I’m usually pretty quiet and shy. I like to stand away from the crowd, in the back of a room, close to a wall. I’m a wallflower, if you will. People don’t generally notice me. As they shouldn’t.
Because I’m the artist here. I should notice them.
I do have one quirk though.
I love jewelry. Nothing expensive or fancy. Just cute, quirky stuff. Like toe rings and thumb rings. Ankle bracelets, belly chains, necklaces, leg chains and stuff. You could say that I clink when I walk or move because I usually have at least five pieces of jewelry on my body at any given time.
So maybe there’s that.
Maybe I clinked in his vicinity because I have an arm chain on my right arm, sort of in a butterfly shape with yellow stones. I’m wearing two long necklaces — again made of yellow stones — to match my bohemian looking yellow maxi dress. Not to mention, I’ve got a pair of tinkling earrings and a belly chain under my dress, which is invisible of course but has star like charms that rustle against my skin and my dress when I move.
So yeah, maybe that’s why.
That’s why he had to take notice of me. Because of my crazy love of jewelry.
Because other than that, I can’t think of any other reason as to why he’d follow me in here. Especially when I think there’s something between him and Reed’s sister, Tempest. Whom we’ve all just met and I think who could be Poe’s troublemaking soul mate.
Anyway, by follow me in here I mean, inside this house made of glass.
This is where Callie lives now that she’s pregnant with her sort of ex-boyfriend’s, Reed, baby. She’s having a small get together today because she just got her acceptance letter to Juilliard and we’re all super duper excited.
These days, nothing excites me. Nothing feels right. Not the colors, the sketches I keep drawing because I don’t know what else to do. Not the woods behind our school or green rolling grounds. Things I usually loved because they inspired me to draw.
But I’m really, genuinely happy for her.
My friend deserves all the good things in life. Including the guy she’s in love with and from the looks of it, that guy loves her too. Not sure if he realizes it but still.
Anyway, I’ve gone off topic here.
I have to solve this mystery first.
Mystery being why does Callie’s brother keep looking at me? He has been staring at me ever since the get together started. And why did he follow me in here, the kitchen, where I came to get away from the crowd for a few minutes, from the backyard where everyone’s currently gathered?
But then he speaks and the mystery gets even more… confusing.
“I’d like to take you out on a date,” he says.
Okay, I think I heard him wrong.
Did he say a date?
“I’m sorry?”
“A date,” he says in a deep voice, standing casually against the marble island, his arms folded. “With you. I’d like that very much.”
“You’d like to take me out on a date?”
“Yes.”
I’m standing by the counter, holding a glass of water and my fingers around it tremble. Hugging it to my midsection, I reply, “I’m not… what?”
Something like amusement flickers through his beautiful eyes. “You’re allowed to go on dates, right? I mean, at St. Mary’s. Over the weekend. Or whenever you’re allowed out.”
“Um, yes. I can get my day pass.”
He smiles then, all confident and arrogant. “And you’ve been on dates before?”
“Yes.”
Sort of.
I mean, as I said, I’m not an attention worthy girl. I usually stick to the shadows and pass by without making any sort of ripples. And where I come from, Wuthering Garden, the town of the rich, people don’t generally notice girls with weird taste in jewelry who wear bohemian dresses and have messy, uncombed looking hair and a sketch pad in hand.
Even so, I have been on dates.
With guys in my art classes, back at my old school, before St. Mary’s.
And then there have been dates where I…
Okay, don’t think about it, Wyn. Don’t think about your non-date dates. Especially not in front of him.
“So yeah, you and me,” he says, his eyes taking in my arm chains, his lips twitching with a smirk. “What do you think?”
What do I think?
I think it’s all kinds of wrong. And not only because he’s Callie’s brother. But because Ledger is his brother and oh my God, I can’t even fathom going out with his brother.
Not that he would mind. He doesn’t care and he…
I clear my throat to break my own thoughts and try to appear calm. “Oh, I don’t… I’m sorry but I don’t think so.”
It doesn’t faze him at all.
In fact, it looks like he was anticipating it.
“Why not?” he asks, still standing casually, only a few feet away from me.