Shadows

Chapter 4

Bethany was sort of shocked. Yeah, she expected Dawson to chat with her, maybe even flirt a little, but ask her out? Just like that? Color her surprised…and impressed.

“Good.” She glanced down at the pen in her fingers, wondering how she’d get out of the house with a boy. “Um, should I meet you somewhere…?”

A flash of satisfaction deepened the hue of his green eyes. “I can pick you up.”

Oh, no no no. She could see her mother’s shrewd stare now as Bethany prepped for the inevitable interrogation. The embarrassment was already wiggling through her, causing her fingers to tighten around the pen. “Um, I’d rather meet you somewhere. Nothing personal, but my parents—”

“Are strict? Totally cool.” He didn’t miss a beat, and she appreciated that. “There’s a diner in town. Nothing special, but the food is great. The Smoke Hole Diner — have you heard of it?”

She hadn’t, and Dawson quickly gave her directions. Nothing was too hard to find in Petersburg, as long as it wasn’t around a bunch of back roads that all looked the same to her.

While they talked, Bethany noticed several of the girls, namely a blonde in front of her, blatantly eavesdropping. The blonde had the perfect body and face — tiny, perky looking. Being close to five eight, Bethany felt like Godzilla just sitting behind her. And then she noticed Dawson’s twin.

He was also listening.

Over Dawson’s shoulder, he watched them with narrowed eyes. Something in his hard expression said he wasn’t too pleased with what he was hearing. The thumping muscle in his jaw kind of gave him away, too.

Whatever his deal was, Bethany didn’t know, but she decided it would be best to steer clear of him…and of the Barbie.

Class started. Pride and Prejudice was on the reading list. Grumbles came from most of the guys in the room as Mr. Patterson handed out the novels. She’d already read the book — three times — so the essay on underlying social issues of the time wouldn’t be killer.

Placing the novel on her desk, she willed herself to focus on the lecture, but her mind kept going to the boy behind her. His aftershave — or was it even aftershave? — was a woodsy, outdoorsy scent that reminded her of campfires.

A very nice smell.

Unique and nothing boyish about it. Hell, there wasn’t anything boyish about Dawson. He was obviously her age, sixteen, but if she’d run into him outside of her school, she would’ve pegged him for a college guy. He had extraordinary confidence, something that most boys lacked at this age.

Maybe she was out of her league on this one. Guys like him tended to have a whole harem of girlfriends. Girlfriends like Barbie. Not girls who usually had paint under their fingernails.

Looking down at her hand, she cringed. Green paint was under her pinkie from last night. Crimson stained her cheeks. Last night she’d painted Dawson’s face, even though she’d told herself not to go there.

But she went there and then some.

Dammit. Obsessions always started with painting someone’s face, didn’t they?

Biting on the cap of her pen, she pretended to stretch her neck left, then right. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Dawson watching her with those intense eyes.

Their gazes locked.

And the air went right out of her lungs. Again, the concentrated power in his stare sent a shiver dancing over her skin. Like in the hallway yesterday, she felt the urge to move back. Because whatever was in his eyes…wasn’t normal; it was a real power that she couldn’t capture in the painting. An almost luminous quality she couldn’t get quite right.

He winked, and damn if it wasn’t sexy. Not skeevy at all or stupid looking. It was the kind of wink that movie stars did on the screen. Something no one in real life could pull off.

Yep, out of her league. Excitement hummed through her.

Grinning around her pen, she faced the front of the class before the teacher noticed her.

Dear God, she was seconds from melting into a useless pool of girlie girl.

When the bell rang, Dawson was already on his feet, standing beside her desk. His brother stopped behind him and remained there as Bethany shoved her books into her bag and stood. It seemed like something unspoken passed between the twins, because Dawson smirked at his brother.

The twin finally edged around Dawson, glancing over his shoulder with a lopsided grin. “Behave,” was all he said. Out loud, at least.

Bethany’s brows rose. “Uh…”

“Ignore Daemon. That’s what I do most of the time.” Dawson extended his arm, and she slid in front of him. “He has poor social skills.”

Unsure if he was joking, she decided to skip right over that one. “It must be cool, having a twin, though.”

“Ah, not sure if cool is the right word.” He flashed a grin. “But we’re not twins.”

Out in the crowded hallway, Bethany frowned. “You’re not? Could’ve fooled me and the world.”

His laugh was husky, deep, and really nice to hear. “We’re triplets.”

Her eyes popped wide. “Holy crap, there’re three of you?”

“We have a sister.” He walked close to her, so their shoulders bumped every few steps. She found that deliciously distracting. “She’s fraternal and a lot prettier than us.”

There were three of them but one was a girl. Triplets. Craziness. “Are you guys close?”

He nodded, following her up the stairs like yesterday. Apparently being on time to class wasn’t a big deal for him.

“Yeah, we’re pretty close. Especially Dee, my sister, and me. She’s a doll.” He paused, angling his body around a flock of students. “Daemon isn’t too bad, either. The boy would give his left arm for the two of us. Do you have any siblings?”

“A brother — half brother,” she said, smiling. When he spoke of his sister and brother, there was real love in his voice. So rare nowadays. Most of her old friends back in Nevada did nothing but bitch about their brothers and sisters. “He’s only two.”

“Ah, a little butt…”

Bethany stopped right in the middle of the hall. “What did you say?”

Dawson’s brows lowered. “Uh, I said little butt. I hope that wasn’t, uh, offensive?”

“No.” She stared up at him, which alone was a feat. “It’s just what I call Phillip — little butt. That’s his nickname.”

Dawson’s expression relaxed into a grin. “Really? That’s so funny. Daemon and I call Dee that all the time. She hates it.”

Folding her arms, she met his stare. “Do you watch a lot of TV?”

“Only when Daemon forces me to.”

Holy moley… “What about movies?”

The grin reached his eyes. “Not that big of a fan. I’m an outdoors kind of guy. I’d rather be hiking than sitting around.”

She thought of painting and how she’d rather be doing that than anything else. There was just one more thing. “Do you love sugar? Like, always have to eat a lot of sugar?”

He laughed. “Yeah, any more questions? The bell’s about to ring.”

Love of sugar had to mean true love. It just had to. A smile spread across her face, so big that she should’ve been embarrassed. “No. That’s all.”

“Good.” He reached out, tucking a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail back behind her ear. The brush of his knuckles across her skin went through her system like a bolt of lightning. “What are you doing after school? Want to grab something to eat?”

“I thought we were doing that on Sunday?”

“Yeah, we are, but I just wanted to make plans for this weekend. That has nothing to do with today.”

Her mouth opened and a laugh snuck out. God, he was just…there were no words. Mom would be expecting her home right after school, and that’s what she should do. Plans had been set for Sunday, but that seemed so far away. Days away…

The warning bell shrieked, causing her to jump.

“Bethany Williams.” He said her name teasingly.

Her lashes lifted and she started to shake her head no. “Yes.”

…

Bethany should’ve known that Dawson Black was trouble with a capital T, all rounded up in six feet and then some of lean muscle and disarming smile, from the moment she’d spotted him.

Boys were so complicated.

And boys like Dawson? Ah, so much more complicated.

Most guys didn’t have an ounce of the charisma he exuded. No wonder she liked him and was already planning to tell her mom that she was staying after school to do some art stuff. An easy, believable lie, since she’d done plenty of extracurricular work like that several times a week in Nevada. That she was already so willing to lie about him only further cemented in her mind the fact that she liked him way too much. And they had only spoken a few times. Bethany wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing yet.

She hadn’t expected how quickly he got under her skin. And she really wasn’t prepared for the slightly empty feeling in the pit of her stomach as she watched him jog around the corner to his science class. God…she actually missed him.

She definitely wasn’t looking over her shoulder in the hallway for him when she stopped at her locker before lunch. Nope. Not at all. Her mind wasn’t wrapped up in a boy she’d just met. And she definitely didn’t keep comparing every color of green to eyes that shone like polished emeralds.

Bethany drifted through the rest of her classes, nervous and excited and wound up like the tight ball of rubber bands that Simon Cutters always held in his hand throughout chemistry. After he’d tossed it in the air for about the fiftieth time, she wanted to grab it and throw it through the fogged-over windows in their classroom.

In gym, she kept staring at Dawson, who was at another ping-pong table playing against Carissa, a quiet girl with the coolest horn-rimmed glasses Bethany had ever seen. Her gaze went right back to him.

Damn, he made plain white T-shirts a thing to worship.

With every sweep of the paddle, the shirt stretched over taut muscles. Did he run? Work out a lot? Teenage boys usually didn’t sport that kind of a hard body.

Dawson smacked the ball toward Carissa again. She missed it, and in that tiny space of time while she hunted it down, he glanced over at Bethany and smiled.

Her heart skipped right out of her chest. Bad, oh so bad.

A plastic yellow ball zinged past her face, almost kissing her cheek.

Kimmy, her partner, popped her hands on her hips. “You’re not even paying attention.”

She winced, because she wasn’t paying attention at all. “Sorry,” she mumbled, turning around and searching the floor for the damn ball. It was all the way over by the bleachers. “I’ll get it.”

Kimmy sighed, studying her manicured nails. “Yeah, not like I was planning to in the first place.”

Ignoring her, Bethany stalked over to the ball. The whole gawking thing was already getting out of hand, and she had a feeling it was going to get worse. Even now she was fighting the mad urge to look over her shoulder to see if he was watching her. It felt like he was. Do not do it. The muscles in her neck cramped. Absolutely not. Her fingers twitched around the paddle. She bent and—

A golden hand reached the ball before she could. Startled, she took a step back as her gaze drifted up…and up. Where in the hell had he come from? It was the blond from the hallway yesterday — the model-perfect boy with wavy hair that kept falling into crystalline blue eyes. If she remembered correctly, he had been at least four tables over, and there was a good five feet in between each one. She hadn’t even seen him move, and it wasn’t like you could miss something that gorgeous walking around.

Or maybe she just had a bad case of Dawson on the brain.

“Um, thanks for getting…” Her words trailed off as her eyes met his. The coldness in his stare chilled her. He did nothing to hide his dislike. It practically rolled off him and crawled over her skin like a dozen spiders.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

Bethany blinked. The sound of his voice matched his eyes. Frigid. Hard. Full of snobbish loathing. Back in her old school, she’d been on the receiving end of that kind of a stare more than a few times, especially after she and Daniel had broken up. He’d been the popular one…

The boy smirked. “You have a name, right? Or can you not understand English?”

A hot flush shot over her cheeks, turning them cherry red, she was sure. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. Confrontation wasn’t her thing and this was a confrontation. Okay, so she had no problem getting into it with her mom over things, but with other people? Yeah, she stared at him like she was a mute.

He stepped closer to her, and even though it made her feel crazy for thinking it, she could have sworn that waves of heat blew off of him like he was some kind of electric radiator. Sweat dotted her brow. “I said, what is your name?”

“Her name isn’t any of your business,” a smooth, deep voice cut in.

Dawson stood beside her, but he was glowering at the other boy. He cocked his head to the side. “Give her back the ball, Andrew.”

The temperature in the gym skyrocketed. Kids were starting to stare.

Andrew’s lips curved into a half grin.

“Or do you have a problem understanding English?” Dawson asked. There was a smile on his face, but the way his muscles were tensing up, he was a second away from taking the ball from the other kid.

All of this over a ping-pong ball? How completely bizarre. She cleared her throat and extended her hand. “My name is Bethany. Now can I please have my ball back?”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Andrew’s eyes never left Dawson’s. “We’re going to have to talk soon.”

“Or not,” Dawson replied.

Andrew dropped the ball in her outstretched hand with an arched brow. Then he pivoted around, stalking off toward his table.

“Wow,” she mumbled, unsure of what to make of all of this.

Dawson cleared his throat. “He’s a bit…ah, yeah, Andrew’s just an ass of the highest order. Don’t pay attention to him.”

Bethany nodded and glanced down at her palm, sucking in a sharp breath. Holy smokes…

The ping-pong ball had been melted into an irregular circle.