Before You Go (YA Romance) (10 page)

“Why?” The word sounded raspy and weird.

“Because,” he said. “You’re going to talk to me.”

10

“Talk to you?”

“Tell me all about yourself. What’s it like to be Margo Ford?”

She inhaled, filling her lungs slowly, until she felt sure she wasn’t going to be sick. Then she stiffened her spine to see if he’d loosen his hold on her. He didn’t.

“Why do you care?” Hadn’t he told her on the patio that he didn’t want to be her friend?

“I’m interested.” He flattened his hand out on her ribs, resituating just a bit, so she could feel every inch of him, hard and hot. “I’ve been down here since the twenty-first of May with a bunch of astronomers. They’re fine to talk to, but all they’re interested in is space. I love it, too, but, you know, it can get pretty dry...”

She said nothing. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say, and it was probably the head trauma, but she found herself tongue-tied.

“…So,” he said at last, “Margo, what’s your favorite movie?”

His voice was a purr, so soft and gentle. Could she trust him? If she remembered he was being nice because she’d hit her head.

“
Star Wars
.”

He
laughed,
a warm, rich sound. “You really do have a horse named R2D2? I thought you were kidding.”

“Had,” she corrected. “And no, not kidding.
Star
Wars
is my favorite.”

“Why?”

“It’s…happy.”

“Happy?”

“It
is
happy.
Especially the first one.
It’s like a fairy tale.”

“So that’s your favorite?
A New Hope
?”
Logan laughed. “You know what that means,” he said.

“No.”

He leaned his head down, so his breath was a puff against her neck. “It means,” he said, slowly and dramatically, so that all the hairs on her arms
raised
up in prescient splendor, “that you’re possibly—well, probably…my soul mate.”

 
The world seemed to slow to half speed. The white seagull-looking bird she had been watching took twice as long to reach his branch. The horse seemed to swim through the grass. Even the air stilled, as every cell of her homed in on his voice.

 
“It’s not easy to find a pretty girl whose favorite movie is
Star Wars
. Do you know how many geeks there are out there who would kill to meet someone like you?” He laughed.

“And you’re a geek?” she asked skeptically.

“Absolutely.
I love
Star Wars
. I love the optimism in
A New Hope
. Not that it’s my favorite. I’m a
Return of the Jedi
kind of guy. Luke versus Vader, Leia as a slave.”

The way his words came, tumbling out, bursts of life and air. The way his voice felt, hummed into her ear. The way his shoulders cupped hers as Gamma walked. Each fragment of the moment burrowed deep into her skin, and without any warning, tears stung in her eyes.

Crying—
again?
She widened her eyes, hoping to staunch the flow, and her body must have tensed, because Logan groaned.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I was just yanking your chain. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You don’t have to lean up like that. Lean back again. If you fall off, Jana will think I’m trying to kill you.”

You are.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “My head just hurts.”
 

“I know it’s
gotta
hurt. But we’re getting closer now. See?” He nodded, chin brushing her hair. “The barn’s just a little ways away. Keep on talking to me. Consider it charity, so I don’t worry. Start with where you’re from.”

He wrapped her close to him, and Margo held her breath, pathetically elated; he would
worry
. “Where I’m from… You mean Napa, or New Orleans?”

“Either one—or both.
Why don’t you tell me about both of them?”

She took a deep breath, struggling to think. “I’m from Napa Valley. I used to live there with my dad. And then I moved to Kerrigan in New Orleans. It’s a girls’ school.
Really old and
schmoozy
.”

“
Schmoozy
, huh?”
She could hear his smile.

“Everybody there has their own plane.
And lots of houses.
Like my roommate, Elizabeth
Timberdime
, she has seven of them.”

“That’s a lot.”

“I’ve been staying at their home in Tahoe since school got out. It’s smaller.
Only nine bedrooms.
I saw one of their homes in New York
state
. It had twenty-three bedrooms.”

“Your mom’s got a lot of houses, too, right? Isn’t there a big one out in
Bel
Air?”

Margo remembered the feature on the Travel Channel.
American Palaces
, she thought it was called, and evidently Logan had seen it, too. Cindy’s
Bel
Air home was off Linda Flora Drive, and Logan was surely thinking it
was
a palace.

She let her breath out, took another one in. It wasn’t going to be weird, because she wouldn’t let it be.
 

In a casual tone, she said, “Chandra. It is kind of a palace—so I hear. I’ve never been inside.” She hesitated,
then
plunged. “You know, I’ve only really met her twice.”

“Only met…your mother?” His voice lilted at the end.

“Like I said—we didn’t really know each other until my dad died.”

He made a soft sound, a little
oh
.

“It’s okay,” she lied. “And technically, I guess me and Cindy met three times.
Once at birth.”

Logan’s chest shook, and he emitted sound that couldn’t really be called a laugh. It
was
weird.

In the silence that followed, an ice sheet settled over her—the same sensation that always came when she thought about Cindy.

“So no one here said anything about…why I was coming?”

“No,” he said quickly.
Too quickly.

“Really?”

He cleared his throat. “People here are kind of busy. I’m sure Jana knew about it, but maybe no one wanted to make you uncomfortable.”

“Maybe it made everyone feel awkward.” Hurt burned through her chest, hurt and shame that she’d even brought this up.

“How so?” he asked.

She looked down at the horse’s neck.
Flexed her fingers.
Figured, what the hell.
She wouldn’t know Logan after the next week, so why not jump off the cliff she’d climbed? “At one point, one of the big networks reported that I actually had been kidnapped. Someone called Cindy’s press person, and somehow the rumor… it got out of hand.” She bit her lip, ashamed that she’d felt the need to share something so humiliating. “Cindy thought I’d been taken and she…she offered a reward.”

“Okay…”

Margo inhaled deeply. “She offered five-hundred thousand dollars.”

Cindy was worth $25 billion, and she’d offered a measly half a million for her daughter.

“I see,” he said simply.

“Yep.”

After a moment, she felt his chin near her neck, heard his voice, soft in her ear. “She obviously doesn’t know how much you’re worth.”

Margo felt her neck burn. She shut her eyes, and for a few minutes, there was only the feel of Logan next to her, only the sound of Gamma’s hooves. She wondered what she should say to break the silence.
If she should say anything…

Logan did it for her. “Just a little longer,” he said gently. “Then we’ll use the barn phone and call Jana.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, so glad he’d changed the subject. He’d changed the subject, and yet…things still felt cozy. The realization made her nervous, so she jumped into another subject. “Do you think I have a concussion?”

“Probably.”

“I’ve never had one before.”

She hadn’t meant to sound quite so pitiful, but the pain from her head got into her voice, and Logan sighed. “I’m sorry. I wish to hell that I had given you that tour.”

Maybe it was the remorse in his voice, or because she felt hurt in more ways than her concussion. Maybe it was, again, the head trauma. But for whatever reason, Margo told him exactly what was going through her mind.

“You asked where I’m from… and I’m from nowhere, really. I don’t have a home anymore. My permanent address is a dorm room.
 
It’s kind of funny: no
home,
and my mom has all those houses.”

Not funny, she thought with disgust.
Pathetic.
She was shocked when he said, “I feel a little like that, sometimes. I moved to Massachusetts, to go to Milton, when I was eleven, and then to MIT at sixteen. My family’s still in Georgia, but I can’t go back.”

“Why not?” she asked, feeling the tension in his arm around her waist.

“Oh, you know. ‘You can never go home.’” He sounded almost flippant, and even through her pain, Margo could tell he was being evasive.

“I’d go home if I could,” she offered.

“I wouldn’t.”

 
“Why not?”

If she thought he was tense before, now he was miming a brick wall. His body tightened, inanimate and hard. His fingers around the reigns were clenched into a fist.
 
He let his breath out, a long, painful-sounding sigh, and Margo wished again she could take her question back.

God.
He wasn’t going to answer her. They were going to ride all the way back in total silence, with her head throbbing, and her—

“Going back there is…I don’t know.
Stifling.
I probably should go home more, see my mom and little sister, but I don’t make the time.”

For a while, she thought that was all he was going to say. Then he sighed, like just thinking about home made it hard for him to breathe, and in a quiet voice, he said, “I don’t think home’s the same for everybody.”

“You have your college place,” she offered.

“The good ole dorm.”

“I bet you’re a pro at cooking Ramen.”

He chuckled. “I’m surprised you know of Ramen.”

“I wasn’t reared as a Zhu. We only had three houses.”

“Just three.”

“One of them was a beach house, and the other was a townhouse in Washington. Isn’t that normal enough?”

“Normal enough,” he agreed.

She was trying to be light, and she could sense that he was, too, but there was sadness in his tone. She glanced over her shoulder to meet his eyes; they seemed flat, more grey than blue. “You’re not exactly Mr. Normal, either, are you?”

He snorted. “Not quite.”

She’d meant to tease. She figured he must be fine with being some kind of super genius, but the subject quieted him. She tried again.