Bailey Morgan [2] Fate (20 page)

Even though I hadn't meant to leave the thought in Delia's head, and even though I'd torn it out of everyone else's (except, I would have been willing to bet, for A-belle's and Zo's), it didn't surprise me that even in a trance, I wouldn't have messed with my friends' brains that way.

There were some lines you just didn't cross. Mind-melding a friend as a joke and letting them know you were doing it was one thing. Taking their memories was completely another.

That thought led me back to feeling bad for messing with Alec's mind again, and about then, I realized that I should probably say something in response to his (almost) saying that he liked the way I looked.

“Thanks,” I said. “For saying I look nice. Not that you said I look nice, but …”

Delia didn't comment on whether or not my babbling was as adorable as Alec's. Instead she gave me very explicit instructions.

Zo's going to follow you and your boy—discreetly, of course—in case something else happens and you guys need some muscle. In times of crisis, it's important to keep a clear head.

Zo versus Evil Fairies, part two. I couldn't wait to see how that one turned out. Not.

And I'll be close by too,
Delia continued.
For advice, emotional support, etc, etc.

“Do you … ummm … want to?” Alec finally worked up the courage to ask. “You know, what your friend was saying before, about us both being free. Do you … ummm … want to go someplace?”

“She'd love to,” Delia said. Her words left Alec hanging, so I agreed. I couldn't not, and as Delia had pointed out, as weird as this was, we did need more information, and Alec was somehow involved in what was going on—even if he didn't know it. Besides, after the psychic trick I'd just pulled, I deserved it.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Yeah.”

Alec smiled, like I'd just recited poetry. I wondered if the happy, dizzy feeling that had taken up residence in my entire body was the result of Alec's smile or if it was because I'd used way more power than my earthly body was probably meant to use.

“Okay. Yeah.” Alec repeated my words with no small measure of awe in his voice.

I am so good,
Delia congratulated herself silently, and then flounced off, expertly navigating around the everyday chaos, completely and freakishly unfreaked, even though she—unlike my slightly amnesiac classmates—
had every reason to be creeped out by the day's happenings.

“She's …” Alec started the sentence but wasn't sure how to finish it. I obliged by adding the perfect word.

“She's Delia,” I said, and, I thought,
It's going to take a lot more than snakes and vicious Otherworlders to knock her off her game.

Before I knew it, Alec and I were walking out of the school together, hand in hand, neither one of us entirely sure how this “date” had come about.

I didn't know what to expect out of my “date” with Alec. We'd spoken for the first time less than thirty-six hours earlier, and if Delia hadn't been on a geek kick, I might not have even noticed how absolutely adorable he was. Add to that the fact that the sum total of our interactions included falling out of our chairs in study hall and witnessing some kind of utterly bizarre mystical attack in physics class (which he didn't even remember), and my mind couldn't find a next logical step.

Not that logic had ever been my forte.

For that matter, stepping wasn't really my strong point either. I proved this as I stepped out of my car. My ankle twisted beneath me, but I managed to regain my balance. “Walk it off,” I mumbled under my breath.

To my great relief, Alec didn't say, “Walk what off?” There were definite benefits to hanging out with someone who really got what it was like to be a teensy bit clumsy. Then again, other than asking me if I could drive because he didn't have a car, and he knew that sounded lame, but he'd give me directions, because he knew this great place, Alec hadn't said much. I wondered if he was thinking about the “nap” our physics teacher had taken during class, or the way Delia had bulldozed us into this date. Then I wondered if he was thinking about me—even a little bit.

My mind flitted to James then. I'd only met him once, but we'd talked a lot more than Alec and I had, and with James, I'd felt like everything was funny, even the fact that I was probably the least perfect person to ever set foot on Otherworldly soil. James was laughter. Alec was shy smiles.

Why couldn't I have both of them? And really, why did I want them both so badly, when I barely knew either of them at all?

“It's just a little walk from here,” Alec said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I think you'll like it.”

I didn't ask what “it” was. I probably should have, given the fact that there was a distinct chance that Alec had somehow stumbled across something that had brought him to the attention of the Sidhe. I couldn't imagine what he could have found, or what knowledge he could have gleaned, that would have made him so important to the beings that had warned me away from him.

The same beings, coincidentally enough, who'd turned Jessica into an unwilling high school Medusa.

“Ummm … where did you say we were going again?” I asked as I followed him through a park I'd been to before, up to the edge of a forest I hadn't. I couldn't help thinking that the mental interlopers had promised me similar “punishment” if I didn't stay away from Alec. For our first date, I was hoping for somewhere well lit and open, where we could be seen by dozens of people and there were no shadows.

That wasn't too much to ask for, was it?

“It's just this place,” Alec said. “It's really pretty.” He paused and gave me that trademark shy smile. “It reminds me of you.”

Awwwww,
I thought.

Keep all awwwww's to yourself,
Zo grumbled. I knew she'd been following us for a while and, as a side effect of keeping my mind open to her thoughts and Delia's, that there was a risk that some of my thoughts would travel in the other direction. Apparently, my
awwwww
had been one of those.

Where is Geek Boy taking you, Bay?

Somehow, I didn't think that “someplace pretty” would satisfy Zo's curiosity. I may have been Alec's “bodyguard,” but Zo was mine, and she took protecting me very seriously. Following a guy who I knew to be at the center of some kind of Sidhe something-or-other into the woods probably wasn't my smartest move ever. But, hey, it's not like it was
my
idea.

“I can't believe you're here,” Alec said as we
stepped into the woods and started walking down a small stone path. I felt distinctly uncomfortable at the number of shadows all around us—to the point that I was ready to set them on fire with very little provocation. Thus far, however, I hadn't heard even a hint of a voice, hadn't felt or seen anything out of the ordinary, other than the gentle tug of attraction that made me want to tousle Alec's hair.

And maybe bury my hands in it for a while.

I can't believe I'm here either,
I thought.

That makes three of us,
Zo told me.
Somehow, I don't think this is what Delia was picturing when she set the two of you up. Dee's idea of a “date” usually includes food or a movie.

Luckily, Delia couldn't hear Zo the way I could, or I would have gotten a lecture on dating right then and there. Up to this point, Delia had been pretty quiet, waiting patiently for me to psychically send her any questions I might have about flirting or mussy hair or the seduction of geeks.

“There,” Alec said. It took me a second to figure out that he was pointing toward a clearing. As we walked closer, our steps in rhythm except when one of us stumbled over a lump of grass, a rock, or nothing, I saw what Alec was really pointing to.

A bridge.

He looked at me, gauging my response, and I looked at him, wondering what my response was supposed to be. The grass was green here, and there was a small creek with surprisingly clear water running
underneath the bridge. A weeping willow on the bank put half of the bridge in the shade, and the other side, covered in sunlight, looked downright cozy. It looked like the kind of place Delia, Zo, and I would have gone when we were little. I imagined dangling my legs over the edge of the bridge as Zo tightrope-walked along the railing and Delia co-opted the nearby flower blossoms as hair accessories.

“Do you like it?” Alec asked, and I knew from his voice alone that his palms were sweating. If I'd wanted to, I could have probed his mind more, could have poked around and seen what he was really thinking, but as previously discussed, I so was not going here again.

“I love it,” I said quietly. And I did. It wasn't beautiful in the way that the Otherworld was. The colors of the flowers were shades I'd seen before, every day, in the most commonplace objects. The bridge was made of the same color wood as my kitchen table. But the fact that I could picture myself loving this place as a little kid made me like it now. If I weren't Sidhe and hadn't seen the things I'd seen, the way that the ordinary fit together into something extraordinary here would have blown me away.

Instead it made me smile, even as I wondered if anything in this world would ever match what I'd seen the night before. Would I ever be in awe of earthly beauty again? Or was this feeling—warm and right and happy—the most anyone could ask for, especially of a first date?

“You want to sit?” Alec asked, nodding toward the bridge.

“Okay,” I said, glad that the weeping willow (and its shadow) was on the far side. Alec and I walked up to the bridge and I pulled him to a stop before he crossed out of the light. “Let's sit here,” I said.

Ohhhhhhhh!

Along with the mental gasp, I heard an audible one in the distance and came to the conclusion that Delia had used up her stealthiness for the day, and that she was in awe of this place as well.

“So,” I said, as Alec and I let our legs dangle off, “why haven't I seen you before this week? Are you new?”

That wasn't exactly what I meant to ask, especially because I had the feeling that Alec wasn't new, that I'd seen him around before, but hadn't noticed him. There was something familiar about him that I couldn't quite place, something that couldn't be explained away if he was new.

“I'm not surprised that you haven't noticed me before,” Alec said. “But I've always noticed you.” He mumbled the next bit into his shirt. “Always.”

Oh. And also, wow.

Everything all right up there?
Zo asked.
Delia and I can't hear anything.

Everything's fine,
I replied, secretly glad that I'd managed to keep my more private thoughts from bleeding over.
Great, actually.

How great?
Delia asked smugly.
And how much do you love me?

I didn't answer, and as the minutes passed lazily by, I found that I didn't need to consult with Delia to find something to say to Alec. It's not like I poured my heart out to him, or him to me. We didn't even talk that much, but being quiet with him felt good. After we'd been sitting on the bridge for more than an hour, I found myself telling him things I hadn't told anyone.

Things my friends would have called moping.

Things that might have hurt them if they'd heard me say or think them.

And then I told him stories about everything the four of us had been through together. Or almost everything.

“They're really important to you,” he said.

I nodded.

“You're really going to miss them,” he said, his voice even softer.

I nodded again.

“You like nodding,” he commented.

I nodded. He nodded back. And then, I finally got him to talk for a while about something that wasn't me. Of course, the topic he chose to talk about was the bridge, which was apparently a scale model of a bridge in England that was designed by Isaac Newton so that all the pieces fit together to support weight without needing any nails or screws to join them.

“It's about the angles,” he said.

“What about you?” I asked.

“My angles?” Alec frowned, as if doing some mental calculations.

“No,” I said. “Just … what about you? What's your family like? Who are your friends? What do you like doing when you're not sitting on bridges?” I was already babbling, so this seemed as good a time as any to get in a few of the questions I was supposed to be asking.
“How did you know what my tattoo meant when you saw it yesterday?”
and
“What's the weirdest thing that ever happened to you, and oh, by the way, did it involve any supernatural fairy types?”

And where are the voices that keep warning you away from me? I
added silently, knowing that I couldn't voice it out loud without really giving the game away.

Alec blinked several times at the sheer number of questions that had left my mouth in a blur of words.

I think I broke him,
I thought to Delia.

Were you babbling?
she asked.

Ummm … maybe.

He'll be fine. Just give him a chance to process.

In the back of my mind, I heard Zo mentally grumbling about how my physics class had turned into a battleground, yet her stakeout was yielding a whole lot of nothing. According to her, I had all the fun.