The Taking (The Taking 1)

Still, they weren’t really wrong to ban the sleepovers, because somewhere along the way, sometime during middle school, Austin and I had crossed that line between just friends to something more. Something experimental and unknown to us. Something far more interesting and exciting.

We’d started by holding hands in a different way, not like little kids anymore. Our fingers would intertwine, moving in and around and over, exploring and testing. My stomach would flutter and lurch as I learned the feel of each of his fingertips. I remember taking his hand in mine as an excuse to touch him, and I would trace the lines of his palms, pretending to read his future in an ominous voice.

Eventually, holding hands wasn’t enough, and, on a late-summer day while we were at the river, we’d kissed. We’d crossed a line and never went back. After that we’d begun whispering whenever grown-ups were around, our conversations no longer as innocent as they’d once been as we navigated into uncharted waters.

And then one night I’d snuck into his bedroom and fallen asleep there.

That was it. A ritual had been born, and no one—not my parents or his, maybe because they all worked or maybe because they were too trusting to check on us—had ever realized what we’d been up to.

Or maybe they’d known all along and never said a word.

Only it wasn’t Austin I was looking for tonight.

But since Tyler wasn’t accustomed to me coming over at all hours, his window wasn’t unlocked when I got there. Not that I would’ve just climbed in the way I would have with Austin. That was different; Austin and I had been different.

It was disquieting all over again to see Tyler appear at his window, a slightly darker-haired version of his older brother. And one who, apparently, didn’t wear a shirt when he slept.

I tried not to look at how defined his bare chest was. Tried to keep my gaze from moving lower and noticing his muscled stomach and his navel, which was surrounded by a tuft of dark hair.

Hell, I chastised myself, reminding myself that I was still four years older than him. He was still Austin’s brother!

Forcing my gaze upward, I caught him smiling at me, but not in the I-caught-you-being-all-lascivious way, and I knew I’d made the right decision, coming here. His window slid open on old aluminum tracks that scraped a little too loudly for my liking, since they hadn’t been oiled the way Austin’s had in order to keep them from broadcasting my arrival.

“Hey,” he whispered down at me, sounding more alert than he should, considering it was approaching midnight. Unlike me, he had school tomorrow. At least according to the calendar I’d consulted no less than a dozen times when I’d finally given up trying to sleep. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the time leap I’d taken.

Crazy, considering I’d missed so many milestones that should make me feel like an adult: getting my driver’s license, graduating high school, starting college, voting. Going to a bar.

“What are you doing here?” Tyler rubbed his hand over his face, something Austin used to do to wake himself up.

I bit the side of my lip. “Couldn’t sleep. It’s just so . . . weird over there.”

He balanced his arms on the window ledge. “I bet. You’re all my parents talked about all night.” Leaning to the side, he offered, “Wanna come in?”

I grimaced. Suddenly it was weird over here too. Looking at him, with his too-much-like-Austin looks. “Nah. I just wanted to give you this.” I held out the cell phone. I didn’t need it anymore, so there was no point keeping it. The only two people I thought I’d wanted to talk to were now the enemy, camped out together and colluding against me. Despite Cat’s tearful pleas, I couldn’t help picturing them together, having a good laugh over the way I’d called up and thought we’d pick up right where things left off.

Tyler winced as he looked at the phone, and I assumed he understood why I was returning it. He must’ve known. I mean, of course he knew about his brother and Cat, and now he knew that I knew too. He at least had the good grace to look sheepish, and I hoped he meant it. “Sorry” was all he said.

“Yeah,” I answered, looking down at my borrowed yoga pants and wishing my mom were a few inches taller so they didn’t skate over the tops of my ankles. “Me too.”

I left Tyler’s house—it was still strange to think of it like that, Tyler’s house and not Austin’s—and felt lost for a minute. I figured I might as well go home, but suddenly I wasn’t sure where home was exactly.

The word felt foreign, even in the space of my own thoughts. Home should be the place you were most at ease. Most comfortable. Most secure.

I felt none of those things in my mother’s house, at least not anymore. I was a houseguest in a home she’d made with a new family.

Instead of crossing the street, a straight shot to the home-that-wasn’t-home, I wandered down the sidewalk, heading nowhere in particular. There was a breeze, and I was again aware of how exposed my ankles were as the wind whorled around them, tickling my skin. Despite the supersweet high waters I was sporting, it had been really nice to wear something that didn’t reek of softball diamond or day-old sweat.

I’d expected to have to shave through five years’ worth of leg hair with my mom’s Lady Bic, maybe go through one or two of her disposable razors in the process, but when I’d run my hands over my legs, I’d realized they were still smooth. As if I’d just shaved them the day before, right before the championship game.