A Tale of Two Centuries (18 page)

I exchange shrugs with Jamie, unsure of how to proceed or what else I can say, but I needn’t have bothered worrying. A moment later Kendal turns and meets my sympathetic gaze with one of pure scorn. “I know,” she tells me, her voice ringing false with confidence.

Then she saunters away with a dismissive lift of her nose, knocking my shoulder without apology as she passes.

Chapter Eighteen

I walk into French class ten minutes before it is to begin, still reeling from drama. Even though I am sure to be gone long before the musical actually begins, and even though it is unheard of for anyone to outshine Kendal in Mrs. Shankle’s eyes, I gave in to Hayley’s good-natured badgering and agreed to try out, not for one of the
nerds
, as was kindly suggested by the class pet, but for Tiffany. My hand shook as I signed the audition list, amidst Hayley’s whoops of victory, Austin’s quiet smile, and Kendal’s fierce glare, but the wave of unprecedented confidence that overcame me was amazing.

Weaving through the crowded aisles to get to Lucas, I smile at the lingering sensation and ignore the whispers that follow in my wake like pups nipping at my heels. It has been the same all morning. These are not the same whispers that trailed me when I first arrived, the ones about who I was, why I bolted at every look, or the way I spoke so strangely. These are curious, appraising, and even openly admiring. And though I do not loathe receiving such attention, even while still being quite unsettled by it, I’m completely without recourse for how to respond. For at least the tenth time since the school day began, I find myself asking what the modern me should do.

Lucas raises his head from a sketch and grins at my approach. I stop at the empty desk beside him and with a flick of my multi-colored hair, plop into it, suppressing the urge to laugh at my own actions. The part of enigmatic teenage rebel is such a contradiction to what I truly am that it’s fascinating.

“Someone’s the talk of the school this morning.” Lucas winks, and the gesture reminds me so much of Lorenzo that my breath catches in surprise. Of course, the familiar lilt of his voice adds to the overall effect. “And here I thought I was the mysterious Italian transfer.”

I grin and bat my mascara-coated eyelashes. “
Moi
? Mysterious?”

He gives an exaggerated look at my torn jeans and large slashed shirt, which is tied at the small of my back and hanging off one shoulder. The exposed band of my violet tank on my shoulder matches the color swept across my eyelids. Whenever I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface and see all the skin I have on display, I can’t help but imagine Mama’s shock.

My stomach clenches. This is the longest I have ever gone without seeing either of my parents, and the separation has been tugging on me with each passing day. Strangely enough, the knowledge that I am one sign away from returning to them is both a reassurance and a source of turmoil.

“Yeah, you,” Lucas says. “Between showing up sweet and innocent on Friday, skipping out twice this week, then arriving today like this, you’ve got the school gossip working overtime. Mark my words, woman. Before long the entire hallway’s gonna be filled with multihued classmates. Hell, even I’m considering it.” He rakes his hand through his soft blond curls and asks with all seriousness, “How do you think I’ll look if I go blue?”

The image of his hair as blue as the animated creatures in the movie I watched the other night appears vibrant in my mind, and I laugh so hard, I snort.

“Oh, quite dashing,” I tease when I recover, and Lucas smiles. “And as for the others…” I shrug. “Let them wonder. It just so happens that I am a
very
complex woman.”

The fact that I nearly get through saying that with a straight face makes me laugh again. Just nine days ago, my own family would have found that declaration hysterically preposterous. I would have, too. Now, I am not so certain.

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Complex, huh? An exasperating trait you share with your housemate, then.”

He glances at his sketch and retraces a drawn line with his pencil. Realizing that this is the first time that the two of us have really gotten to talk without Cat’s presence, I lean across the aisle and ask, “You like my, uh, housemate very much, don’t you?”

He lifts his head and looks at me through the thick fringe of his lashes. “You must think I’m pathetic, huh? The way I chase after her?”

Shocked by the question, I widen my eyes in horror. “Of course not!”

He laughs at my outburst. “Well, that makes one of us.”

Yesterday turned out to be about twenty steps forward and five giant steps back in Lucas and Cat’s growing relationship. Their shared banter and affectionate looks lasted throughout the long rehearsal and well until we were halfway home from the theater. But then it was as if Cat remembered what she was supposed to be doing and retreated again. When Lucas pulled his car into her driveway a little after nine o’clock, Cat exited with little more than a mumbled thank-you, and she refused to talk about him for the rest of the night.

Squeezing Lucas’s arm affectionately, I say, “Things may not have ended precisely as I had hoped, but it looked as though you two did enjoy each other’s company.”

“Thanks to your obvious plan.” He gives me a depreciating smile. “You know, normally I don’t need help in the hookup department, but then Cat’s not exactly normal, either.” He blows out a breath and tousled strands of hair lift around his face. “That girl is so damn confusing. But no matter what she does, I just keep getting further hooked.”

As the classroom fills around us, I lean my cheek on my hand. “Lucas, what is it that first caught your attention about her? That made you want to chance her…perplexing, changing moods?”

He grins at my question, and I cannot help thinking that the description of my cousin sounds eerily similar to Austin.

Lucas turns at his desk to face me. “When I found out I had to move here, I hated it. We’ve lived in Milan for years, and I was happy there. I had a life; I had friends. You’re from Florence, so you know how beautiful it is. But Dad’s company transferred him, and I didn’t have a choice. Then I met Cat two weeks later, and, I don’t know…”

He shifts his gaze over my shoulder, and his handsome face clouds with some unknown emotion. I scoot to the edge of my chair, eager to hear his side of the first encounter, curious if he felt any of the shocking rightness she did.

Lucas shakes his head. “Look, I’m not an idiot who’s gonna say it was love at first sight or anything, but meeting Cat was different. Yeah, she’s gorgeous, she’s smart and funny, and she went out of her way to hang out with my sister. But it was more than that. When we danced…there was, like, a connection.” He winces. “God, that sounds like a bad teen movie. I’ll turn in my man card the first chance I get, but I’m telling you, I’ve relived that night over and over again, and it was there. And I know
she
felt it, too. Alessandra, for the first time since I found out I had to move, I had a reason to want to be here. To feel like this is where I belonged.”

Again, the shocking similarity between his relationship with Cat and my own with Austin cannot be ignored. Over the past week, Austin has given
me
a reason to be here—many of them, in fact. It is almost as if the fates made him especially for me.

Feeling closer to Lucas than I ever have before, I nod heartily in agreement, hoping he’ll continue. Maybe through his experience, he can offer insight into my own perplexing emotions.

He shrugs. “But then she ignored my calls and fell off the face of the earth. I thought maybe it would be different when school started, and we’d get back on track, but for some reason she’s fighting it. If she wasn’t interested anymore, that’d be one thing…” He trails off and kicks the leg of his desk with his heel. “I should probably just cut my losses and get over it, but I can’t.”

Wanting to offer encouragement, I place my hand on his forearm and squeeze. “I’m glad to hear it.” Then, careful not to reveal too much of my cousin’s past or betray her trust, I say, “Cat has had…a somewhat difficult life. Perhaps it takes her a little longer to open up than others, but I promise you it will be worth it. You’re right, she
does
care for you.” Lucas’s chest expands with a drawn breath, and I give him a reassuring smile. “I’m as certain of that as I am about the awesomeness of my hair.”

The skin around his intense brown eyes relaxes, and a soft smile tweaks the corners of his lips. “And no one could deny that it is awesome.”

“Exactly.”

We share a grin, and I relax against the cool wooden seatback. Then he says, “Speaking of your awesome hair, was it really Austin Michaels’s idea?”

I huff. “I asked Austin to bring me to the salon, but the idea and the choice of colors were mine.”

Lucas nods. “I figured that. You don’t seem like the kind of person to be talked into something you didn’t want to do.” He playfully punches my shoulder. “You seem pretty tough to me.”

Sounds around us muffle as the door to the classroom closes. Mademoiselle Dubois strides across the tile floor, calling out a joyous,
“Bonjour!”

We both turn to face the whiteboard, and Lucas sighs the sigh of a student ready for the end of the day. As a class, we answer back, “
Bonjour
, Mademoiselle Dubois.”

But as the lesson begins and I mindlessly take part, conjugating endless verb tenses, my thoughts remain on Lucas’s last words.

I
am
tough. I’m not an innocent little girl anymore simply being led around by her nose. All of Austin’s adventures are things
I
want to do. And I’m loving every minute of it. Since my arrival, my entire world has shrunk down to the thrill of wondering what Austin will suggest next, anticipating that rush of freedom, and counting the minutes until I can see him again. This afternoon’s excursion includes the Rollerblades I discovered last week.

My gaze flits to the large clock on the wall. Just a few more hours to go.

…

Sea salt stings my cheeks, and the crisp scent of the ocean consumes my senses. All around me are sand, water, sky, and surfers. The early-morning sun seeps into the top of my head, warming me from the inside out…along with my temperature-raising tour guide. Austin’s legs are encased in the same wetsuit from our Jet Ski adventure, except now he has the top peeled down, exposing his strong, toned chest and hard, flat stomach.

He catches me staring and smirks. However, instead of being embarrassed, and giving in to an even
more
embarrassing blush as I usually would, I stare back without flinching, drawing strength from the secret knowledge that his unapproachable bravado is as much an act as the role I performed onstage a few days ago. When I do not cower or lower my lashes, Austin swallows heavily. I watch his Adam’s apple bob and then look up to meet his cool blue gaze. “Where do you want me?”

For some reason my words cause his gaze to widen significantly. I glance down at the foam board he placed onto the sand for my practice, unsure why my question is so baffling. This is my first introduction to his special world of surfing; I’ve never attempted it before, so I do not know if I should sit, stand, kneel, or dance across the long stretch of board resting on the sand.

I look back up, and Austin clears his throat. “Excuse me?”

Wrinkling my nose, I point to the board. “Should I stand up or lie down?”

“Uh, lie down.” He scratches the back of his neck and hollows out his cheeks, and it isn’t until he clears his throat again that I get the potential double meaning to our conversation. And
then
I blush. Not surprisingly, that brings a ghost of a smile to Austin’s lips. “On your stomach.”

The rough sound of his voice sends shivers racing across my skin. Goose bumps prickle in their wake, and though they are concealed beneath my own wetsuit, I still feel exposed. I splay my limbs across the board and sink my fingers into the soft sand, watching his tall shadow fall across my own. Despite the layers shielding me from his keen vision, I can’t help feeling that he can clearly see what the sound of his voice does to me.

“The first thing you need to learn,” he says with just a trace of huskiness remaining in his voice, “before you even get out on the water is how to paddle and pop up.” He places a foot on either side of my hips and leans down to clasp both of my hands in his. The bulk of his body hovers in the air just above my own, and suddenly that is all I can think about. “Paddling is a lot like crawling, pulling one hand after the other through the water, cupping and scooping. Good, just like that.”

I nod weakly in acknowledgement. Words right now are impossible. He continues guiding my arms in the proper technique, and my eyelids flutter shut.

I take a breath and inhale Austin.

The scent of citrus on his breath as it fans the loose hair around my face and the scent of salt, sweat, and clean soap that wafts from his body. The kiss of his bare skin grazing my back, burning through my wetsuit as he dips forward to instruct me, the intoxicating sensation of his strong hands engulfing mine. And finally, the restrictive feel of his legs straddling my hips.

Austin continues in a steadier voice, seemingly not as affected by my own proximity. “When you’re out there, I want you to dig in deep. Really propel yourself. Then, when you’re in position”—he takes my hands and places them on either side of the foam board—“grab your rails and shoot to a strong push-up, hands and toes touching the board.”

Again, he places my body into the correct alignment, handling me like a child’s pliant doll. The coolness of his fingers sliding and making circles around my bare ankles sends a jolt to my stomach. When he moves his hands to grip my waist, helping to take the pressure of my weight off my hands, my head grows light, as if filled with air.

“It’s, uh, important,” he says, voice a tad rougher than before, “that you don’t go to your knees…when you pop up. Just snap right to a crouch. Here,” he adds, releasing me somewhat abruptly onto the board. “Watch me.”

The loss of his warmth leaves me slightly dazed. Swallowing, I push myself up to a sitting position and try to concentrate on Austin’s lean body snapping into position. But I seem to have lost the ability to focus on anything.

Austin pops to his feet again, and his eyes lock with mine.

I do not know what expression he sees on my face, but it causes his confident smirk to fade.