Orphan Lost, page 7
Hopefully she'll calm down."
"Good to make friends," he said, passing it back to me. "Do we know the family?" "Juniper Boreas," I said, wondering what he might know about her.
He grimaced, and I waited for an answer. "They're weird ones," he said, finally. "Real snobbish. Don't come to events or go to church with the rest of us. Doesn't mean they're bad folks though."
"I'll keep that in mind," I told him and tilted my head towards my room.
He just waved a hand at me, turning to shuffle down the hall. "Have a good night's sleep. Got to get up for milking."
"Thank you," I called after him, my tone absolutely sincere.
He turned at that, looking at me curiously.
"For taking me in," I explained. "I'll do my best not to cause trouble."
He chuckled then, a warm smile transforming his tired face. "No, no, that's what kids do.
We don't mind a little bit of trouble now and then. Keeps us on our toes."
Then he continued on to his room before I could come up with a reply, shutting the door firmly between us.
In the bathroom, the shower shut off, and I retreated to my own room, locking the door behind me.
I tidied up so everything would be ready for tomorrow, switched off the overhead light, and in the dim glow from the security light climbed into bed.
The next morning I must have been more tired from the day before than I thought because Graham's stomping didn't wake me and Anna had to knock on my door. I had woken fitfully during the night, too—that I vaguely remembered—and it probably hadn't helped any.
So I rushed around to get ready, stuffed my face with the breakfast burritos Graham had thoughtfully made for us, and staggered out after Anna to the bus. The driver was the same elderly lady, and she gave me a welcoming smile when I climbed on board.
I managed more of a show of teeth than a smile but she didn't seem to mind. Folding into the same seat as yesterday, I barely managed the first turn before I was out cold.
The seat shifted under me, the bus full of chatter and conversations.
Disorientated for a moment, I kept still, listening while I tried to place where I was exactly. It wasn't the right kind of seat for the orphan bus, and it was a whole lot noisier. School bus. Rockport.
A quick peek showed Calix's warm smile waiting for me. "Good morning, beautiful," he said in a voice that would charm most girls. Cheese like that didn't charm me, but I wasn't lacking for butterflies.
I snorted a laugh and brushed hair out of my face. "Yeah, right." There was a fair chance that the tightness I felt on my chin was drool, and my hair was a mess. He chuckled, a deep rumble. "Don't pay me any mind. I've always wanted to say that." "No girlfriend to woo?" I said playfully, and his face shuttered, expression thunderous.
I backed up reflexively and raised my hands placatingly between us, a flimsy barrier and no threat at all. "Wasn't trying to bring up bad memories, okay?"
He shook himself and crossed his arms over his chest. "No, it's not that. My parents are working on an arranged marriage for me."
My brows shot up. "With who?" The words popped out of my mouth before I could rein them in. Not that it was any of my business.
"Doesn't matter," he said in a long suffering tone. "It hasn't gone through because she's fighting it tooth and nail on her end."
"But why so many arranged marriages?" I wondered out loud. It was interesting that he hadn't said he was fighting it, because I would have thought he'd be up in arms one way or another. "Are you all religious or something?"
"Or something," he said, rubbing at the scruff of his jaw. "It's traditional, and it's to my family's advantage if she accepts."
"What about you?" I retorted, more heated about it than I would have expected. "What about your feelings?"
He smiled ruefully at that. "I know my duty."
I scoffed. "Duty. Yeah. No. If you don't like her, don't marry the girl. Especially if she doesn't like you. That's a loveless marriage waiting to happen."
"Well," he said, slanting a look at me. "I have my eyes on another girl."
My pulse picked up. Flirting had been one of my favorite things, back in the day. Done well, it flattered everyone involved and could build a solid friendship.
I'd had a boyfriend when Mom and Dad died.
I stopped answering his calls in the months after, his emails, everything. Just… stopped.
Everything stopped.
But this, this was a breath of fresh air in a way I hadn't felt in a long time, and it helped the ache and numbness fade a little, traded out for butterflies and new relationship nerves.
"Oh, really?" I said archly. "Well, I hope she's nice to you."
His smile broadened. "She could be, if she wanted."
"Hmm, you'd better be on your best behavior," I warned him, half serious. "She's probably got a ton of baggage. You know how it is with the hot girls. Either crazy or tons of baggage."
He laughed at that, leaning back and folding his hands over his flat stomach, drawing my attention. Yes, I looked. But he had no duffel bag with him this time, and I latched on to that.
"What, you don't do homework or something? Or are you just a super genius?" I asked, wrapping my arms around my knees.
He blinked at me. "What?"
I tilted my head at him. "No backpack."
He laughed at that. "No, I just do the bare minimum. Not worth worrying about good enough grades to get into college when the draft is going on. I'll turn eighteen and be called out."
I wrinkled my nose. "I thought the draft exempted people in college."
"It does," he said ruefully. "So there's huge competition to get into even the tech schools. At my best, I couldn't compete, so why bother?"
I chewed on that, thinking. "I hear you. I'm a B student. But wouldn't you want the grades for getting a job after?"
"If there's an after," he said darkly. "How many adult guys have you seen lately?"
I paused, counting up in my head. Graham, but he'd been discharged for losing his leg.
Tom was too old to draft. None of the teachers were men. The bus drivers I'd seen were all older women. "Not many," I admitted. "But what about the arranged marriage then? What's the point if you're just going to be drafted?"
He groaned, tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling. "I'd be expected to get her pregnant right away, I guess, or provide 'samples.'"
"Yuck," I said with feeling.
"Right?" he said with a laugh. "So I don't mind so much that she's fighting it."
"What about Rhodes' arranged marriage?" I said, thinking over the gossip I had picked up. "Isn't he going to be drafted too?"
Calix shook his head with a twist of his lips. "He's heir to the family fortune, and he's got an exemption, probably because of all the money involved."
"But his friends…"
"Heirs," he said bitterly. "All of them."
"Not fair," I agreed, but possibly for slightly different reasons. While I couldn't say that I liked any of them, I also couldn't deny I felt drawn to them. Why is it the guys that don't like you are the most appealing? Calix was right here in front of me, so why wasn't I focused on him? "There's not going to be enough guys to marry at this rate." Not that I'd been planning that far ahead, but how would that even work?
"They'll just build harems, I guess," he said. Then he winked at me. The idea of him with a harem of girls was so plausible, I could picture it in my mind. "I'd be faithful to just you any day, lovely."
I hid a smile. "What if I want my own harem?"
"Good luck," he said with a laugh. "Girls outnumber guys like crazy now."
We pulled up to disembark at the school, and I followed him off the bus, ignoring the throngs of students around us, my gaze locked on his broad shoulders. Once his attention wasn't on me, I blew out a relieved breath. Anna fell in behind us for a few steps before peeling off to talk to someone.
"Want me to walk you to class?" he asked when we reached the glass doors, turning to face me.
The butterflies in my stomach returned tenfold, but I flashed him a smile. "Nope. I got it."
He looked crestfallen, but I patted him on one bicep. "Probably lots of rumors flying about that new girl. I'm hoping someone will fold and just ask me directly so I can figure out what's going on."
"Ah," he said thoughtfully. "I'll keep my ear to the ground then. I'd offer to sit with you at lunch, but I doubt you want to sit and listen to me and Juniper one up each other and argue."
"You have my sympathies," I said wryly. "Try sitting somewhere else."
Then I walked off, leaving him at the doors. Heading to my first class, I listened and did my best to look approachable, and when I paused at my locker, midway down the hall, it paid off.
The girl with the locker next to mine watched me work the combination, and I gave her a friendly enough smile.
Apparently deciding I wouldn't bite, she leaned in. "They're talking about you."
"Yeah?" I asked, putting my paperwork from the after-school program away. "Hopefully good things." The school had a split schedule with some classes one day and others the next, switching back and forth.
I hadn't attended any of today's classes, so there was nothing to grab.
She leaned in closer. "Are you Rhodes' and the guys' girlfriend?"
I coughed a laugh at that, turning to her. "Are you kidding? That's what they're saying?" She nodded, dead serious.
"No," I told her. "I just sat with them at lunch and refused to leave when they told me to."
"Oh, good," she said with relief. "'Cause Posey's a spoiled princess. She's possessive, and I don't want you running into any trouble."
"Rhodes' fiancée?" I guessed after a moment. I'd been introduced to so many people, and heard so many mentioned, that I was having problems placing names.
"Yeah, arranged marriage," she said, tone confidential. "Although he doesn't like her any. If she sat at his table like you did, he probably would have given her the boot and been flashy about it too."
"What is it with this town and arranged marriages?" I wondered out loud, closing my locker up and locking it.
"It's just those families," she said, turning to lean her shoulder against her locker's battered door while she watched me pack up. "Got a nature name? Probably engaged. Which is a pity, because some of those guys are hot, hot, hot."
"I heard they can't be drafted," I said.
"Some can't," she said. "Family fortunes, sole heir, yadda, yadda. Rhodes is the sole male heir, although the other guys are from out of town, so I don't know exactly why they're exempted. They moved here in elementary, but they don't talk much." Then why had they been speaking to me? They hadn't shut me out—they'd even introduced themselves after the whole lunch experience. Maybe they were playing a prank on the new girl.
"Lucky roll of the dice," I said, managing a neutral expression while I sorted people I'd met in my head. "Not really fair to everyone else."
"Rhodes is the oldest guy at the high school," she agreed. "He's nineteen already. He'd be perfect to date, a guy who won't go off and die, but he's already spoken for." She glanced down the hall, probably checking to see who was listening.
Bingo.
"Totally unfair," I said encouragingly.
"I heard he was engaged when he was only fifteen," she said, voice hushed. "Who does that to their kids?"
"Apparently his family," I said, shouldering my bag. "More money than sense."
"Right?" she said, slamming her own locker shut. "You off the orphan bus?"
"Yeah," I said, tone flat, shutting that down before it could get started.
She flushed. "I just wanted to say welcome to Rockport. Who are you staying with?"
"Donna and Tom, Anna and Graham."
"Oh, lucky," she said. "Anna came in on one of the early buses, and she's a total sweetheart. I'd love to be her sister even if it was just adopted."
I smiled at that. "She's been amazing so far," I agreed. "They've all been really nice."
"Graham graduated when I was a 7th grader," she said. "I'm a sophomore now. When he came back, there was a whole fuss from girls hoping he'd look their way, but Anna swept them all away just being herself."
"They seem like a sweet couple," I said. "How many of the guys are coming back?"
"Not many," she said solemnly. "Don't judge, because you'll see a lot of harems. Girls will do anything to get a guy, even if they have to share, even if he's injured."
"Wow," I said. I'd been out of the loop the entire time I was grieving before they put me on the bus. I hadn't realized that the casualties were so high.
She grinned then, slapping me on the shoulder. "I think you'd do well with Rhodes. Give
Posey a run for her money, engagement or not."
I shrugged, easing away and feeling a little uncomfortable with the whole situation, so I deflected. "I'm more a Calix type."
"He'll be drafted," she said, tone resigned. "A lot of the guys have given up on doing more than the bare minimum if they're just going to get drafted right away."
"I'd feel that way too," I said. "Nice meeting you."
She lifted her hand in acknowledgment, and I headed off towards my first class.
Lunch rolled around, and I bought the same meal again with my card before taking a deep breath and heading straight for Rhodes' table. I'd sat there yesterday, they hadn't driven me off, and available seats were few and far in between. Besides, even if they didn't like me, I was comfortable sitting there.
When I set down my tray, the four guys looked up at me as one, brows raised.
"Creepy," I commented to avoid the blush that came from having four hot guys' full attention. Sliding into my chair, I took a big bite of my pizza. My stomach was getting used to regular meals, and it was nice that I wasn't driven to scarf it all down as fast as I could manage. Not that cafeteria pizza was something to savor, but at least I could think while I ate.
Rhodes leaned in, those two-colored eyes focused on me, making me blush. "When did you get your tattoo, Dream Girl?"
Harmless enough question, even if he was still insisting on that nickname. "I dunno," I said. "Nine months ago?"
"And it covers a scar?" he said, gaze intent. "You told Juuni that you don't remember getting the original injury."
"Nope," I said and dug into my pizza. "But I got sick of being teased for it, so I covered it."
The guys exchanged glances, a conversation in arched eyebrows and quirks of the lip. Even with the silent conversation they were having, I fit here with them and was content to keep eating.
Then one of them, the one with the crazy hair and a voice that probably melts the panties off every girl he meets, Wilder, leaned in. "This is going to be totally weird, but you need to trust us."
I scoffed at that. As comfortable as I might have become, I wasn't stupid, and I didn't trust blindly. Pausing between bites to give them an incredulous look, I arched one brow pointedly. "I'll trust you as far as I can throw you. I don't know any of you, and you don't know me."
The tenor with the nice laugh and sense of humor—Birch, I think—groaned. "How about this? Just be willing to listen when we tell you things that seem impossible."
"Seems like a prank to me," I countered, starting on my peaches. Wasn't there a small part of me that already trusted them though if I kept returning to them? I needed to work on getting my instincts and my brain back in sync; I needed to stick to my guns. "Seems like it would bite me later, so: no, hard pass."
Oakley, the grumpiest of the three, threw up his hands, glaring at the other guys. "I told you." He grumbled, in that way of his.
Rhodes leaned even closer, expression intense, a hint of his sandalwood and spice cologne carrying between us. "Want to go out for ice cream?"
My brows shot up, and I gave him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding me?"
"It's important," he said, raising his hands and patting at the air to calm me. "I want to talk to you, where there's no audience. I want you to hear what you need to from me before you hear it from someone else." He was pleading with me, which didn't seem to be in his nature.
"Like that's not suspicious. You're engaged," I told him coldly. "I don't want a thing to do with it."
Dark eyes intense, Oakley loomed closer. "You'll go out with him," he said firmly as if I would just fold and listen to him on principle. Particularly when he'd been nothing but rude since I first sat here.
That was the final straw.
I popped to my feet, meal or no meal. "I am not putting up with this," I told all of them, and then pointed one shaking finger at Oakley before I loudly reprimanded him. "You don't get to pressure me into anything!" Shocked expressions were my only response, and I swept up my tray, flung my backpack over my shoulder, and headed for the garbage with long strides.
Behind me, the guys scrambled to follow with screeching chairs skidding across the tile floor. "Stella," Rhodes called, trying to catch up, but I was using the crowded cafeteria to my advantage. "I'm serious."
I flipped him off without looking back, snagged the remains of my pizza, emptied my tray, and stacked it with the others.
Three quick bites and my pizza was gone, and I was out the door, raised voices from the cafeteria drowning out anything the guys could have said to stop me.
When pressured or in danger, make a stink, Mom had always said. They don't want you to make a scene, don't want the attention drawn to them. I'd remembered those words, and they'd served me well on the orphan bus. While I hadn't felt I was in any danger, I was angry about the way they kept pushing me.
Now, I strolled down the hallway towards the office, thinking of places I could go where they couldn't follow and corner me.
The front doors swung open just as I reached them, and Anna bounced in, face lighting up when she recognized me. "Stella," she called, trotting to catch up.
"How was Graham?" I asked, relieved to have company. She would drive those guys off for sure.
Guys were so pushy.
"Good," she chirped. "How's your day been?"
"Lots of gossip," I said with a groan, rubbing at my forehead. "Me, you, Graham, Rhodes, Calix… Do these people have nothing better to do with their time?" I said the last jovially to let her know I was joking, and that it was nothing serious.
