-tune melody only he could have found beautiful.
“So, how’s the head?” A grin accentuated his straight teeth, compliments of two full years of braces with Wyatt as the go-to for all whines and complaints.
Head comment aside, Wyatt loved Stuart like a brother. “Been ten days, man. Head’s fine.” Wyatt dug through Stuart’s pile of junk to reach the papers he needed and stuffed them into his own bag.
“Could’a had a recurrence.” Stuart added a lighter punch to Wyatt’s arm and a casual slap to the back of his head.
“What’s goin’ on, man? Why all the physical?”
“Heard you’re goin’ to her house for dinner.” Stuart flung his empty pack over his shoulder, pocketed his hands and walked away.
“Yeah. I told you. So?” Wyatt threw the locker door against its frame, so it snapped in place. Since he and Stuart were headed to the same class, it took only a few strides to catch up to him.
“You been spending every day with that girl.” Stuart’s head hung. “We gotta hang, man. We got senior stuff to do.”
“Oh. My. God.” Wyatt imitated Stuart’s younger sister. He stopped mid-stride, turning toward his friend. Wyatt moved his head back and forth. “You… are… jealous!”
Stuart waved a fist, returned it to his pocket, but not before Wyatt caught the faint smile he’d tried to hide. A girl had never come between them before. Neither dated a lot, and if they did, they doubled.
“Come with. It’s just dinner with her host family. You know, the more the merrier?”
“Nah, man. I’d be third wheel.” Stuart toed a divot in the floor as he slowed to a stop.
“You wouldn’t. She told me there were others our age there. The other girl is really hot too. And dude, it’s at the top-” The flat of Wyatt’s hand measured air above his head. “-of Turner Point.” He took a deliberate step toward Stuart, and with his own fist, punched him in the chest.
The blow knocked him back a foot. A bigger smile emerged. “’K.” Stuart bobbed his head in what Wyatt took as reluctant agreement. “I’ll go. It’s not a dress-up deal, is it?”
At peace with each other, Wyatt shook his head. They bumped shoulders as their tensions dissolved, and in a vie for entry into their class, pressed through the door like a bullet.
“Nice of you to join your fellow seniors,” Mr. Miter said.
Study hall or not, an adult presided over what would become a mêlée. In Wyatt’s case, the coolest, most hip teacher had taken on the responsibility for his senior class.
Wyatt meandered to his desk at the front of the room while Stuart bumped and boogied to his. Behind Wyatt, thirty of his fellow classmates sat, stood, leaned or otherwise engaged with each other. The colors of varsity baseball suited three. Shorts and T-shirts had become more prevalent as the days grew warmer with spring engaged in an early heat wave. Pops from forbidden gum rang out; pencils tapped steadily to unknown beats. Wyatt steeled himself for the onslaught.
He turned to the class. “Ok, guys, let me have it.” Wyatt held his hands outstretched as if to catch a basketball.
The entire class began a monotonous drone at various decibels about homework, the dance, curfews, sports and other topics thrown out all at once.
“Whoa! Who said, and I quote, ‘new girl is an alien’, end quote.” He prided himself in his ability to parse overlapping conversations and reach the real meat, but missed that one.
“Uh-uh. I heard it.” He raised his voice and silenced the entire room. “Whoever said it, fess up.” Wyatt mirrored the position of authority he’d seen his teachers take when they sought vital information.
“Julie did,” two seniors said in tandem.
“Julz?” Wyatt cocked his head in her direction.
In a posture that belied her position as head cheerleader, Julie stood. “I heard from my Dad, who heard from some guy in town.” Her gum popped between her teeth. “The family she’s living with is made up of these sort of amorphous creatures from Mars or somethin’.”
The entire class burst into loud guffaws but not Wyatt. He glared at Stuart, who coughed under his breath while the rest of the class continued their outburst.
The rap of a hand against the desk behind him signaled that they’d gotten too loud.
Wyatt pulled his arms across his chest. “Are you shitting me, Julz?”
“Watch the language, Wyatt,” Mr. Miter said.
“My Dad said it, so it has to be true.” Julie popped her knuckles along with her gum, fluttered her lashes and mirrored Wyatt’s stance.
Where her Dad had gotten that idea and why he’d passed it on to his most blonde daughter made no sense.
“Julz. Seriously. Think about it.” Wyatt gave her a second.
She slid back into her seat, laid her head on her hands.
“No further comments about our school’s guest. Wyatt spread his arms wide with a firm and complete stop at shoulder width. “What else you got?”
The din started anew.
“Lily!” Charley screeched.
Breathless, Lily appeared in the doorway to the bathroom. Charley sat on the raspberry mat, back against the ceramic claw-foot tub. She wrapped her arms around knees pulled tight to her chest as Lily scanned the room.
“What?”
“I have a zit.” Charley’s groan accompanied a drop of her forehead to her knees.
“Oh. My. God. You screamed bloody murder because you have a zit? You’re a teenager!” She motioned throughout the air with her hands, held them palm up, chest high.
Charley popped her head up. “I know… but I’m not really a teenager.”
“You are when you take the body of one.” Lily moved her hands to her hips. “Earth to Charley; come in Charley.” She pointed an accusatory finger in Charley’s direction. “You know that better than any of us.”
Charley puffed out her lip like a small child prepared to compound her unhappiness with tears if she had to. She blew out a deep breath and let her chin fall to her knees again, catching her reflection in the silver knob of the cabinet door.
Lily tapped her foot against the rosewood floor. “He’s gonna be here in ten minutes.”
Charley raised an eyebrow as she turned. “Don’t think I don’t know that already.”
Lily didn’t respond. Instead, she disappeared, leaving Charley to deal with her teenage self on her own.
“Meanie.” She rose to her feet to face the wrath of the mirror. Would it tell her anything new? Face set, she leaned over the counter, prepared to do battle.
“Ahem.” James coughed as he took Lily’s spot at the door minutes later.
Charley shifted toward him, raising an eyebrow before she turned back to her activities.
“Ah, Lily told me to tell you to… to ah… get it in gear and move it.” He cringed as Charley shot him one of her well tested don’t-try-me looks.
Cael appeared from behind James’s shoulder. “Aw, Charley. C’mon. Don’t be like that.” He’d hidden himself well despite his height.
Unlike many of their previous nights, Cael seemed refreshed and relaxed, but he still hadn’t learned the one primary rule in life: don’t mess with Mother Nature or Charley with a pimple.
She skewered him with a stare. “We can all be many things, but girls, you cannot. Well… one of you anyway.” With one finger, she pointed to the door. Both slunk away in silence.
She’d said casual to Wyatt, but she herself dressed in a honey-colored silk infused with translucent raw threads. She’d been careful to select her attire for both her age and color. Over the weeks, she’d grown fond of the golden hair and milky skin and considered it a permanent addition to her virtual collection.
Nerves danced along her skin, causing the hairs to stand on end. Unable to keep her eye color solid, she pressed both hands against the cool granite countertop and breathed in the sweet, still humid air. She held it a few beats, let it seep between nearly closed lips. A second time. A third. She repeated until a firmer calm took hold. A check of her eye color revealed the blue she’d chosen, proving she had control again.
She froze when the bells chimed.
“Here goes nothin’.” Charley sauntered to the stair landing. With one hand on the banister and a foot in midair, she waited. Voices wafted up the stairs as the faces-to-names game played through-first with those he’d know from Mira’s stories as Jack and Carter and then Leena.
Wyatt smiled as Charley began her descent. When Stuart appeared, she stopped. Surprise warred with her role as hostess.
From behind them, Lily mouthed, “What do I do?” with a few frantic hand gestures. Charley opened her eyes wide but left Lily to find the answer-which she would, Charley had no doubt.
“This house rocks!” Wyatt said as she leveled with him.
Behind him, Stuart murmured his usual “Mmm, Mmm.”
Such the wordsmith. “Hi, Stuart!” She smiled, waving around Wyatt who stood between them.
“Hey.” Stuart’s tone came through as one of worry rather than interest.
James and Cael towered over Wyatt but met Stuart nearly eye to eye. Despite their relative ages, their transformations into teenagers had not been as well executed as they thought. Side by side with Wyatt and Stuart, she’d put James and Cael in their mid-twenties, not the eighteen and nineteen-year-old boys they sought to imitate.
Wyatt leaned to her ear. “Stu was kinda bummed ’bout us spending all our time together, so I invited him. I hope that’s okay.”
Stuart and Wyatt couldn’t have been more different. Shaggy hair hung below Stuart’s ears. His jeans hung low on skinny hips, though he took care not to let the hems drag. Wyatt must have insisted on the button-down shirt as Charley’d only seen Stuart in a T.
She offered a quick nod, taking Wyatt by the hand. “Stuart? Would you like a tour?” She’d include them both if it meant she’d have more time with ‘the boy’, as she’d referred to him at school.
She understood the value of friendship, of family, and knew enough about their history to recognize the need to be included.
Charley tugged Wyatt’s hand. He and Stuart followed her from room to room. They pointed to art, furniture, the floor and to Cael’s most fond possession-his flat screen. Charley knew Cael would be flattered when she revealed the outcome of their adventure.
They found James, Cael and Lily around the kitchen island, where a sixth stool waited for their unexpected guest.
“So, you guys are seniors at West?” James crunched on a carrot stick from a tray Lily laid before them.
“Yeah. Six weeks left,” Wyatt told him. “And I can’t wait.”
“It’s Stuart, right?” Lily drew herself into the conversation as she, too, munched upon the veggies. “There’s a stool over here if you want to sit.” She patted the seat.
Stuart nodded and slid a leg over the wrought iron while Charley and Wyatt took their places.
“So, Mira,” Stuart said. “Did Wyatt tell ya what Julie said fourth period?” Stuart bit into a carrot stick.
Waves of nerves ebbed through the group, some more evident than others.
Charley caught Wyatt’s disapproval as soon as Stuart began; his eyes reflected a pain he tried to conceal. She squeezed his hand under the cover of the countertop. “No, he didn’t say.” She stole a glance at Cael and James. Given what she’d learned about Julie, it couldn’t be a happy story.
Stuart pointed into the air. “Well, you know she’s about the ditziest blonde in school.” He scrunched up his nose as if in thought. “Through all the years, even, not just our class.”
Wyatt waved him forward.
“So, anyway.” Stuart twirled the slim orange stick between his fingers like a baton. “We’re in class bitchin’ like normal, and she announces to the entire class-” He spread his arms wide as if they could hold the thirty students from the room. “-that you’re livin’ with aliens. Talk about bubble-headed. We laughed it off.” Stuart inclined his head toward Wyatt. “Well, Wyatt didn’t.”
Charley kept Wyatt in her peripheral vision, prepared to turn Stuart’s conversations elsewhere if Wyatt continued to grimace and sigh or Cael and James’s temperatures ratcheted up any higher.
Stuart himself broke the undercurrent of anxiety. “How do you guys like living way up here?”
“It’s very peaceful,” Lily said.
“No neighbors?” Stuart picked up a Brie-encrusted apple slice, studied it a moment and popped it into his mouth.
“Nope. Not this high.” James grabbed a handful for himself. “About a mile down, though.”
The temperature in the room decreased a degree.
“You guys know Wyatt’s been here before? In this house?” Stuart started in again, oblivious to the change in James and Cael’s posture, the way their muscles tensed and the subtle shifts of their faces from interested to concerned.
Charley smiled, amused by Stuart’s verbal garbage dump. “Do tell.”
She leaned into the table, preparing to hear what she already knew. One hand in Wyatt’s, her head rested in the palm of the other, but the sizzle didn’t come from unaddressed sexual desire.
James and Cael shifted in their seats, subtle movements no one but she or Lily would register.
“Apparently, way, way before you guys moved in-” He pointed with the carrot again to Lily, James and Cael. “-his Mom stayed in this house for somethin’ like three or four weeks. She says it was like her most favorite vacation. The people here were uber-rich and gave her everything she needed. Doesn’t she still keep in touch or somethin’, Wyatt?”
Wyatt nodded, but the cringe and slight shift of his head tore at Charley’s heart. Wyatt slumped lower in his chair, but tension emanated in invisible waves from James and Cael.
She let the smile grow inside as memories of that month surfaced. She’d have to keep them tucked away or risk their cover.
“Shall we move to the dining room?” Lily’s chair squealed against the floor as she slid off.
Charley recognized the diversion. While Lily showed Stuart the way, James and Cael followed.
With a quick sideways look from James, Charley leaned into Wyatt’s shoulder and bumped him with her hip. “You okay?”
“I shouldn’t have brought him. He’s on a roll, and there’s no telling what’ll come out next.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook it so it settled back down into place. A few cowlick spikes remained.
“It’s okay, you know.” Charley patted his bicep, firm under her palm, and leaned her body into his. “He’s nervous, is all. We all find ways to deal.” She kept her lips close to Wyatt’s ear. “Seems his power of speech improves.” She giggled.
Wyatt turned toward her so their lips came within a breath. “My Mom really did live here for a bit before she met my Dad-well, the guy I call my Dad.”
Lily poked her head back in the kitchen. “C’mon guys. Dinner’s on.”
The clink from glasses, plates, tableware and chairs as they slid on the hardwoods, along with mixed conversation, reached them. Together they pushed back from the island, shifting off their stools. Before they crossed into the dining room, Wyatt turned Charley to face him.
“Ah, I have a question.” He ran his hands up and back down her arms, sending a tingle of interest elsewhere.
Charley shivered under the touch-more than she’d experienced with him, other than a simple link of fingers. “Go ahead. Ask. Anything.”
He rubbed at the side of his nose. “Uh… well… is Leena hooked up?”
Charley grinned. “You mean in a relationship? I don’t think so.” She knew very well.
“Um…” Wyatt’s gaze redirected to the doorway. “Do you think she’d be willing or interested in going to the dance with Stuart?” Wyatt twisted his mouth in that I-can’t-believe-I-just-asked way and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Charley started to speak but stopped as his gaze returned to hers.
“He doesn’t have a date, and we kinda planned to crash it together, ’til… well… you agreed to go with me.”
“Ah, gotcha.” Hands on his hips, she turned him around to push him forward. Before she could let go, she laid her head against his back, firm and smooth under her cheek. “Let me see what I can do.”