Rival (4 page)

I need the tournament to prove I should
be fighting. Plus, I’ve been training for over a year for it. I
can’t miss it. So I can’t let her see the blood—that’s what propels
me forward. Into his arms.

His eyes widen, but he catches me
anyway, hands resting loosely on my waist.

"What are you—"

He’s significantly taller than I am
without heels on. I stand on my tiptoes, wrap my arms around his
neck, and pull his head down toward mine. I cover his lips with
mine.

I meant it to be a quick brush of lips,
a distraction for my mom.

But I’m the one who’s instantly caught
up in the heat of his mouth against mine. He takes advantage,
angling his head and using one thumb to guide my chin down just
so—and the sensation intensifies.

"Emily!"

My mom's shocked exclamation shakes me
out of the kiss, but he doesn't let me go immediately. His arm
around my lower back—how did that happen?—holds me close as he
stares down at me with intense blue eyes.

"You trying to distract me or your
mom?" he asks, the corner of his eyes crinkled with
humor.

"I don't want her to see the blood on
your shirt," I hiss.

"Did you bring a boy home?" she asks,
and it’s impossible to miss the hopeful tone in her
voice.

Sigh.

So much for getting rid of Brett
quickly.

I break from his embrace and turn
around, putting myself between Brett and my mom, who’s above us and
across the drive, hoping she’s too excited to be paying close
attention.

"We got all dirty from the
four-wheeler," I fib. "Can we clean up and meet you
inside?"

Her face is so bright and interested
that it makes my teeth ache. "Of course, dear. Don't be
long!"

Before she can change her mind, I push
Brett toward the side of the house and the kitchen entrance.
"C'mon."

My shoes and his boots clomp against
the pavement, the silence between us momentarily
awkward.

His hand closes over mine, and I look
at him askance.

He grins. "Don't want your mom to see
your scraped knuckles."

But I'm pretty sure we both know it's
more than that. Especially when he doesn't let go after we turn the
corner.

"So... first kiss?" he asks.

I'm still trembling. Is that how he
guessed?

I glare at him.

He laughs, the sound rich and
mellow.

Heat burns my cheeks as I throw open
the kitchen door and march inside, dragging my hand away from
him.

"I've never had a first kiss in front
of a girl's mom before," he says conversationally.

I bite my tongue, stopping myself from
asking him exactly how many first kisses he's had. I don't care. Do
I?

I take the stairs two- and
three-at-a-time up the back staircase—not to be confused with the
giant horseshoe-shaped one in the front foyer—and Brett follows. I
point him into one of the huge bathrooms and detour into my
room.

Six months after my dad died, my mom
got rid of all his clothes, but I stashed a few t-shirts in my
bottom drawer. Sometimes, when I miss him the most, I sneak one out
and sleep in it.

My dad was a little taller than Brett,
but he was built about the same through the chest, so this should
work.

I grab one, then I think
maybe my mom will scrutinize the both of us. I close the door and
shuck my jeans and t-shirt, quickly pulling on a soft white pair of
bottoms from one of my
gis
—the uniforms we wear in martial
arts practice—and a bright tank top.

I shoot off a text to check on Erick,
but I don't get a response.

I pad bare-footed into the bathroom,
where he is leaning toward the mirror, examining another scrape I
hadn't noticed before, this one on the back of his
elbow.

"Take your shirt off," I
order.

He turns toward me.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he teases. "Slow
down. I'm not that kind of guy."

I punch the balled-up t-shirt into his
gut. He huffs, grinning down at me again. My eyes catch on his lips
before I force them away.

"Hurry up," I tell him, squatting to
rummage beneath the sink for a washrag.

When I straighten, he's got his shirt
off. I blink and try to turn my eyes away from that perfectly
chiseled chest. I had no idea all that was under those t-shirts.
Who knew?

Cheeks burning, I run cold water on the
rag and wonder if he would notice if I patted it over my
face.

I glance in the mirror, and he flexes
his pecs. Totally straight-faced.

And all the tension from the situation
with my mom, the vamp fight, everything, bubbles up, and I collapse
to the floor, laughing so hard that my eyes tear up.

Brett chuckles quietly, too.

And then my tears spill over. I bring
my knees up to my chest and tuck my face between them, just letting
all the fear and stress out.

The faucet goes on, and I’m intensely
grateful that he isn’t trying to hug me or something. Just having
him witness the emotional overload is embarrassing
enough.

Finally, the tide recedes. I start to
calm down.

I sit there for a few moments longer,
trying to compose myself. Breathing deeply.

Then I wipe my face and look up. He's
scrubbing the last of the dried blood off his bare shoulder. Our
eyes meet in the mirror.

"Better?" he asks.

I nod. Don't know what to say, exactly.
Had he done it on purpose? Known I needed a release?

He slips my dad's shirt over his head.
It's a plain black one and makes Brett's blue eyes pop. He extends
his hand to me, and I let him pull me up. But when I’m upright, he
doesn't let go of me. The faucet is still on and he starts washing
my scraped knuckles under the water.

The soap stings, but I focus on the
pain instead of trying to back away from it.

I've got to find a way to pull back
from this connection between Brett and me. Remember who he is. He's
not a Chaser. We aren't friends. Somehow, the events of this
afternoon have conspired against me to make me like him, but it's
not real. He can’t know about the vampires.

"So what's going to happen with your
cousin?" he asks, and all the humor is gone from his voice. He's
dead serious now. He turns the water off and hands me a
towel.

I shrug, patting dry. "Erick's older
brother, my cousin Lou, is on the force. Erick thought he could
help."

Erick had insisted Lou could fix
things. It's the only reason I left with Brett. Maybe it was
selfish, but if my mom finds out about the fight, it won’t matter
that we were defending ourselves. She'll freak. She hardly leaves
the house as it is, afraid of every shadow.

I can't live like that. If she puts me
on house-arrest, I'll go crazy. ‘Course, if Lou knows, then Uncle
Felix will hear all about it. I hope he’ll keep his mouth
shut.

Brett seems to accept my answer readily
enough.

I find a tube of antibiotic ointment in
the middle drawer, but before I can even take the top off, he takes
it from me. He clasps my injured hand in one of his and rubs the
medication into it with the other. Taking care of me.

It's weird. No one has doctored my
booboos in years. Probably not since I was about five.

Brett keeps his focus on my hand. "What
were those things?" His voice is low, serious.

I freeze. Only for a second, but with
my hand in his, I’m sure he notices.

"What do you mean?" I ask, faking like
I don't know.

He lifts his face and frowns at me,
quirking his eyebrows. "They had fangs," he says. "Super strong.
Remember?"

"Bad Halloween costume?" I rip my hand
away from his and snatch up the cream, slipping behind him on the
pretense of caring for the wound behind his elbow.

He doesn't buy it, watching me intently
in the mirror.

But I can't tell him. He isn't a
Chaser, and normal humans aren't supposed to know about the vamp
population or our activities.

I rub the medication onto his skin,
focusing on what I'm doing.

"That's your story?
Seriously?"

I shrug, not meeting his eyes in the
mirror. "Done," I say.

"Uh-uh," he grunts, pointing to the
scrape on his jaw.

I raise my eyebrows at him. Clearly he
can reach it himself.

But he waits. And waits.

So I huff a sigh and move in front of
him. He crowds me into the counter, all up in my personal
space.

I dab the stuff on his jaw as quickly
as I can. "It's not that bad," I murmur.

Thankful. It could've been so much
worse.

"So what are you going to tell your
mom?"

I look up at him. He's so
close. I flick my eyes down. "
We're
going to tell her that we fell off the
four-wheeler, but it wasn't a big deal."

He scrutinizes me, eyes stormy. "You
think she'll buy that? She just saw us ride up on the
bike."

I nod.

"So you want me to lie to your mom, but
you won't tell me what I'm hiding for you?"

I should make something up, tell him
he’s crazy for thinking those guys were anything but normal humans.
I should, but when I look into his deep blue eyes, all the
intelligent thoughts leak out of my head. "Basically, yeah," I
blurt before I can think better of it.

"You're going to owe me."

I can't tell if he's joking.

At this point, I'm willing to do
anything to keep my mom from finding out what happened.

7 - Emily

I'm brushing the last of the tangles
from my hair before bed when there's a knock on my bedroom
door.

My mom peeks her head in. "Just how
naïve do you think I am?"

My heart starts pounding. I turn away,
yanking on a particularly stubborn knot, pretending I don't know
what she's talking about.

Did Uncle Felix narc on me?

She steps into my room without waiting
for an invitation. Usually, that means she's upset with
me.

I'm hot all over, trying to come up
with something to say that will make her understand that I didn't
have a choice but to fight back against those vamps. They were
trying to kill us.

"You and that boy, Brett. I can't
believe you haven't told me you're dating someone."

Relief soars through me. This isn't
about vampires. At the same time, I tense up.

"Mom, we're not really—" I
start to say,
we're not
dating
, but stop myself. "We're not
serious."

"That's not how it looked to me. Just
how long have you been seeing him?"

I shrug and place the brush back on my
mirrored-dresser. "We practice at the same dojo. We've known each
other for years."

When I turn back to her, her face is
shining with joy.

She looks older somehow. Two years ago,
before my dad died, she spent most of her time working with local
charities on their board of directors, eating lunch with her fancy
friends.

I don't think she's been out of the
house in weeks, even though she's been heavily involved in
preparations for my big event, the cotillion.

"Will you invite him to your party?"
she asks.

Heck no
.

But she's so hopeful that the denial
sticks in my throat. It's been a long time since she's been
satisfied with me. What could it hurt to let her believe that Brett
and I are dating, even though we aren't?

"I don't know." I hedge. "With all the
cousins there, it might scare him off."

"When will you go out again?" she
asks.

I don't like lying to her,
so I try a distraction. "We'll see each other in school."
If I can't avoid him
.
"But we've got the tournament starting Thursday, so not this
weekend."

Her face shuts down at the mention of
the competition. "You have to compete again?"

"I won last year," I remind her. Not
that she came to watch me. She wants me to be a girly girl, but I
can’t be someone I’m not, not even to please my mother. I'm a
Chaser, even if she doesn't want me to be. Seven more
days…

"So you shouldn't need to compete again
this year. Go out on top and all that."

I bite back a sigh. "Mom..." She
doesn't get it. Martial arts has kept me grounded since dad died.
It's the only thing that keeps me connected to him. "I like it," I
finish lamely. "And I'm going to the tournament."

She frowns. "Your party starts at
eight. You'll need to be ready early to greet people. Which means
I'll need you here at five to dress."