And I want to, I think.
Because as soon as I see the crowd, I realize that this is even stupider and more dangerous than I originally thought.
This party, which is happening in the middle of the woods that border Bardstown, is full of people from the Mustang camp.
The soccer players who worship him, the students from Bardstown High who are in awe of him and girls from all over town who want to be with him.
All of them are either laughing or talking or swaying with the music with red cups in their hands. I even hear people chanting his name off to the side.
Of course, Callie. This is his party.
This is his territory.
Everything here is his.
Except me.
I’m the trespasser. I’m the one who doesn’t belong. I’m the anomaly here.
And what if someone recognizes me, the sister of his rival?
What if they tell Ledger about it?
Oh Jesus Christ, I haven’t thought this through, have I?
I have not thought this through at all.
What if he uses this, me being here, as something to rile Ledger up in the next game?
He’s done it before.
I mean, he hasn’t used me to rile my brother up. But he has used things against Ledger. And well, Ledger has done the same, but yeah.
I need to get out.
I need to leave.
I grab Tempest’s hand and try to stop her from getting into the thick of the crowd. “I think I’m…”
Going to leave.
That’s what I was going to say before I left my words hanging.
Because just then the crowd parts, the horde of swaying bodies falls apart, and there opens a direct line of vision.
To him.
The guy who owns everything around me.
Reed Roman Jackson.
He’s sitting on a log, his powerful thighs spread, his demeanor casual, his body leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees.
And as usual, he’s not alone.
There’s a girl draped over him — I think she’s from school — and she’s talking to him, whispering something in his ear.
It’s not the fact that a girl is hanging off his arm that makes me pause, no. I’ve seen this before at school, multiple times. I mean, it would be more of a shock to see him without a girl.
It’s not the girl. It’s him.
It’s the fact that despite very meager lighting in the space — the moon and headlights from parked cars — every single thing about him is so clear, so vivid.
So alive.
Like his hair, for example.
His spiky, dark hair. The strands of which have little droplets sitting on the tips, making me think that he just had a shower, right after the game.
And maybe he was in a rush to get to his party.
Because he didn’t bother with a shave and his jaw is stubbled with a five o’clock shadow.
I don’t think he likes it though.
Because I always catch him touching it, rubbing and scratching it as if irritated.
A gesture that’s more like a habit to him. That he’s performing right now even, as he talks to the girl, his face turned toward her, a smirk lurking on his ruby-red lips.
A gesture that makes me think that maybe he likes smooth things. Soft things.
Things like his hoodie.
His white hoodie, to be precise.
So his hoodies are famous around school and in town. They’re always white or cream colored and they always seem thick and cozy.
And of course soft.
Also, his hoodies are his favorite thing to wear.
Because he always has them on — well, except in summers but still. That and his dark jeans.
Black and white.
And needless to say, girls around town are obsessed with his hoodies.
They stare at them. They talk about them. They want to touch his hoodies and play with the strings. They want to wear his hoodies too.
Which from what I’ve heard is a privilege.
Not every girl gets to wear them, only the special ones, and so it’s a coveted thing: Reed Roman Jackson and his hoodies.
Even now the girl who’s wrapped around him is tracing the fabric, pulling on the strings, fingering the edge of his sleeve at his wrist as she laughs at something he’s said.
Stop staring, Callie.
Right.
I need to stop staring. But the thing is that it’s very hard to do.
See, that’s his magic I think.
The dark magic that I was talking about.
It makes him glow.
Like his very skin absorbs whatever light is in the vicinity, leaving the rest of the world in darkness.
So much so that the only thing you can see, the only thing that you can focus on, is him and nothing else.
But.
But, but, but.
I’m one of the Thornes. I’m my brothers’ sister. I know better.
So I should look away, and I do.
Well, I try to.
Because the moment I make the decision to look away, he decides to look up at me.
And I step back.
As if someone has pushed me. As if he has pushed me. He has put his hands on me and I had to step back, had to, under the weight of his touch.
The strength of his gaze, his wolf eyes that land right on me.
And now that he has found me, he’s not letting me go.
He’s absolutely not letting me leave. My legs won’t even move. They won’t.
Because they somehow, the traitors, know that he wants me here.
It’s in the way that he slowly straightens up, the way he completely abandons interest in the girl beside him. It’s in the way something breaks open on his face, on his gorgeous, gorgeous face made up of sharp, smooth, fascinating lines as soon as he sees me.
Something that looks a lot like interest. Curiosity.
Something that makes his pretty eyes go slightly wide followed by a tiny smirk on his lips.
It’s like… he’s excited that I’m here.
It’s like he’s thinking, now the fun begins…
I’m not sure how I know all of this. But I do.
It’s not as if I’m an expert on Reed Roman Jackson.
I mean, we haven’t even talked before.
This may be the first time that he’s looked at me, and this morning when I woke up, I had no idea that today would be the day he’d look at me for the first time ever.
So yeah, I have no clue how I know all this except that I feel exposed under his eyes. I feel vulnerable and fragile. I feel like I’ve somehow walked into an evil den.
His evil den.
Which isn’t that far from the truth.
I am in his evil den and I need to move. Right now.
I need to run. I need to…
Suddenly there’s a commotion and Reed’s attention breaks away from me. And I think I draw my first breath since he found me in this chaos.
It’s Tempest. The source of commotion, I mean. She’s running toward Reed.
Yikes.
I’d completely forgotten about her. I don’t even know when she broke away from me and made her way through the crowd to go to her brother.