Scorching Secrets (29 page)

“I really don’t like his power,” Ryanne mumbles. She is still looking around the room. I stop right behind her and lean down, slowly wrapping my arms around her, without actually touching her, I say, “Boo,” and grab both sides of her face with my chocolate covered hands. She screams and I jump back and become visible again.

Bragden and Liam bang their hands against the table and start laughing. Ryanne turns around and glares at me, mouth hanging open. Even a mess, she looks adorable. She takes a handful of icing and wipes it across the front of my shirt. I grab her arms and wipe the rest of the chocolate down them.

“What the heck is going on?” Ryanne freezes, and I tense up. Everyone stops laughing, and we all slowly turn toward the doorway. Tom is standing there—his eyes scanning the mess in the kitchen.

Emma replies, “We’re baking a cake.”

Ryanne makes a weird noise, and I glance down at her. She’s struggling to hold in a laugh. I know that Tom sees it too because his anger lessens. It’s really hard to remain mad around her. Ryanne turns around, leans against my chest, and starts giggling. I wrap an arm around her back and start laughing as well. I glance over at Tom and see him crack a smile. There’s no way he can be mad at something Ryanne is involved in. He still hasn’t gotten over the fact that she saved his life.

“Just make sure you clean everything up,” Tom says as he begins to back up. Ryanne is still laughing, and Emma is trying not to smile. All the guys at the table are attempting to hold back their laughter as well. Tom looks at Ryanne once more before turning and leaving the room. I swear I can hear his laugh as he goes up the stairs.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The oven behind me starts beeping. Ryanne pushes away from me and grabs a pot holder and reaches into the oven to pull out a cake. She places the cake on top of the oven and turns it off. Leaning back against the counter, she looks around the room and grimaces.

“We really made a mess in here.” She glances over at Emma. “This is all your fault. I think you should clean it all up.”

“Ha, I don’t think so. You’re going to help me,” she points at Ryanne and then glares up at me. “I don’t care if it is your birthday; you’re going to help too.”

I throw my hands up in surrender. “Yes mom.”

We get to work cleaning up. Bragden, Logan, Liam, and Larkin all help too. Liam and Logan take every opportunity to wipe something else on Ryanne. I’ve never seen her smile so much. I can’t help it. I don’t care if anyone sees me. I keep glancing over at her. She’s watching me as well. Instead of ignoring me, she smiles back. Even covered in almost every ingredient required to bake a cake, she is beautiful.

“Go get cleaned up, we’ll finish this,” David says. He looks between Ryanne, Emma, and me.

“You guys didn’t even make this mess,” Ryanne argues and continues cleaning.

Larkin reaches over and grabs her hand and transports her upstairs. I could hear her yelling at him in her room. I laugh and stand up. I reach down and help Emma up. “Thank you!” she calls over her shoulder to the guys cleaning as we head up the stairs.

Stupid Larkin and his stupid power. I don’t want to make the guys clean up a mess that they didn’t even make. It should have just been Emma and me cleaning it. We’re the ones that made it. It’s Colton’s birthday; he shouldn’t have had to clean anything up. Walking into the bathroom, I flip on the light switch and finally see my reflection. Oh my gosh, I look ridiculous. I have flour and cake batter stuck in my hair, chocolate handprints on my face and arms, and just about everything else on my clothes.

Emma walks into the room right as I am about to undress. “I’m just grabbing some clothes; I’m going to go shower in David’s room.”

“You’ve got a little something on your nose.”

Emma reaches up and wipes off some of the icing. “Better?” she asks with a wide grin.

“Much.” She laughs as she heads out of the room.

I undress and get into the shower. The water going down the drain turns a lovely shade of brown for the first couple of seconds as I wash the chocolate icing off. After washing all the flour out of my hair, I jump out and get dressed. Wearing my black v-neck “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” Dr. Seuss shirt and a pair white shorts splatter painted with violet and navy blue paint, I run a towel through my hair and walk downstairs. Colton is already down there, but Emma isn’t. I walk over to the end of the couch and lean against the armrest.

“Do you know how difficult it is to get dried icing and cake batter out of your hair?” I look around at everyone. They are staring at me with small smiles. “No. I don’t think so. Well let me tell you, it’s extremely difficult. I had to shampoo my hair twice and douse my ends with conditioner before it all came out.”

Emma comes downstairs and sits on the loveseat with David. “Well that was fun. Next time, avoid the hair please.” She looks around. I point at her. “What?”

“I already told them how difficult it was to get everything out of my hair.” Sitting back, I glance up at the TV and see Legalos shooting an arrow. I gasp and start watching. Liam laughs at me. “I’ve got a tiny little crush on Aragorn.” I pinch my fingers together to show how small I am talking about.

“Which one is Aragorn?” Emma asks me. I wait until they show him. “Oooh, I can understand the crush.”

Thirty minutes later, my eyes are drawn to the coffee table. Sitting on its shiny surface, placed next to my old notebook, is a black book. I reach out and pick it up. Its black exterior has a magnetic tab closure and slightly rounded corners. I open it up and gawk at the large white pages inside. It’s a sketchbook; an expensive sketchbook. The page binding allows the artist to easily use both pages since there aren’t any metal spirals separating the two. The thick pages are suitable for all types of mediums. I’d always wanted to buy myself a real sketchbook like this, but since I’m cheap, I never could get myself to spend the extra money.

Why is this sitting there? Whose is it? I look up, and my eyes are instantly drawn to Colton. He’s watching me with a small smile on his face.
Of course
. I should have known that he would go out and buy me something like this. He knew that I was out of pages in my notebook.

I crawl over Liam’s lap and hit Colton in the chest with the hard sketchbook. “You stupid head. You don’t buy other people stuff on your birthday!”

“I told you so,” Larkin says from across the room.

“How do you know I got it for you? How do you know it wasn’t someone else?” he asks. I am still basically in Liam’s lap. I scoot myself off of him and glare at Colton.

“Because you’re the only one who would do it! How much did it cost you? I’ll pay you back.”

“No you won’t.” He crosses his arms across his chest and turns toward me. “I won’t accept any money from you.”

“How much was it?” I demand.

“Nope.” I hit him with the sketchbook again. “Ouch, stop doing that.”

I hit him one more time. “Don’t tell me what to do.” I lean back and look at the TV again.

Colton leans down and whispers in my ear, “A simple thank you would suffice.” Butterflies erupt in my stomach when I feel his breath against my ear. His amazing smelling cologne floods my nostrils, so I hit him again and move back to my original seat. I mumble a thank-you and put the sketchbook back on the coffee table. Colton is rubbing his chest where I’d hit him but is smiling a little which means that he’s not mad at my reaction.

“A handful, I tell ya,” Liam whispers to me.

Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrap my arms around my legs and turn toward Liam, “I don’t think anyone will be able to handle me.” I laugh and lean down against his shoulder, “It’ll be a good challenge though.”

“That it will be.”

“Where are you taking me? This isn’t pay back for hitting you earlier today, is it? Because you’re supposed to hit the birthday person the same amount of times as their age; so, technically, I still have…like fifteen more to go.”

“Just keep your eyes closed,” Colton says to me as he pulls me somewhere. We’ve decided that we aren’t going to train today. We’re allowed to have one day off. “Trust me.” This is kind of exciting—not knowing what is going to happen, but I don’t like blindly walking. I just hope this isn’t one of his pay-back moments.

“When can I open my eyes?” I trip over something on the ground, and Colton reaches out to steady me. He grabs my other hand and slowly pulls me forward again.

“I’ll let you know.” He continues pulling me forward, warning me if there is anything in my way. I keep my eyes closed the entire time, ignoring the temptation to peek. I start humming to pass the time.

“Are you humming the alphabet?”

“Yep. Don’t be hatin’.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I can hear the amusement in his voice. I can imagine him giving me the
Ryanne is silly
look and shaking his head.

Colton suddenly stops moving. I take a step forward and smack into his chest. “Whoa there,” he says with a laugh.

“You could have warned me you were going to stop,” I mumble as I take in my surroundings. I can hear birds chirping above me. It sounds like we are in a forest—the wind is rustling the leaves together creating a symphony of noise. “Ok, you can open your eyes now.”

I open my eyes and look up at Colton, who’s staring down at me, waiting for my reaction. I look around me and gasp in delight. I was right. I am standing in the middle of a small trail in the forest. Tall, leafy trees surround us. Random spruce and pine trees are growing among the tall birch, maple, and oaks. Their branches start high up on the trunk, creating a canopy-like structure around us. The fading sunlight filters down through the leaves, creating shadows and spots of light all around.

I smile up at Colton. “This is beautiful.” I love being in the forest. There’s just something comforting about it.

“You told me once that you used to go into the woods to think and draw—that you felt relaxed here. I thought you’d been through enough lately, you could use a little relaxing…” he seems nervous. He keeps rubbing the back of his neck and looking around us. I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his waist. I can’t believe that he remembered that. That seems like so long ago.

“Thank you.” I let go and walk around him. “Can we go further?”

“Yeah, but I think you should put a shield around us just in case.” I nod and am about to push my magic out when a swarm of monarch butterflies take flight from a nearby bush and surround us. The shield is forgotten momentarily as I watch the orange and black wings flutter around me. I glance up at Colton and see that he’s just as mesmerized by the event as I am. Tilting my head back, I watch as they get smaller the higher they go.

A few butterflies linger around us. I raise my hand towards one of the ones hovering in the air between Colton and me. The butterfly lands on my hand.

My eyes flicker up to Colton who also has a butterfly in his hand. A quizzical expression crosses his face briefly before a small smile takes over.

“My mom used to tell me that butterflies were the presence of those who have left us,” I whisper to him while watching the butterfly crawl over my hand. “A reminder that no one is really gone. That they’re always watching us.”

“Claire used to have a butterfly garden,” he tells me. My eyes leave the butterfly and watch him as he speaks. “She would spend hours in it, taking care of the plants and just watching the butterflies fly around. You could tell that she loved it in there.”

“What happened to it?” I ask him.

Colton looks away from the butterfly and down at me. “She decided that she loved the bookstore more,” he says. At the same time, both of our butterflies fly out of our hands and fly in the direction that the others went in. “Still want to go further?”

I nod and push my magic out around us, creating a shield. If there’s anyone else in the forest, they won’t detect us.

“Shield’s up,” I tell him and start walking. He follows behind me. For the next hour we just walk and talk. I find out that his favorite color is green. He played basketball in high school, which I didn’t know. I never went to any games. He likes rock music and has always wanted to learn how to play guitar. He had a golden retriever when he was younger named Scooby after his favorite cartoon, Scooby-Doo. He wants to travel the world when he’s older. After talking about himself for a while, he turns the questions on me.

I find myself opening up to him. I tell him about how I used to go up on the roof of my house just to watch the stars all night. I tell him about my love for traveling too. I’ve always wanted to travel to Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean. I love anything with chocolate and peanut butter, so Reese’s are basically the best things ever. I tell him about my mom. I’ve never really opened up about her before. I tell him about how much I miss her; how I miss having a mother like figure, and how upset I was when Claire died because in a way she filled that void.

We come across an old bench on the trail. It doesn’t look sturdy enough to sit on. To prove me wrong, Colton stands on top of it and jumps up and down. “If it can hold my weight, it can definitely hold yours.” He sits down and motions for me to sit down next to him.

After I sit down, neither one of us speaks for a while. I just look around, admiring the environment. I love being surrounded by greenery. The forest is always full of life. The plants. The animals. The atmosphere. Everything is alive in some way or another, and everything is connected. My fingers move across the old wooden surface. Feeling an indentation in the wood, I look down. Someone carved the initials A.F. into the seat of the bench. I move over the curvature of the letters, wondering how he or she stumbled upon this area.

I close my eyes and let the slight breeze blow around me. My hair blows across my shoulders, giving me the chills. With the sun going down, I am starting to get cold. Colton must have seen my goosebumps because he takes off his light jacket and wraps it around my shoulders.

I smile and thank him. Turning toward him, I ask, “Colton, what happened to your parents?” At my question, his body instantly tenses. I scoot closer to him and place my hand on his forearm, “You don’t have to tell me.” I really don’t want to upset him. I’m just curious. He never talks about them. Colton looks down at my hand on his arm before his green eyes connect with mine. I can see his inner conflict in his gaze. I know how difficult it is to finally open up to someone after so long.