Timepiece

Chapter 11

I was pretty sure I was awake, but if so, why was Lily Garcia sitting at my kitchen table on a Sunday morning? I rubbed my eyes with my fists.

“Did you forget your shirt?” she asked.

I blinked. Still there. I was glad I’d pulled on basketball shorts instead of coming downstairs in my boxer briefs. “No. I wasn’t expecting to see… anyone.”

“Surprise.” She waggled her fingers. Jazz hands.

I grabbed some pineapple-orange juice from the fridge. Screwing the plastic lid off, I started to drink out of the carton before I caught myself. I extended it to Lily. “Thirsty?”

“No,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“Not to be rude, but why are you in my kitchen?”

“I’m here to see your dad. He ran over to the college to get supplies from the science department. I guess he didn’t expect me to come for testing so soon.”

Anxiety.

“For the gene,” I said.

“Yay you for keeping up. Are you going to tell me Ivy Springs isn’t a freak magnet now?”

Avoiding the question, I chugged what was left of the juice and tossed the empty container in the trash. “Did you sleep?”

“My grandmother said I called out a couple of times.” There was a hint of dark circles under her eyes.

I hadn’t slept at all. In my mind, the man swung from the tree all night. “You live with your grandmother instead of your parents?”

“We escaped from Cuba when I was little. My parents are still there.” Pain. It so often led to avoidance. “Have you always lived in Ivy Springs?”

“No. We moved here when Dad took a job at Cameron College.” I shut the refrigerator door. “But this house has been in my dad’s family for generations.”

“Nice.”

There were a couple of awkward seconds of staring-neither one of us knew where to look-but I could sense Lily trying really hard not to look at my bare chest or tattoos.

Instead of going upstairs for a shirt like a normal person, I reached for the hook magnet on the side of the fridge, grabbed my kiss the cook apron, and slid it over my head.

“Are you kidding me?” Lily’s eyebrows almost met her hairline.

“No. I’m… hungry.” Suddenly desperate to make the apron look somewhat normal, I took a coated cast-iron pan down from the rack over the kitchen island. “As for the apron, I like cooking. I like kissing. I like giving orders. About both.”

I stared at her until she blushed.

“You okay with garlic?” I snagged a bulb from the counter and held it up. A piece of papery-thin skin fluttered to the floor.

“On your breath or in my food?”

Solid comeback.

I grinned. “In case I have enough leftovers for a doggie bag.”

“If ‘doggie bag’ is meant to be an insult, up yours.”

I clicked on the burner under the pan, squeezed a clove of garlic through a press, and then added chopped onions and red peppers from my stash in the fridge. After dropping in a couple of tablespoons of butter, I set the flame to medium.

“Why are you being… well, not nice, but not completely hateful?” Her cheeks were still flushed.

“I’m not good with mornings. I need a full belly to crank up to bad-boy mode.” I looked at her from the corner of my eye. “I wouldn’t stick around for lunch.”

“Not in a million years.” She leaned forward in her seat, tapping her fingers on the table. Working up to something. “Em said that your parents are travelers, just like Michael and her.”

“That’s true.”

“That made me wonder…”

“Wonder what?” I asked.

“I want to know what your ability is.”

“Wow.” I grabbed a spatula and shifted the vegetables in the pan. “Such subtlety. Never would’ve expected it from you.”

“You found out about me by eavesdropping.” She shrugged. “I thought I’d keep it classy and ask.”

I rested my elbows against the kitchen island, ducking my head to avoid the pot rack. “Empathy. Sensing people’s emotions. Mostly of people I know, but even those I don’t-if I touch them.”

“Is that why you grabbed me at the masquerade? To feel my ‘emotions’?”

“No.” I grinned. “Not at all.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “How did you find out that’s what your ability is?”

“My mom is an actress.” I turned back to the stove to pour in beaten eggs. To give the pain a chance to leave my eyes before I faced her again. “She quit the business to stay home with me, but she still does the occasional gig.”

“No way! Your mom is Grace Walker,” Lily said. “You look exactly like her.”

That’s what everyone always said.

“Lucky for me.”

That’s what I always said back.

“I’m not following. What does your mom being an actress have to do with empathy?”

“Mom started work on a remake of Cleopatra, lots of emotional scenes. I was about three.” I wiggled the pan to make sure the eggs weren’t sticking. “A couple of days after she left home to go on location, I started having irrational reactions to things. Dad called her to talk about it. They tracked it. I was reacting to her scenes as she filmed them.”

“That’s not so strange, right? I mean, she’s your mom.”

“She was filming in Egypt.”

“Oh.” Lily chewed on her thumbnail. “How does empathy relate to time?”

“Everyone has an emotional time line.” I sprinkled a handful of cheese over the omelet, eyed it, and then added more. “I can travel yours, in the right situation.”

“Backward or forward?”

“I don’t mess with the future.” Anymore.

“How do you use it?”

“Something smells good.” Dad popped his head into the kitchen and I jumped. “Thanks for waiting, Lily.”

Saved.

“No worries.” She smiled at him before looking back at me, straight-faced. “Thanks for fighting off your inner bad boy for so long. Looks like breakfast is all yours.”

Dad extended his hand to show her out of the kitchen. Before he followed, he took in my chest and apron. “Son?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe you should locate a shirt.”