Covet (38 page)

“Of course it is! I just missed seeing you play.”

Uh-huh. Then why did her smile look just a little too bright?

She sighed. “Okay, you caught me. I also wanted to check in on my old cheer squad and see how my replacement’s doing.”

“And how is she doing?” Bethany asked.

Emily made a face. “Well, you know Sally Parker.”

Bethany laughed. “Don’t we all.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, there’s Jill! I need to get a pair of shoes back from her.” She leaned in toward us and whispered, “She’s the worst shoe klepto! She borrowed my favorite pair of sneakers over a month ago and keeps claiming she meant to return them but ‘forgot’ them in her car.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “I’ll be right back!”

As soon as she was gone, Emily’s bright smile disappeared. “Tristan, there might be a small problem. I listened in on Sally’s thoughts a few minutes ago, trying to see how she’s really doing with the cheer squad, and learned she overheard the Faulkner twins planning to crash Savannah’s Halloween party tonight.”

I glanced in the direction I’d tried to avoid all night, across the railroad tracks to a certain house. Unlike the last time I’d visited, the Victorian was all lit up, with cars filling its driveway and lining its curb. It looked like the party was already underway.

I scanned the stadium’s front lawn.

“I already checked,” Emily said. “I don’t see the twins anywhere. Think they’ve already—”

I nodded. “We should go over there and take a look around. Just to be sure.”

She stopped me with a hand on my upper arm. “Okay, but Tristan? Promise me you won’t do anything stupid if you see her.”

Her
meaning Sav.

I scowled. “I’m good, sis.”

We headed down the grassy slope to the street, dodging and weaving in between cars filled with local football fans hooting and hollering out open windows.

Our final approach across the railroad tracks was too conspicuous under a bright streetlight, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. Thankfully the twins were too busy huddling behind a tree trunk near the curb and giggling as they fiddled with something they were holding together.

“Dylan’s going to love this!” Vanessa said, making Hope giggle again.

I realized what the object was as they threw it.

“Hey!” Emily said, showing off her cheer yell.

I didn’t have time to say anything. I was too busy jumping over the curb onto the lawn while using magic to stop the object in midair.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Emily yelled at the girls at the top of her lungs.

Squealing in fear, the twins took off at a run back toward the lights of the Tomato Bowl.

Either Emily’s yelling or the twins’ squeals brought the party spilling out onto the front porch to see what was going on. I hastily let the object fall to the grass, then walked over and picked it up. Lights from the house’s front windows lit up the brick. The twins had used a blue-and-gold cloth hairband to hold a piece of paper in place around the brick.

“A scrunchie? How decorative,” Emily muttered as I unwrapped the note and read it.

Get out of town monsters!

“And their creativity just keeps on going,” I said, showing her the note.

The party poured onto the front lawn as people asked what was going on.

“Just some punks trying to ruin a perfectly good party,” I told them with a smile, showing the brick but hiding the note.

Several people made tsking sounds of disappointment. Then somebody shouted, “Good job stopping them, kids! Y’all should come in and have a drink. It’s all nonalcoholic, of course.”

Several people seconded the idea.

“Oh, we really should be getting home,” Emily said in her most mature and polite tone.

“Aw, sis, we can stay for a few minutes, can’t we?” I’d have to be crazy to pass up the chance to see the changes to Sav’s house when half the rest of the town had already gotten the full tour of the place. “We wouldn’t want to be rude, would we?”

Emily flashed a glare at me before turning to the crowd with a big smile. “Well, I guess we could stay for a
few
minutes.”

And inside we all went.

Always the mingler, Emily had no trouble finding a conversation to join in, leaving me to walk around and admire the house on my own.

Mr. Colbert had put a lot of work into the place. The last time I’d been here, every room had been dark and gloomy, full of peeling flowery wallpaper and wood so dirty it had looked black. Now the rooms were brightly lit with wall sconces, smaller chandeliers in the two front rooms, and a huge chandelier over the open staircase that caught the eye and pulled it up to the stained-glass window in the ceiling two stories up. He’d replaced all the wallpaper with fresh paint, and the wooden wainscoting, trim and floors, all now several shades lighter, gleamed. The furnishings were nice, too, not too stuffy or cluttered, so a guy could move around without knocking something over. There was plenty of room for the hundred or so people who had crammed in here tonight to check out the old place and probably its new owner, too.

Mr. Colbert had made a lot of smart choices with the house, not just in its renovation, but in opting to hold a Halloween party here open to the public. Right or wrong, the residents of Jacksonville put a lot of stock in a person’s home. They would be less likely to make up negative stories about Mr. Colbert and his daughter after seeing what he had done with a building everyone else had wanted to bulldoze.

And then I realized…this wasn’t just Mr. Colbert’s latest project. It was also Savannah’s
home
. A small fact I hadn’t given much thought to during my last visit here.

I tried to picture Savannah hanging out in the front rooms on either side of the entrance area, maybe running down the stairs in the mornings on her way to school, that curly red ponytail of hers swinging along the way. Something tightened in my chest, making it tough to take a deep breath.

The staircase led to a balcony that ran the length of the second floor, which must have been filled with more than a few bedrooms and baths considering the number of doors up there. One of them was Savannah’s room, where she lived and read and slept every night, and probably where she danced, too. She used to love to dance, though not when anyone was watching. I caught her at it many times in the Charmers’ dance room after school when she didn’t know I was there, and even a couple of times in our connected dreams before she knew I’d joined her.

The moment she came home, I felt it. I found a corner by the stairs below the balcony, out of the way of all the other guests, so I could watch Savannah enter the house. God, she was gorgeous, even just with her hair in a ponytail and wearing her blue-and-gold Charmers windsuit.

Then she tugged the band from her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders.

More noise as Ron came in behind her. He tugged on a piece of her hair, and she turned to smile at him and say something that was lost beneath the thumping beat of the music. A few seconds later, Anne, Carrie and Michelle joined them in the entrance area, followed by a handful of trick-or-treaters. Savannah grabbed a big orange plastic bowl from the side table and held it out so the kids could take handfuls of candy. She put the bowl back on the side table, said something to her friends and boyfriend, and they all went in separate directions.

Alone at the front door, Savannah started to drop her bag by the side table, then froze, her eyes widening.

I’d seen her freeze like that countless times before. It meant she knew I was here somewhere.

She looked to the left, scanning the packed room then the equally stuffed room to her right. Frowning, she toed off her sneakers and carried them with her as she ran up the stairs and down the landing toward the right. She opened the last door, ducked inside and shut it.

I should go. She was probably hiding now that she knew I was here. Besides, Emily would be looking for me soon.

I stood there for several minutes, torn between what I should do and what I needed.

Eventually my feet carried me up the stairs and down the landing to her door.

At my knock, there was a long hesitation before she called out, “Yes?”

I opened the door and stepped inside.

Seated in front of a vanity, Savannah’s hand froze in the act of brushing her hair. “Tristan. What are you doing here?”

“Sorry. Thought this was the bathroom.” I didn’t bother trying to sound convincing.

“What are you doing at my house? Are you crazy?” she muttered. “There’s a vamp council member here tonight. If he sees you…”

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Does he regularly come up to inspect your room?”

She made a face. “No.”

“Then how will he know I’m in here with you?” She opened her mouth to argue. “And don’t even say vamp hearing, because there’s no way he can hear us over all the noise downstairs.”

She sighed.

I slowly walked around the room, looking at the shelf filled with glass ballerinas and pictures of her friends and the Charmers. No pictures of me anywhere, of course. Then I saw the snow globe I’d given her last year for Christmas and had to keep my back turned to hide my smile.

Yeah, she still thought about me.

I looked down at my feet. “Nice hardwood. Pretty good for dancing?”

“I don’t dance anymore.”

“Since when?”

Shrugging, she finished pulling her hair up into a bun. She’d changed into a pink leotard and tights with a glittery blue tutu.

I stated the obvious. “You don’t dance anymore, but you’re going as a ballerina this year?”

“No. A fairy. Just gotta add these.” She picked up a set of see-through, glittery wings I hadn’t noticed from her bed and crisscrossed the ribbons over her chest then down and back. But the ribbons weren’t long enough to wrap all the way around her back and to the front again to be tied. She must have planned on having Anne help her tie them. Or maybe Ron.

“Here.” I closed the distance between us, took the ribbons from her shaking fingertips and tied the satin at her back. I was tempted to let my fingers touch her skin, but I didn’t. It was a miracle that she hadn’t kicked me out of her room as it was.

“Thanks,” she murmured. She sat down on the bed to pull on her slippers, glancing up at me in the process. “So what’s with you crashing the party? Curious to see how the local vamps are living nowadays?”

I stared at her, silently letting her know how much I didn’t appreciate the vamp humor. She knew better than to believe I would ever think that way about her.

She ducked her head to focus on tying the ribbons from her slippers around her calves.

“So I’ve been hearing some interesting things about you and your new boyfriend.” Crap. I hadn’t meant to bring him up.

“Who?”

“Ron Abernathy.”

She made a face and stood up to check herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the wall beside her open closet door. “I’m not dating him. He’s Anne’s ex.”

“And yet you’re still seeing him. Does Anne know about the two of you?”

She sighed. “Whatever you think you heard about us, you heard wrong. Ron and I are just study partners. I would never date my best friend’s ex.” She glanced at me with one eyebrow raised as if to say I ought to know that.

Except I didn’t. I felt like I didn’t know her at all lately. And it was killing me. “Well, if you don’t want people getting the wrong idea about you two, maybe you shouldn’t be sneaking off to meet him in the library all the time.”

She turned and scowled at me with her hands on her hips. “I’m not sneaking anywhere. Anne even gave me permission to help him with English lit in return for his help with chemistry class. And it’s really none of your business anymore. Why are you even here tonight? Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?”

“Who?”

She stared at me like I’d gone insane. “Bethany Brookes. You know, the girl you’ve been seeing for months? Where is she, anyways? Did you leave her downstairs at the punch bowl so you could come up here and lecture me?”

Oh crap. Bethany. She was still at the Tomato Bowl. I’d forgotten to give her a ride home. I snuck a glimpse at my watch. “She probably caught a ride home with another Charmer or her parents.” I hoped. “And besides, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.”

“Uh, you might want to tell her that, because she’s under the impression that you two have been a couple ever since you and I broke up.”

“You mean after you dumped me.” Twice.

“I did not dump you. I saved you.”

I blew out a long breath. “That is such crap and you know it, Sav. You didn’t save me. You just chickened out. And I’ve never dated Bethany.”

She flinched, opened her mouth, closed it, then tilted her head to the side. “You’ve never dated Bethany.”

“Nope.”

“And all those images in your mind of the two of you kissing under the practice field bleachers and outside the gym and just about every other place possible on campus?”

I grinned. “What can I say? I have a great imagination.”

She stared at me then shook her head, her cheeks turning pink.

She knew she had just sounded jealous.

Did she have any idea how cute she looked when she was jealous?

I walked over to her. When we were only a few inches away, her eyes widened. She looked around the room like a bird searching for somewhere to fly off to.

She disappeared then reappeared at the bedroom door, bending over to grab her sneakers from where she’d dropped them. She disappeared again, reappearing at her closet, where she tossed the shoes inside. She slapped the closet’s folding door, apparently trying to shut it. But she only succeeded in knocking it out of its track at the top, and she was too short to pop its plastic wheel back in, though she rose up on tiptoe to try.

Moving slower now so I wouldn’t startle her, I closed the distance between us then reached over her head to fix the door.

“Do you really think I could move on that easily after losing you?” I said.

She looked everywhere but at me for several long seconds. Then she finally dared to make eye contact. “I’ve heard Bethany’s thoughts. If you’re not really dating her, then you’ve been lying to two girls. She truly believes the two of you are a couple.”