What are you doing here?” I ask, stepping out of the car.
“Waiting for you.” He closes the car door behind me. “I called you earlier and your mom said you’d be home around nine. You’re two minutes early.”
“Should I go away and come back?”
“What do you think?” he asks, encircling my waist with his arms.
On the drive home, Adam glances at me several times, clearly wanting to talk about what’s happened.
But I can barely look up from the door latch.
Exactly six pain-filled minutes later, he pulls over at the corner of my street and puts the car in park. “Do you hate me?” he asks.
“More like I hate myself.”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Kissing me tends to have that effect on women.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says, still trying to make light of the situation. “It’s my fault. It won’t happen again.”
“I let it happen.”
“Yes, but only because you couldn’t help yourself. I must admit, I’m far too irresistible for my own good.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I can’t help but smile.
I arrange to meet Kimmie and Wes before homeroom the following day. The cafeteria serves breakfast for early risers in the form of stale toast, oatmeal sludge, and watered-down orange juice.
“This had better be worth it,” Wes says. “By my calculation, I’d say you’re denying us at least thirty minutes of sleep.”
“Not to mention precious primping time.” Kimmie motions to her outfit: a black leather poodle skirt paired with a glittery pink T that reads DEMON IN TRAINING. “Like it? I also have a coordinating pitchfork, but in all this rush I forgot it at home.”
“Along with your sense of style,” Wes jokes, resting his cheek against her shoulder.
But Spencer is here, after all. He stands at the back, just outside his office. “What happened?” he asks.
My eyes burn from the pelting rain and the salt of my tears. “It’s raining,” I say, as if it weren’t completely obvious.
“And you decided to lay out in it?
What’s the verdict?” Kimmie asks, peering back at me.
I stare down at the jumble of words. “I can’t quite tell yet.”
“Give us a clue,” Wes says. “I love puzzles.”
“That’s because you are one,” Kimmie jokes.
I read them the list of words: ARE, ALONE, YOU, NEVER, EYE, WATCHING, ALWAYS, AM.
Not five seconds later, Wes has the whole thing figured out. “YOU ARE NEVER ALONE. EYE AM ALWAYS WATCHING!” he says, making his voice all deep and throaty.
“Wait, seriously?” I ask, completely bewildered by the idea that he’d be able to unravel the message so quickly. I look at the individual words, making sure they’re all included, and that he didn’t add any extra.
“What can I say? I’m good at puzzles.”
“Are you good at making them, too?” Kimmie asks. “Because it’s a little scary how you were able to figure that out so fast.”
“Do you think it matters that the “eye” in the puzzle is the noun and not the pronoun?” I ask them.
“Since when is it a requirement for psychos to be good in English?” Wes asks.
“Only you would know.” Kimmie glares at him.
“Plus, it’s a puzzle,” he says, ignoring her comment. “You have to expect a few quirks.”
“I don’t know,” I say, still staring at the words. “Maybe there’s some other message here. Maybe we need to try unscrambling it another way.”
“Such as ‘EYE AM NEVER ALONE. YOU ARE ALWAYS WATCHING,’” he suggests. “Or perhaps the ever-favorite. ‘YOU ARE NEVER WATCHING. EYE AM ALWAYS ALONE.’”
Kimmie scoots farther away from him in her seat. “Okay, you really are starting to scare me.
Ever since what happened last fall, my dad has made a feeble though still earnest attempt at safeguarding our place. He’s put stickers on all the windows and poked yard signs into the lawn, both of which claim that we have a security system (we don’t). He’s also installed motion-detector lights that go on and off pretty much whenever they feel like it.
Laurie Faria StolarzHi,” I say, stopping right in front of him. “I missed you today in chemistry.”
“I got to school a little late.”
“But you left my house early,” I say, wondering what time he did in fact leave—if he waited until I fell asleep or stayed until the last possible moment.
“I still overslept,” he explains.
“I’m sorry if that was my fault.”
“I think it was your fault.” He smiles wider. “Once I got home, I couldn’t really fall asleep. Too wound up, I guess.”
“Because of all the drama with Adam?”
He shakes his head and touches the side of my face, raising my chin slightly to kiss my lips.
I shrug, suddenly remembering how Adam never called me this morning, even though he said he would. “I should probably go back to Adam’s apartment to have a look at his door.”
“Want some company?” Wes asks. “I can bring along my spy tool. I’ve got a cool UV-light device that picks up all traces of bodily fluids.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Kimmie asks.
“You know you want to give it a try.” He winks. “I’ll even let you borrow my latex gloves.”
“Say no more,” she jokes. “I’m in.
After Ben leaves, I head back upstairs to my room, only to find Dad in the kitchen. He has his back toward me, sneaking a bag of Bugles from one of the baskets above the cabinets.
“Caught you,” I say, switching on the light, making him jump.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he asks, keeping his voice low.
“Shouldn’t you?” I give him a pointed look.
“Probably, but your mom actually feel asleep tonight—probably the first night all week. Meanwhile, I’m too hungry to nod off.”
“So, where does that leave us?” I ask, eyeing his bag of Bugles.
“Can you be trusted?”
“That depends. Are you willing to share?” I smile. “Good hiding spot, by the way. Nobody ever uses those baskets.”
“That’s what you think.” He gazes down the hall to make sure the coast is clear and then snags a bag of Hershey’s Kisses from one of the other four overhead baskets.
We park ourselves at the kitchen island and rip both bags open. Five full minutes of lusty devouring pass before either of us speaks.
And what did it say?” I ask, almost expecting to hear him tell me, “Soon.”
“Check the bed.” His voice cracks saying the words.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what it said.”
“And what’s it supposed to mean?”
“Call me crazy, but I think it might mean that I should check my bed.”
“Not funny.”
“Who’s laughing? I’m paranoid about going home now. I’m having major flashbacks to summer camp. You know, itching powder in the bedsheets, snakes under the pillow, getting your hand dipped into a bowl full of water while you sleep—
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