“I’ll throw in a few hotcakes too, dear.” She winked.
Fable jumped over the threshold and grabbed an apron off the hook. It only took four of us, including an employee from Mina’s Diner, and twenty minutes to get the line caught up. Between customers, my eyes flicked up and caught on to silver ones.
My pulse quickened. My breath caught. My insides felt like fire against the autumn breeze.
Julian was standing against the apothecary storefront, one leg propped, watching me from under a dark shade.
“You girls did good!” Mina released an exhausted sigh, and I returned my eyes in front of me and handed over the bucket of popcorn to the last customer. “Take what you want and enjoy the movie,” she continued, and when I looked back at Julian, he was gone.
We hung our aprons, took two beers each, a bucket of popcorn, Twizzlers, and chocolate-covered Mashuga Nuts. My hair smacked me in the face, smelling like a blend of sugar and butter.
“Totally worth it,” Fable said upon an exhale after her first sip of her Angry Orchard. “And we did a good deed.” She turned to face me once we reached the lawn. “You’re making me a better person, Fallon Morgan. Don’t ever leave Weeping Hollow.”
Smiling, I popped a Twizzler in my mouth and tore off the end.
Sacred Sea members sat at the very back, and we arrived just when the movie was starting. We scattered across the large blanket over the grass, and Kane had pulled me down to sit beside him. Every so often, I couldn’t help myself from looking back to where Blackwell’s Apothecary was, looking for a certain Heathen who made me feel so out of control.
Kane dropped his mouth to my ear. “Mabon is two days away,” he whispered. I nodded, my gaze searching for Julian. “There will be a bonfire over at Crescent Beach after the feast. It’s the perfect time to officially become one of—Ow!” He whipped around, rubbing the back of his head. “Shit, Monday. Why’d ya hit me?”
“Well, stop talking then!” she whisper-shouted.
Kane wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer, his nose in my hair. “Become one of us.”
“I don’t really know what one of you is,” I whispered back, pulling away from him. Kane smelled like an ocean of liquor during a storm whereas Julian smelled of nature, of woods and fresh air. Julian smelled of a crisp winter night.
My eyes closed briefly to take me back to our nights before he turned into a jerk. When I opened them again, there he was, standing with the other Heathens under the large beech tree beside the outdoor TV screen, his silver eyes bound to mine as he leaned against the thick trunk in his black coat.
Kane’s hand drifted over my face to redirect my attention, then wrapped a stray tendril behind my ear. “A sweet mix of pleasure and power. That’s who we are.” Then he chanted in my ear, a low hum I couldn’t understand, and my head dropped to the side where Julian lifted off the truck, zoned in on us from the corner of my eye. I felt Kane’s mouth on my neck, his hand skimming up my thigh near the hem of my shorts. “What do you say?”
I’d become dizzy all of a sudden, confused, buzzing with need, either from Kane’s spell-binding voice or Julian’s pull with a sharpness in his eyes, forcing himself to stay in place with his fists clenched at his sides.
“Kane, stop,” I was able to get out, and Kane’s hand gripped my hip, trying to pull me under and forcing his mouth on mine. I pushed him off me. “What the hell, Kane?”
“What?” He looked around, confused. “You were into it.”
“No,” I stood and fixed my sweater. My eyes snapped to Julian, and he looked just as shocked as Kane from a few yards away. “Don’t ever try that again on me,” I said, scanning over the rest of their dumbfounded expressions. “I’ll see you guys later.” And I took off across the greens toward my scooter, unsure of what just happened.
“Come back, I’m sorry!” Kane called out, and the townies collectively told him to shut up behind me.
My feet stayed ahead of me as I ran through the dimly lit and empty streets. I snatched my helmet from my scooter’s handlebar and shoved it over my head as the lamplight buzzed above in front of Mina’s diner.
“What was that? What did he do to you?” Julian asked, appearing from the shadows between buildings.
Shaking my head, I swung a leg over the scooter. “Go away, Julian.”
“Talk to me, what happened?” He insisted, leaning his palm against the brick wall.
“He was just being a jerk.”
“So, it didn’t work,” he said more to himself than to me, running his hand through his hair. His eyes snapped up to mine, and he leaned forward. “Fallon, you didn’t fall for it.”
Fall for it? I raised my brows and sat back on the scooter. “Of course not, you stupid Heathen. For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Yeah?” Julian’s eyes lit up as he stepped forward from the alley, then glanced around before pulling himself back under the shade. “Will you come here?”
“No, I’m still mad at you,” I said, gripping the handlebar.
“You want to come here and kiss me, or are we going to argue? Because you’re giving me real mixed signals here, and I don’t know what to do with this. It’s all very new to me, Fallon.”
“Well, it’s all new for me too,” I started to say, finding the words. “But I still told you things, things I never told anyone. I let you in more than anyone. I undressed for you—” I paused when my throat burned, warning me. I looked around, seeing as we are the only two people on this side of Town Square, a single street light still buzzing over my head. I was under a spotlight while Julian stayed in the shadows. “You know, just because I’m inexperienced or look like this doesn’t mean I lack self-respect. You’re definitely not the first guy who thought I’d be easy. But guess what, Julian? I’m not fucking desperate! I gave you a shot because I thought you were different. I’m such an idiot, thinking you out of all people would understand. I was okay with keeping things in the dark between us. I would never tell anyone what we did, but I never signed up to be complete strangers in public. That I can’t do.” I shook my head. “Be honest with me, is it because you don’t want to be seen with me? Are you embarrassed of me? Because I’m such a freakshow?”
“A freakshow? Fallon, you’ve got to be kidding me. I thought we were past that.”
“Then tell me something real. Tell me something that would make sense of all this. Tell me anything!” I begged, and Julian froze as silence spread between us. The air changed, the mood changed, and we both realized only two things could happen from this point. Either I was jumping off this scooter and going to him, or I was leaving. And from the looks of it, Julian wasn’t taking any drastic measures to come out of his hiding place.
He would never come out of his hiding place.
I leaned forward, gripped the handlebars, and revved the engine.
“I’m afraid of heights!” he blurted from the shadows, and I snapped my gaze to him. “Every day, I take off my mask and stand in the mirror, and in an instant,”—he slapped his palm against the wall— “I’m standing either at the top of a Ferris wheel or on the edge of the cliff looking down. I get sick to my stomach, dizzy, everything’s swaying, I feel like I’m going to either throw up or lose my balance and fall. I know it’s irrational. But I keep staring at myself in the mirror, thinking I can get over it. Hoping that I can confront my fears so I can one day get past it and see the man behind the fear, so I can see my own face, that maybe I’m the key to breaking my curse. But just before I pass out, I turn away.” He paused and shook his head as if to shake away the feeling. “Sometimes, I forget what I’m more afraid of, heights or myself.” He laughed, but it was empty. “There you have it. I’m afraid of heights.”