Saving Wishes (The Wishes Series) (25 page)

“No catch?”

“None.”

“Why?”

“You said it yourself, Adam.
You see her
. And I believe you when you tell me that. But I have to warn you, if you hurt her…if you so much as disappoint her, I’m going to break both your legs.”

“Understood,” replied Adam in a tone that suggested he didn’t really believe him.

Both of them started walking towards the door and unless I moved quickly, I was about to be sprung. I made the dash back to the house.

“What’s the matter?” asked Gabrielle as I burst through the front door.

“Nothing,” I replied, shrugging off my coat and hanging it by the door. “Adam told Alex I’m staying here for the weekend.”

He voice was melodic and calm but her eyes flickered. She straightened already-straight placemats and tidied perfectly aligned silverware. I wondered if she had some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that required everything to be perfect – except boyfriends.

“And he took it well?” she asked.

He’d taken it brilliantly. He hadn’t killed anyone.

“He’s okay.”

“Très bien. We can enjoy dinner then.”

Neither of us had a chance to say anything else before Adam walked in.

“Where is Alex?” she asked.

“Coming. He’s just cleaning up.”

“And you?”

He raised both hands, paint-free. “I know the rules,” he told her, like a good child.

Alex appeared seconds later, unceremoniously dumping his keys and phone on the table, knocking Gabrielle’s place settings askew. She didn’t move, blowing my theory about her obsessive-compulsive disorder. Her obsession was something entirely different, and he was standing beside her, both hands on the top of the dining chair – staring at me like he was waiting for a confession.

I glanced at Adam and he winked. Gabrielle was focused only on Alex.

“Sit down,” she instructed.

Alex did as she asked without breaking the lock on my eyes.

“Anything you want to tell me?” He spoke to me like I was five years old. He knew full well why we’d summoned him to dinner, but he was going to make me explain it anyway.

Adam frowned. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “I’ve just told you everything.”

Gabrielle offered the bowl of salad to Adam, but he ignored it. “I’d like to hear it from Charli.”

“Why are you acting like I’m invisible?” I snarled.

“I’m not,” Alex said.

Gabrielle cleared her throat. “We need wine,” she announced, already walking away. I wanted to leave too but couldn’t come up with a plausible excuse to do so.

It was confusing. I thought they’d just cleared the air in the shed. Why was Alex intent on keeping the drama going?

“You’re bullying her.” Adam was clearly baiting him and as expected, Alex bit.

“And you’re speaking out of turn.”

Gabrielle came back and carelessly set a bottle on the table. As she pulled her hand away, the bottle fell, saturating Alex’s shirt. He jumped up, wiping the red stain with a napkin. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure it wasn’t intentional. Gabrielle was hardly the clumsy type.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Quickly, take it off.” Gabrielle unbuttoned his shirt as she spoke. “I’ll soak it.”

She rushed off to the laundry with the stained shirt, leaving me alone with the two idiots. Alex folded his arms, more out of menace than modesty. Adam mimicked his pose. The only difference between them was the looks on their faces and Alex’s bare chest. Alex still looked annoyed but Adam looked aghast. I squeezed his knee under the table but it did nothing to snap him out of whatever dark thought he was lost in.

The silent standoff continued until Gabrielle returned.

“Here.” She draped a shirt over Alex’s shoulder as she walked past him. Of course he had clothes there. He probably had a toothbrush there too. As soon as she sat down Adam asked her something in French, punching out the words urgently.

Gabrielle frowned. “Non,” she said simply.

Alex didn’t seem anywhere near as confused as I was. Maybe she’d taught him French. Perhaps I was the only person at the table who had no idea what was going on.

Adam repeated the question, and before he’d even finished Gabrielle launched into a tirade of her own that ended only when Adam stood and slammed his fist on the table, making crockery, cutlery and glass rattle. He pulled me to my feet.

“We’re leaving,” he snarled to no one in particular.

Alex said nothing. Gabrielle began to speak but Alex shushed her.

I snatched my hand free. “I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on,” I demanded.

“Go with Adam, Charli. Its fine,” Alex suggested weakly.

I didn’t protest as Adam reached for my hand again and led me out.

We drove so far into the night that we were half way to Hobart before he finally pulled over. He’d hardly said a word since we left, and even in the darkness I could tell he was furious. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. I still had no idea what was going on.

“You do realise Tasmania is an island, right? There’s only so far you can drive.”

His hands gripped the steering wheel and his head dropped.

“Promise me something?” he said, ignoring my last statement.

“Anything.”

“Don’t change your plans, not for anyone.”

I knew he meant Alex. “His opinion counts, Adam.”

It was hard to build a defence when I had no idea where the hostility was coming from.

Adam glared at me like I’d just cursed him. “Why, Charlotte? Why do you feel so indebted to him? I hate that you carry this guilt,” he ranted.

It wasn’t like Adam to be so insensitive. He knew our history. It was annoying that I had to justify my feelings again, so I said nothing. He shook his head, muttering to himself.

“English!”

He spoke painfully slowly, as if my English comprehension was poorer than my French. “You owe him nothing.”

“Whatever just happened between you and Gabrielle is nothing to do with me. There’s no need to bring Alex into it either.”

Adam reached across, stroking the side of my face. Even in the low light, his cerulean eyes looked wounded. Continuing the conversation was senseless. We were going around in circles. My brain seemed to be short-circuiting, overloaded by a whole lot of nothing.

“I think we should go back,” I suggested.

Adam’s hand moved to the keys. “I will take you anywhere you want to go.”

“Do you mean that?” It was important to look at him as I asked the question.

His expression didn’t waver. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”

I didn’t object when he turned the car. There was nowhere else to go, for now.

Alex was on the porch we arrived back at the cottage. I wondered if he’d been waiting there all along or if he’d come out when he heard the car pull up. Adam quickly kissed me goodnight, heading straight into the house and unnecessarily pushing past my brother on the way.

“Goodnight, Charli,” said Gabrielle, appearing out of nowhere.

“Thanks for dinner,” I replied. It was a strange thing to say considering we didn’t get as far as eating.

The journey home with Alex was weirder than the drive to nowhere with Adam. Every one of my thoughts at that moment was so discordant that I couldn’t string a sentence together in my head let alone out loud. It was Alex who finally spoke.

“You and I really need to talk.”

“So, talk.”

He grimaced. “Not right now.”

Everything was becoming too serious.

“What happened in there, Alex?” I asked.

“We’ll talk when I get back from Stanley,” he promised.

“Is it bad?”

“Oh, Charli.” He spoke so sympathetically that I was beginning to regret not taking Adam up on his offer. Perhaps we should have kept driving. “I promise it’s nothing bad.”

I deliberated for a long moment, still trying to make sense of nothing. I glanced across at Alex who was staring straight ahead at the road. His whole body was rigid and his expression was grim. Pressing him for information wasn’t the solution. I wasn’t sure what was. How do you fix something when you have no idea what the problem is?

“Fine. We’ll deal with it later then,” I agreed, reluctantly.

***

I managed to catch Nicole the next day at lunchtime.

“Hey,” I said glumly, dumping my bag on the table.

She was preoccupied, furiously texting. She glanced briefly at me, to let me know she’d heard me. “I called you last night. You didn’t answer,” I told her.

“I know. I had an early night,” she replied absently. Finally she slipped her phone into her pocket and shifted to face me. “How was dinner?”

“It sucked.”

“Why?”

I told her everything that had happened in great detail – just as I would have if she’d taken my phone call the night before.

“Oh ,well.” Her tone grated on me almost as much as the way she shrugged her shoulders.

“That’s it? Something huge is going on. I have no clue what or how to deal with it, and you say ‘Oh, well’?”

Nicole started packing up her stack of books and her untouched sandwich, as if she was in a major hurry.

“Look, families fight,” she reasoned, pausing for a second. “The witch obviously did something to upset Adam and he arced up. I doubt it’s anything to do with you.”

“But nothing happened. He was having a spat with Alex, Gabrielle spilled some wine and Adam lost the plot, ranting at her in French.”

She jumped off the table and I knew I had her attention for about three more seconds.

“Maybe he caught her casting an evil spell on you.”

The witch references were getting old. “Not funny, Nicole.”

“You’re overreacting. No one was upset with you. Wait until Alex gets back on Monday and hear what he’s got to say,” she reasoned. “I have to go.”

I checked my watch. We had another twenty minutes.

“Go where?”

Nicole slung her bag over her shoulder and flashed me a crafty grin. “Not class. I’ve had a better offer.”

“You’re ditching me?” I asked, incredulously.

She huffed. “Like you haven’t ditched me at least ten times in the last month?”

She had a point. She wasted no time in walking away and I had to raise my voice. “Where are you going?”

She turned, but continued walking backwards. “Tell you later. Have a good weekend.”

“You too,” I called, but she was out of earshot.

Mentally, I had reached my limit. On an ordinary day I would have chased her down, demanding to know what offer could be powerful enough to make her skip fifth period. It wasn’t as if Nicole never ditched school –I managed to talk her in to it occasionally – but it was not something she enjoyed. I usually had to spend the afternoon reassuring her that we weren’t about to be arrested for delinquency, while giving her my word that Alex would bail us out if we were. Something was going on. Pipers Cove was crazy town.

The day had been rough from the start. I was sleep deprived and my brain didn’t seem to work properly because of it. Alex had laid down the law over breakfast, reminding me that my unsupervised weekend was conditional. One of the conditions was that I went straight home after school so he could give me the keys to the café. Nicole had agreed to work both weekend shifts, but it was up to me to lock up and secure the takings. That was condition number two. I had no idea what conditions three through sixty-five were; I lost interest long before he stopped talking.

Keeping Adam and my brother separated for a few days seemed like a good idea, although I wasn’t entirely sure why. I drove my own car that morning, negating the need for Adam to pick me up after school.

At least the weather was holding. I loved days without rain. It was still bitterly cold, but nowhere near as gloomy. My little car, temperamental at the best of times, started spluttering before I’d made it half way home.

“Don’t you dare die on me,” I growled, whacking the dashboard to warn it. Angry threats gave way to pleading. I was still pleading when the car finally conked out at the base of our driveway, dead in the middle of the gravel road, in the path of anyone driving past.

It took Alex all of two minutes to get there when I called him.

Gabrielle sat in the passenger seat. School had only been out half an hour. She must have ditched fifth period too. It appeared that I was the only sap stuck indoors on a Friday afternoon for educational purposes.

“Pop the hood,” instructed Alex.

I flicked the lever under the ancient dashboard. He lifted the hood, shielding my view of him for a few seconds until he closed it, crashing it down with loud metallic clap.

“I can’t see anything wrong,” he said, wiping his hands on an old rag he’d brought with him.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It just coughed a few times and stopped.”