Starbright (The Starbright Series) (33 page)

             
Yep, might as well make an action movie out of it. Summer blockbuster, here I come….

             
“Hey, so I have a question for you,” Seth asked softly, pulling me out of my depressing daydream. “But can we go somewhere and talk?”

             
I looked up at him, not realizing I had taken his bowl from him and rinsed it out too. Oops, spacing out was so not an acceptable personality trait.

             
“Sure, what do you want to talk about?” I asked casually although the prospect both excited and terrified me. On the one hand, his sleep-styled hair was extremely attractive on him and his honey colored eyes still burned from the intensity of battle last night. My skin warmed into a soft glow just taking in his extremely stunning face. But on the other hand, I was fighting the attraction between us, holding on to the last remnants of youth and freedom I had left. And my almost kiss with Tristan still heated my blood faster than I could ever admit to myself. His body that close…. his warm breath against
my face, his lips so close hung like an oppressive cloud of want and need anchoring me solidly to the ground.

             
“Well,” Seth continued, rubbing his palm against his jawline, “it’s not about any of this, if that makes you feel better.”

             
“It really does,” I smiled, and let him lead me into our family room.

             
“So, I know we are taking…. we are waiting to kind of claim this future that’s between us, at least until we’re eighteen and all….” Seth paused, looking around the cozy family room with our worn L-shaped couch and hanging picture frames of my youth. His eyes heated in just the tiniest of ways and a butterfly flapped its wings aggressively in my stomach and not in the giddy-girl kind of way, but in the holy-crap-where’s-he-going-with-this kind of way.  He turned to me, his eyes holding my gaze prisoner and his hands reaching out for mine that reciprocated because I couldn’t think of a reason not to. “What I’m trying to ask is, will you go to the Valentine’
s Dance with me?”

             
My breath rushed out of my mouth in an embarrassing sigh of relief. I hadn’t known what I was so afraid of, but apparently the Valentine’s Dance was definitely not it. “Yes, of course I will.” I smiled at him, enjoying the way his skin glowed naturally in response.

             
“You’re going to have to fill me in on the finer points of one of these things,” Seth confessed, his cheeks turning just the slightest shade of red. “I’ve never been to a dance before.”

             
“You’ll do fine,” I assured him. “Boys like you were
made
for high school dances.”

Chapter Thirteen

             
“We need to talk,” Piper declared after third per
iod when we were putting our text books away to prepare for choir. Mead had a small chorus, with only
twenty
students from the whole hi
gh school and somehow Piper
convinced me every year to
join
it. She promised a “choir letter” would look great on my college applications and I humored her since I knew she genuinely enjoyed the class and because I didn’t have the heart to inform her I wouldn’t be going to college.

             
“What about?” I asked, linking my arm with hers and pulling her toward the music room. This was the only class we walked to alone. Tristan, Rigley, Lincoln and even Seth all opted for weight training this hour. We were free to discuss whatever we wanted without their nosey little ears listening in on every word and phrase uttered between us.

             
“Lincoln asked me to the Valentine’s Dance,” Piper spat out as if the words almost pained her.

             
“And…. you don’t want to go with him?” I guessed, noticing the way Piper’s nose scrunched up at the very thought of it.

             
“Of course I don’t want to go with him! It goes against everything I stand for…. everything I believe in!” She huffed
dramatically;
reaching up to untangle her dark hair from a hoop earring that could easily have doubled as a bracelet it was so large.

             
“Which part, the dance or Lincoln?” I asked, trying to make sense of Piper’s
thought train before I formed my
counter
argument.

             
“Both,” she grunted, letting her face fall into her hands.

             
“When did he ask you?” I questioned, only because the last I heard Lincoln and her still weren’t on speaking terms. They were definitely on “giving each other longing glances
and sexy eyes
” terms, just not ones that included verbal communication.

             
“At the end of last period,” she sighed. “There were even kisses and hugs involved?”

             
“What?” I shrieked.

             
“Of the candy variety….” She sighed again and held up a cute Valentine’s card attached to a
n even
cute
r
heart shape box filled with Hershey’s kisses and hugs. My heart melted a little in happiness for my friend until I saw the tortured look in her eyes.

             
“That is so sweet,” I murmured, running my finger along the box.

             
“I don’t know what he sees in me,” she grumbled, looking down at the box with a mixture of fear and angst warping her pretty face.

             
“It’s because you basically stole his virginity,” Bree interrupted, joining us just on the outside of the choir room door.

             
“She did not!” I defended Piper, shooting Bree a look I hoped would make the worst kind of evil flee from. Apparently my glares only worked on the supernatural kind of villain because she stayed firmly rooted next to us.

             
“Exactly!” Piper ignored my attempt at
defending her honor. “It’s because he felt obligated to ask me!” her shoulders sagged.

             
I tried my best to shrug o
f
f the irritation that
twisted my stomach
when Bree put her arm around Piper to comfort her.

             
“I’m pretty sure he feels something, but it’s definitely not obligation,” she laughed.

             
“Oh, no! What if he expects me to…. you know, pick up where we left off? What if that’s the only reason he asked me?” Piper whispered, looking around the hallway like the entire student body was listening in and judging her.

             
“No, Piper-“ I started to reassure her, when Bree cut in again. My temper simmered just below my slowly glowing skin.

             
“Piper he’s a guy, of course he’s hoping for a piece of this,” she gestured to Piper
’
s body and then smacked her in the butt. “But he’s lost his mind if he
expects
anything.”

             
“For once, I agree with Bree,” I sighed, seeing that Piper was somehow pacified. “So you’re going to go with him?” I coaxed, hoping to sound as encouraging and approving as possible. I loved the idea of Lincoln and Piper together and if I had to work overtime to ensure no more Shadows interfered with what should be happily high school bliss, then that is what I would do.

             
“Ladies, care to join us?” Mr. Hale, the choir director called from inside the classroom where he had just started warm ups.

             
“Stella, your skin….” Piper whispered as we walked into the classroom, reaching out for my arm. I blanched, but had already reigned in my totally uncalled for anger.

             
“What?” I pretended panic, grabbing at my face. Her eyes softened once we were inside the music room.

             
“Nothing….” she mumbled. “It must have been the hallway light. You kind of looked like you were glowing.”

             
“Like good
A
ngelic glowing? Or like neon, I was just turned into a teenage mutant ninja turtle glowing?” I asked, laughing off her claims.

             
“Definitely radioactive,” she laughed out loud which caught us a stern look from the director’s chair.

             
I laughed too, mostly to cover my disappointment. A little defensive, I wanted to explain everything to Piper just to appease my vanity. Instead I kept quiet, images of giant, green amphibians distracting me for the majority of class. Piper and I had been friends since kindergarten and she had never, not even once, noticed a difference in me. I was getting closer to my eighteenth birthday though and that meant everything about being a
S
tar would amplify tenfold. I would have to be more careful.

             
Lunch was directly after choir and as we walked to the cafeteria, the conversation about Lincoln picked up right where we left it.

             
“So did you tell him yes?” Bree pried, not even bothering with a greeting. I bit back the feeling that she cared more about Piper as a way to spread gossip than she did a friend and waited for Piper’s answer.

             
“Yes,” Piper admitted almost reluctantly. “I just can’t tell him
‘
no….
’
” she sighed and then stood up straighter, “I mean, I can tell him ‘no’ when I need to tell him
‘
no,
’
I just couldn’t tell him
‘
no
’
in that particular situation.” She rushed to explain herself, her blush covering her smattering of freckles and Bree and I both burst into laughter.
   

             
“Sure you can, Pi,” I gasped between laughter.

             
“Well, at least one of us has a date,” Bree sounded dejected as we sat down at our usual lunch table, shooting a frustrated glance Tristan’s way.

             
I followed her glance and forced myself to unclench my fist from the lunch table before I broke off a piece with my super
S
tar strength. Tristan didn’t even acknowledge her though as we situated ourselves across from the boys, me taking my usual seat next to Seth. For my entire life
participating in the Mead public school system
, boys sat on one side of the table and girls sat on the other. Seth was disrupting our carefully drawn cootie line, but it kind of made me happy.

             
Seth smiled down at me, completely oblivious to the way the entire length of the table looked at his barrier breaking with a mixture of awe and disapproval.

             
“Hey,” I smiled at him, noticing how his hair curled delicately while it was still damp from his after-weight-training-shower.

             
“Hey,” he smiled back. “Is she talking about you?” he nodded his chin to Bree, and I blushed realizing the majority of our group caught his meaning.

             
“You have a date to what?” Tristan asked his voice cutting through the air like a punch in the throat.

             
“The Valentine’s Dance,” I smiled warmly at him, cocking my head to the side in confusion.

             
Tristan’s green eyes flashed with undisguised anger, and he set his sandwich down on the table very, very carefully. I knew that gesture from watching him play years of contact sports; Tristan didn’t become careful until controlling every single one of his movements became essential to his temper.

             
“You’re going to the Valentine’s Dance with
him
?” he asked as if even referencing Seth took concentrated effort.

             
“Yes,” I replied, forcing my voice to sound like it was no big deal. Silence fell heavily on our table as the rest of us were left to wonder at Tristan’s reaction. I felt Seth stiffen next to me, ready to defend some honor that had been questioned, but I put my hand on his arm casually, hoping no one else would notice and squeezed. He caught my hint and let it go, but I felt how his skin heated beneath my fingers. He was letting this go, but only for me.

             
“
You and Seth are going together? You should have told me! When did this happen?” Piper
squealed
happily.

             
I turned my head so that all I could see was Piper, completely ignoring Tristan in my peripheral. He picked up his sandwich like he was going to take a bite and then set it back down as if he couldn’t stomach it. I could feel his stare boring into me from across the table but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.

             
Tristan had never, not in our entire lives, not once…. asked me to a dance. He didn’t ask me in sixth grade when we only had one dance and I had been a frantic mess about finding a date for months. He didn’t ask me ever in junior high when dances became more frequently and I had to endure trying out nearly every boy in our class just to be polite. And he had not once asked me to a dance in high school, even though he had made his rounds through all of the prettiest girls from our class and the surrounding classes. In fact, when a dance was on the horizon he avoided
me like I was a tumor to his effortless charm that made any and every girl in school immediately agree to be his date.