Page 6 of Blood Moon
He chuckled beneath his breath. “Spicy.” Then he pointed to his shirt. “Football team. Second-string quarterback.”
“So I’ve heard.”
His chest perked up. “Wait, are they already talking about me?”
It was unbelievable how puppylike he was; it made me laugh. He was charming, though. Had it been anyone else, I’d be in my seat by now, but with him, my feet were planted like roots into the floor beneath me.
“Seven, you’re such a flirt,” Stevie said as she made it past us.
He leaned forward, and beneath the collar of his white shirt, I noticed a gold chain dipping to his diaphragm. “I haven’t even told her how beautiful she is yet,” Seven said, and he beheld me with a glimmering smile.
My body warmed as I contemplated how to respond, but then applause rose around us, and a man took the stage. “See you around, Seven.”
“Aww,but we were just getting started.”
“You’ll live,” I said, and I walked away from him, the feeling of his gaze still on me. My friends giggled and teased as I scooted past, and I bumped their knees playfully.
Stevie leaned into me once I sat. “Looks like you’ve got a fan.”
“Apparently,” I said, raising my brows. We settled into our chairs as another man joined the stage, an older one with peppered hair and a university shirt beneath a twill suit jacket. He fixed the mic connected to his lapel while someone handed him a clicker for the presentation.
The crowd hushed to an almost silence, and the man on stage introduced himself as the president of the university before a marching band played what I assumed was the university fight song. They paraded down the aisles, stirring excitement and banter in the crowd. The president of the university began to sing, and he encouraged us to stand and join in as lyrics appeared on the large screen behind him.
We clapped in unison, and in my peripheral vision, I caught Seven staring at me with an eager grin. It raised the question: If Bobby reallyhadapplied to Lakeland University on my behalf, did he do so only because he knew he’d be able to keep a watchful eye on me? If that were the case, the idea absolutely gutted me. We’d had a conversation a while back where Bobby expressed how he wanted me to have the same independence as any other eighteen-year-old. But the fact that he knew the dean of students, the fact that he’d been so excited for me to attend Lakeland … it made me even more distraught to think it might be under false pretenses, that really, he didn’t trust me at all.
Because again, whywouldn’the tell me about applying to Lakeland University?
Once the marching band made an exit, and the crowd had calmed down, a different person took the stage. They welcomed us, but while I listened, I couldn’t shake the pulling in the pit of my abdomen. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. The sensation urged me to glance out at the crowd, the voice beckoned meto look, to look, to look.
I scanned every soul in the room, one by one, searching. The feeling was so strong, I sensed it wouldn’t diminish until the perpetrator was located.
And like a string, I tugged on it, pulling and pulling, until,there… a small sigh of relief. In the left wing of the hall sat a boy. Although he wasn’t looking at me, this twisting feeling made me believe I should be directing my attention toward him. I exhaled, hoping my heart would stop thumping so tediously inside me.
I measured all that I could, observing long dark hair, broad shoulders, and light brown skin. He sat in a way that seemed uncomfortable, like any second he’d jump out of his chair and bolt straight for the nearest exit. I wondered why that was, and it was in the midst of my speculating when he glanced behind his shoulder to look directly at me.
A beat, and his stare was hard and cold. A clenched jaw and narrowed eyes. Something seethed inside me, made my throat squeeze and my heart race. What the hell was his problem?
I turned around because, surely, this disdain was for someone else, but upon glancing, I noted how the people behind me were focused elsewhere.
There was a grumble in my chest when I twisted back to find that he was still looking at me. I held his stare to see if it would break, and in those moments, I concluded three things: The first was that he was heartbreakingly beautiful. It made me sick. The second was that he knew me from somewhere or had mistaken me for someone, but whoever he was and whatever the reason, it wasn’t my problem. And the third was that he never broke eye contact with me … even as I furrowed my brows and squinted my eyes … nothing.
He was determined, and it made me feel uncertain.
I was the first to break, retreating as I tried to convince myself that it was a power move, but still, I felt his eyes on me like an imprint deep in my skin. It took everything to simply refocus. Breathed in. Breathed out. Squeezed the arm of the chair to redirect my attention to the new sensation bubbling beneath my grasp.
Another guest was invited on stage. Together, they did a spiel about Lakeland. How it’d been the first accredited university in Timber Plains, and how students in each field had gone on to make a name for themselves and their families across the world. Some of the names I’d heard passed around in conversation at my prior school. And while there were a few familiar faces in the crowd here, there wasn’t anyone I had an interest in getting close to—not anymore.
The way they spoke about Lakeland was enchanting. It made me feel a little silly for not wanting to attend, but the old saying was true: “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
The third speaker finished their speech, and the crowd applauded. When they called for dismissal, I was quick to notice how the boy from earlier was already on his feet, rushing out of the hall before I could take another breath.
And I knew it shouldn’t affect me, that it didn’t matter—because he was no one to me,nothing—but even as I stood, even as I held my chin high, I still felt my cheeks burn red-hot in embarrassment, I still felt my knees wobble and my chest tighten. Nothing could stop the ridiculous swelling in the corner of my eyes, and I hoped that whoever he was, I’d never have to see him again.
CHAPTER4
Our stories can be used against us. Don’t let them claim what was never theirs.
Article I, Lost Letters from Aadan the First
