BRIDGER (23 page)

“He was hitting on you.”

“I know.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

He had a good point. I could totally understand why Liam felt the way he did. I would probably feel the same way if the shoe were on the other foot. Still, I couldn’t explain the need I had to defend Reese. “It’s not that I think it’s okay, Liam. It’s just, I don’t know, that’s how things have always been between us. He’s not doing it intentionally.”

Liam laughed. “He’s very much doing it intentionally,” I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hands. “But if you know him – if you trust him – I trust you. I just have one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you love him?”

My mouth must have hit the floor. While I was busy reeling my tongue back in, our food arrived. The waitress didn’t seem to pay much attention to us, because Liam was saying thank you to the air as I finally regained enough sense to respond. “Why would you think I loved him?”

He smiled. “It’s the way he looks at you. He loves you. If you don’t know that, then you’re blind.”

“We’re just friends. I don’t love him.”

“Then I trust you. One more question.”

I didn’t know if I could handle any more questions, but I nodded. “Okay?”

“Do you love me?”

He grinned devilishly at the response I must have given on my face. He shook his head. “I’ll wait for an answer to that after I’ve wooed you a little more.” With that, he went to eating his cheeseburger, leaving me in stunned silence.

Yes, I knew I really liked Liam. But love him? We’d only known each other a couple weeks! That seemed a bit quick. It seemed like if I answered the question with a yes, maybe next week he’d be proposing. That definitely wasn’t in the cards.

As he finished, he pulled his wallet out and threw a wad of twenties onto the table. He smiled as he took my hand. “Will that cover the bill?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m pretty sure she’ll be thrilled about the tip. You do know you probably left as much in the tip as the bill was?”

He wrapped his arms around me from behind and kissed my neck. “It was worth it.”

My stomach curled in excitement. Feeling his warm breath on my skin was amazing. We went through the double glass doors and into the area covered in twinkling lights, his embrace never weakening. I could get used to this.

As we neared the bridge, I pulled out my camera. “Do you mind taking a couple pictures?”

He grinned. “Not at all!”

I gave the camera to a couple walking past that was nice enough to snap a couple photos. After taking three, the woman smiled at us and asked, “Now why don’t we have one of you kissing?”

Liam lit up and squeezed me tighter. “That’s a good question. Can we, Ash?” His eyes were pleading in a playful way.

“Do I have a choice?”

He grinned. “Nope.”

With that, he leaned in and put his hands on either side of my face. His breath was visible through the cold air. He smiled as he closed in. “I promise it won’t be painful.”

I closed the gap a little to excitedly. When our lips met, it felt like sparks shot through my entire body. There weren’t fireworks, but there was the flash of the camera in the dark.

Liam wound his fingers through my hair near my neck and pulled me closer to him. I willingly pushed closer to his body. Wasn’t it thirty degrees outside right now? It felt like the world had caught fire.

A twitter of coughs broke our concentration. Apparently when the couple had asked us to kiss, they weren’t expecting that. “Sorry, ma’am,” Liam said as he inclined his head. “She’s just too irresistible at times.”

“Hear, hear!” the man said as he chuckled.

As they left, Liam pulled me close once more and whispered in my ear. “Am I allowed another one?”

I allowed more than just one.

* * *

When we got back to the house, it was close to eleven. As I shut off the car, Liam bounded around the car and opened my door. He was ridiculously excited about how the night had turned out. I was excited, too. My stomach curled in knots as I thought about him kissing me again.

We walked up the pathway to the front door together, my back to the door as I playfully tossed snow in Liam’s face. His expression caught me off guard. He looked angry. “What did I do?”

He didn’t have to answer. He simply turned me around, to find Reese sitting on the steps up to the door, bundled in a fleece blanket emblazoned with the school’s mascot. It was the one I had made him before the football season started. He was making a point. He stood up and put his hand out. “My keys, please?”

I felt bad. “Reese, I’m sorry, we hadn’t planned on being gone so long.”

“It’s whatever, Ash,” he shivered in the cold. I wondered how long he’d been waiting, and why he’d done it outside. “I was just coming by to ask you what your locker combination was.”

“You waited outside the house in a blanket to ask me what my locker combo was?”

He shrugged. “You gonna give it to me, or not?”

I rolled my eyes. “You have a place to write it down?”

Reese pulled out his phone. “Go for it.”

I felt Liam shuffle behind me. I didn’t turn to see what he was doing. “It’s eighteen, twenty-seven, six. What do you need it for?”

Reese smiled. “That’s for me to know, and you to find out, beautiful.”

He walked forward and wrapped me up in the blanket for a hug before Liam even had a chance to argue. As he walked away, he shouted behind his back, “Liam, you’re walking home, chief.”

Liam laughed, then leaned in to kiss me. “I’m okay with that since I get to kiss Ashlyn.”

The sound of Reese throttling the engine was quickly drowned out by my beating heart. Liam was amazing.

NINETEEN

I opened my locker in the morning to find a white rose with a four-leaf clover resting in the petals. Beside it there was a card.
Meet me in the commons
, it read.
I sighed and grabbed the books I needed for first and second hour, then headed upstairs to meet Reese in the commons.

The commons was packed, but I scanned the room for Reese. Finding him shouldn’t be too hard. He was always the center of attention. When I found him on the far end, hands covered my eyes, causing me to jump.

“Take it easy there, killer,” murmured Liam, his voice close to my ear. He kissed my cheek as he uncovered my eyes. “I was wondering if you’d ever show up.”

“Wait, it was you who put the rose in my locker?”

He smiled. “Who else would it be? I thought the four leaf clover would give it away. You know, Ireland token and all.”

I shook my head. “Where’d you find a clover right now, anyway? It’s the middle of winter.”

“Mum gave me some before I left. A family thing.”

I smiled and curled up in his arms, completely forgetting about anything else. That is, until I saw Reese watching us from across the commons. I turned and smiled at Liam. “Want to go for a walk?”

We went out of the commons to the snow covered basketball courts that were outside. Liam dragged his feet through the snow, leaving a path for me to walk through behind him. “How do you deal with all the supernatural stuff? I mean, don’t you think it’s a little insane that Memaw can shift, that my ex best friend is a nut, and we’ve got the Grim Reaper trying to kill us?”

Liam laughed. “He’s not trying to kill me, love. He’s just after you. You’re special.”

I balled up some snow and pelted the back of his head with it. “You’re a jerk.”

His grin was infectious. “No, I’m your Protector. Get it right,” He ran toward me and pulled me into a tight embrace, spinning me around. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

His eyes made me believe it. “You’re crazy, you know that, right?”

The bell began to ring to sound the warning for first hour. He sighed as he put me back on the ground. “And so the mundane begins.”

“At least I have you with me for a couple hours of it.”

* * *

It was so nice to get through the day with no life threatening issues cropping up. By the time P.E. arrived, I thought I’d won the lottery to get through the day with no drama.

Liam walked with me to our lockers at the end of the day, holding my hand. People watched, of course. Liam was still new meat. Krista’s wandering eye irritated me the most. Of course her locker was only a few down from mine.

Liam put his back to her and leaned against the lockers as I twirled the combination to my lock. “She gets under your skin, doesn’t she?”

“How do you figure?” I grumbled.

He laughed and put his hand on my waist. “Ash, I don’t just fall in love with anyone.”

“What’s up with you and love?”

“You still don’t love me?”

I laughed. “You don’t even know me yet.”

“Then why don’t you let me?”

Internally I think my stomach fell into my butt. The idea of telling Liam everything - to tell him why exactly Ankou was after me – was so enticing. I battled with myself, and finally my heart won out. “Listen, Memaw didn’t want me to tell you this but – ”

At that moment my locker exploded with silly string and fake rubber snakes. Screaming, I jumped back about five feet to dodge the line of fire. When everything calmed down, a group of other students had begun to create a ring around my locker. I inched toward it. “Reese…”

In the back of my locker there was a picture of us both beneath the blanket he had been waiting for me under last night. He had scrawled in silver sharpie on the corner of the picture.

Don’t forget me.

* * *

Liam helped me clean up the massive mess that Reese created. That punk. Of course he had meant it as a joke. How could I ever think that a simple rose would be from Reese? That would be way too mild for his tastes.

When Liam and I pulled up to my house, he looked at me with puppy eyes. “You still haven’t shown me your room.

“It’s really not that exciting. Plus, you’d probably get eaten alive by something under my bed. It’s not the cleanest place.”

Liam laughed and grabbed both our book bags. “Come on, we’ll get some homework done.”

We went inside to find the place empty. I didn’t necessarily like the intimacy that was coming, but there wasn’t a way around it. Plus, my stomach was balling up again from the idea as well. My head and heart were in a constant battle these days, but my head was beginning to agree with my heart more and more. Reaching the foot of the stairs, Liam looked around the room.
 
“You have a lot of posters of bands.”

“There's a lot of good music out.”

He scanned my corner desk, running his hands over the multitude of books stuffed into the nooks and crannies.
 
“I didn’t know you liked to read.”

I smiled.
 
“Beats playing video games with Reese all day.”

He walked over and took my hand, half-smiling. It looked like he was thinking about something. “Would you play games with me all day?”

There probably wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do with him all day.
 
That was the problem.
 
Of course, he didn’t need to know that.
 
“Maybe.
 
If you were nice.”