Push and Shove: The Ghost Bird Series: #6 (The Academy) (8 page)

“We’re about to,” I said.

“I’m not shopping for a new set of clothes for your ass because you’re not eating.” He slapped me on the thigh. “No wonder everything’s looking like shit on you lately. They don’t fit right.”

I made a small noise, backing away from him to fall into Nathan’s bed. I stretched out. For some reason, my stomach was hurting a little. I wasn’t hungry, but there was a pang. I tried to ignore it, thinking perhaps it was just nerves.

Gabriel flopped onto the bed next to me, holding his head up in his hand. “Sang, look at me. Tell me why you aren’t eating.”

My eyes went wide. “Because I forget! I’ve told you.”

“Are you sure that’s the reason?”

My mouth fell open, but Gabriel caught my chin, forcing my mouth closed. “Let me finish. If you’ve turned anorexic or some shit, so help me god, I’ll beat that pretty ass of yours. But if you
were
anorexic, you wouldn’t admit it and say you’re fine and all that. So I’m asking you flat out because if you’re not honest with me, I have to get all Mr. Blackbourne on you. And if I didn’t ask, I’d be an ass. So you see? I have to make sure.”

“I wasn’t trying to not eat,” I said. “I thought I was eating. We had cupcakes and pizza at the party. I split lunch with you at school. If I was trying to not eat, I wouldn’t be eating cupcakes.”

“Unless you’re throwing them up. You’re not puking are you?”

“Ew, no. “I can’t stand doing that when I’ve got the flu.”

Gabriel sucked in a breath, flopping onto his back on the bed. “All right, all right. Just had to check.” He let out a puff of air and then jumped up again like something caught his eye. He went right for the closet. He found a brown bottle on the shelf and then showed it to me. “You’re still wearing this?”

It was the perfume he’d made me. I nodded.

“You still like it?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. I did. It was a wonderful fruity musk. I put it on occasionally in the morning, but having just one bottle, and going back and forth from Nathan’s to my own house, I sometimes forgot where I left it.

He opened the bottle, and waved it in front of his nose. “I was thinking of changing it.”

“Why?”

“Just for something different.” He walked over, wetting his fingers with the liquid. He reached down and touched at the dip in my neck, and then picked up one of my wrists. He bent over, inhaling against my arm. “Wait, no, never mind. It smells better when you’ve got it on.”

I wasn’t sure if that was true. A scent changed depending on who wore it?

I rubbed at my stomach, the pain resurfacing. It wasn’t horrible, but it made me want to move onto my side, and when I was on my side, it still hurt so I rolled onto my back again.

Gabriel watched as I rolled around. “What’s wrong?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to mention it. I didn’t think there was anything that could be done about it. “Just my stomach,” I said casually, trying to not alarm him.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “What do you mean? You’re hungry?”

“No, it just hurts a little.”

“Cramps?”

I blew out a perplexed sigh. “No. I don’t know what it is. It just aches.”

Gabriel dropped a palm against my thigh, but left it there as he looked down at me. “Did it just start?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you need to eat something when you take one of those vitamin pills. Hang on a second.” He jumped up, running into the kitchen. He came back with a banana. “Try this.”

“What are you doing?” Nathan asked, poking his head out from the kitchen hallway. “We’re about to eat dinner.”

“She said her stomach hurt. Hang on, she’s just eating a little.”

“Her stomach hurts? Why?”

I held back a sigh. Academy cavalry. I wondered how long it would take before North, or Silas, or someone else called and asked me why I didn’t tell them my stomach hurt or tried something else to help it. Did Mr. Blackbourne already tell them about being on orders to eat and rest? I guessed not, because if he did, I probably would have gotten several phone calls by now. “I’ll be okay, guys,” I said. “I’ll eat dinner. It’s not that bad. It’ll go away.”

“Let’s sit at the table,” Nathan said. “We’ll get some good food in her.”

I sat in the middle between Nathan and Gabriel. They piled chicken, salad and mashed potatoes onto my plate, much more than I could ever fit into my stomach.

“If you clean your plate, I’ve got a strawberry cheesecake in the fridge,” Nathan said.

“I don’t know if I’ll have room,” I said between bites of salad. “Mr. Blackbourne said eat, not overstuff myself.”

“You have to make up for all the time you haven’t been eating,” Gabriel said. “Now hurry up. I want to figure out what still fits on you.”

I did the best I could. Nathan only had to eat a fourth of what they’d piled my plate. I felt a little better after I did eat, but my stomach was still a little off. I skipped dessert; I didn’t want to be overstuffed on top of the pang in my stomach.

I was helping clear the table when Gabriel’s phone started buzzing. “Yeah?” He said into it. “Aw. Really? Right now?” He grunted and smashed his thumb into the phone.

“Academy?” I asked.

“Luke,” he said. “He needs an extra hand at the diner.”

I perked up. “Can I go?”

“Nope,” he said, dropping the dish towel back onto the counter. “You have to stay with Nathan and be a lazy ass with him.” He pulled back a kitchen chair that had his backpack on it. He fished out a T-shirt and put it on over his tank.

Nathan smirked. “Ha ha. He called you and not me.”

“Shut up,” Gabriel said. “I’ll be back.” He approached me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He lifted me like that until my toes grazed the tile. He started dragging me to the door. “Just going to take this with me.”

I patted at Gabriel’s sides, what little I could reach since he’d trapped my arms.

He laughed, dropping me by the door. He squeezed me once in a hug and headed out toward the back door. I followed him. He slid open the glass slider and walked out into the back porch. I closed the door behind him and watched as Gabriel took off jogging around the pool, across the yard and opened the back gate.

When he disappeared, I sighed heavily and stared off at the last spot I’d seen him. I hoped he didn’t have to work too long. I hoped Luke didn’t have to work late, either. I even missed Kota, Silas, North and Victor. It seemed the more time I spent with them, the more I felt their absence when they were gone.

Nathan settled onto the couch. “Let’s watch a movie.”

I let Nathan pick out what he wanted and went to change out of the skirt Gabriel had put me in. I found a pair of shorts and a tank top and then added the angel wing hoodie since that was comfortable.

When I returned to the living room, Nathan was lying down on the couch on his side with a pillow tucked under his head. His arm was tucked under the pillow, helping to prop it up.

I walked around, ready to sit at his feet when he snagged my hand. I paused, looking down at him.

“Lay down here,” he said. He tugged at my hand, drawing me down until I was sitting in front of him.

My heart started to thunder, but I went where he wanted me, feeling a little awkward. We slept pretty close when we spent the night together. I was always nervous then, too, but at least we were in the dark.

When I slid in next to him, pressing my back to his chest, the edge of my shirt and hoodie rolled up my sides. I felt a slight chill as my exposed skin touched the leather of the couch.

Nathan curled his arm around me, tucking his hand between the couch cushion and my hip. He propped himself up on a pillow with his other hand. “You’ll like this one,” he said.

“Oh?” I floundered for a place to put my hands and settled for wedging them between my cheek and the pillow.

“It’s a comedy. There’s a little romance in it. Thought you might like something better than another zombie movie. You’ll see.”

I wasn’t sure if I could handle a whole movie with him behind me like this. The width of his chest brushed up against my back, warming my skin through our clothes. One of his ankles covered mine. The edge of his thumb traced softly over my side.

I breathed out slowly, trying to relax. This was just his way of getting me to take it easy, like we’d been told. I settled in, determined to let the movie distract me.

It was thirty minutes into the movie when the heroine managed an awkward first kiss with the guy she’d been crushing on since the beginning. When the hero returned the kiss, though, his hands moved all over her body, caressing her breasts, cupping her butt.

My cheeks radiated and suddenly I was fully aware of Nathan behind me again. I’d felt him before, but now it took a lot of will power to focus on the movie again. The screen kiss made me think of Kota getting so close and not kissing me, and then of Nathan behind me, and wondering how he felt about me.

I stirred, stretching my legs, and ended up tracing my toes along the top of his foot. I withdrew my feet a little to give him space.

Nathan leaned in on me. His nose found my ear and he nuzzled it. “Peanut,” he whispered.

“Honey?” I said in a small voice. The pit of my stomach trembled. I stiffened, unsure how to respond.

The hand around my side squeezed tenderly, pulling my back into his hard chest and stomach. He tucked closer into me. “I’m never able to finish a movie with you around,” he said. “You wiggle.”

“Sorry.”

His lips traced my ear. “You’re not sorry. What’s going to happen when I take you to the movies sometime?”

“I can sit away from you if you want,” I said, trying to be funny.

The hand at my side clutched tighter. His other arm drew around until he was hugging me around my shoulders. I sucked in a breath, getting a lung full of his Cypress.

His lips glided along the side of my ear. “You’re not going anywhere.”

The way he held me, I was trapped. I wriggled my arms under his embrace. “Nathan,” I breathed out.

“I want you here with me,” he said, pulling me tighter to him. His lips met my lobe, and his warm breath fell against my skin.

A desire to twist around and face him swept over me, but I couldn’t muster the courage. I stared hard at the screen, not seeing anything. It was flashes of color to me now. I was lost and wasn’t even sure if I wanted to return to the movie at all, but too terrified to do anything else.

Nathan picked himself up, shoving the pillow away until it tumbled across the floor. He turned me until I was on my back. He propped himself up on his elbow on his side so he could look down at me. His other hand settled onto my stomach, his fingers splayed out across my abdomen.

This was worse! Now I had nothing to look at but the ceiling or directly at him. I had no idea what to do now. I folded my arms just under my breasts, unsure of what to do with them. Heat blasted over my cheeks and I knew they must have been pink.

His blue eyes bore into me, sweeping across my face. Studying. Keeping eye contact was difficult because it made the shaking sensation in my stomach increase until I didn’t know how to contain it. The only relief I got was when I looked elsewhere, his cheeks, his ears, his hair.

I’d felt the guys looking at me this way before. Instinct told me they wanted to kiss me. I’d been wrong. North had once told me to trust them, to let them worry about things like this. I believed him. I wanted to let them figure out what they wanted to do with me and not just assume. If Nathan wanted, he would. I’d wait and let them figure it out. I had no idea about kissing and relationships.

Nathan’s eyes locked on mine once more, swept down to my cheeks and settled on my lips.

I stilled, and couldn’t help but lower my gaze until I was staring at his mouth.

His fingers twitched across my stomach, swiping my side in a gentle motion. It forced a smile out of me.

“What?” he asked, his own grin catching in the corner of his mouth.

“Nothing,” I said, fighting to not ruin what’d been an intense moment.

“Hm?” He lowered his head closer. “Something funny?” His fingers curled across my side.

My lips split and I ducked my head toward his chest. I started giggling. I swatted at his hand and then gripped it to get him to stop.

“Ha. See,” he said. “You shouldn’t ever let anyone know where you’re ticklish. You’re done for now.” He wrestled his hand away from my grasp and started sliding his fingertips across my side.

“You knew I was!” I squirmed against him, trying to turn over so I could push his arm away easier. In a way, it was a relief. The nervous rattle in my stomach was easing away.

Nathan tucked his other arm around me tighter, holding on to me around the hips. “Nu-uh, stay here, Peanut,” he said.

His fingers continued to tickle. I couldn’t stop squirming. I tried smacking at his arm, but he was unrelenting. He had more power over me and could use it when he wanted.

I poked at his stomach, trying to tickle back.

“That doesn’t work with me, sweetie,” he said through a chuckle.

Was this like when Gabriel told me pouting didn’t work? I curled my fingers, trying to run them against his side.

He tucked his arm tight up against his ribs. “Nope,” Nathan said, but his lips twisted into a rigid grin.

Thought so. I was getting the hang of the guys. I curled my fingers more, weaving around his arm and trying to rub at his side. Since his shirt was a little tighter, it was a bit easier to tickle and not just grip a bunch of cloth.

Nathan harrumphed and caught both of my wrists in one hand, drawing them together. He used his free hand against my side, tickling.

I managed to wriggle a wrist free. He tried to reclaim it, but I darted. I caught on the hem of his shirt in an effort to tickle quickly and escape capture. My fingers brushed against his bare skin.

Nathan’s lips nearly exploded as he jerked his body back against the couch, laughing. “Shit, Sang. Your hands are too soft.” He caught up both of my wrists, pinning them against each other easily in one hand. When they were secured and over my head, he wriggled his fingers toward my stomach.

“No,” I squealed, laughing. I wriggled, trying to squirm away from him.