Shadowlands (Shadowlands 1)

“Are you and Joaquin, like, having a thing behind my back?” she interrupted.

I snorted a laugh. “What?”

Darcy walked around to the far end of the table so she could look me dead in the eye. The expression on her face, the pointed, knowing set of her chin, the slight apprehension in her eyes, made my heart stop. Did she know about Christopher and me? Was that why she was imagining some tryst between me and Joaquin?

“He keeps asking me about you, first of all. And then there’s all the hugging and smiling and complimenting…Tell me the truth, Rory. I’m a big girl. I can handle it,” she said. The tips of her fingers turned white as she gripped the cereal box.

“Darcy, I can one hundred percent guarantee you that I have no interest in Joaquin,” I told her firmly. “I promise.”

She eyed me for one moment longer before walking back to her chair and digging into the cereal bag with her hand. “Good.”

I watched as she came out with a handful of the colorful loops. There was no way she could know about me and Christopher. I hadn’t told her, I was sure he hadn’t told her, and no one else on Earth knew. I was just being paranoid. As usual.

“What, exactly, did Joaquin say to you?” I asked, leaning my chest into the table. “Why do you think you have to bring me?”

“He fed me some weird thing about there having to be an even number of guys and girls…” She trailed off, popping cereal bits in her mouth as she narrowed her eyes. “It made sense at the time, but he did have his arm around me, so I was a little distracted…”

“What a jerk,” I mused, reaching for my orange juice.

“Whatever,” Darcy said, placing the box down on the table. “But this is good! You’re already going, so no big deal.”

This was insane. How could she still want to go? How could she still like this guy after he was feeding her such obvious crap? I was never going to understand Darcy’s brain. Never in a million years.

“Except that I’m not going,” I said, shoving away from the table.

“Uh, yes, you are,” Darcy said.

“No. I’m not,” I said as I dumped my bowl and glass into the ceramic sink. God, I wished we were back home. If we were home, I’d be in calculus right now, solving problems I could solve. Not dealing with the quandary of whether I should help keep Darcy’s social life alive—a quandary I never thought I’d have to deal with in a million years and had no clue how to handle. “And you’re not, either. We’re grounded, remember?”

At that moment, my dad stopped inside the open doorway between the kitchen and the entry hall. He was fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his face cleanly shaven and his hair slicked back. He’d started to get a tan, probably from all the running, and he looked different. Healthy.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you girls about that.” He did a double take and his face fell slightly. “Oh. Did you eat already?”

“Not really,” Darcy said warily, her cheek still full of cereal.

“I just had cornflakes,” I said. “Why?”

“Let’s go out to breakfast,” he said. “I heard the general store has excellent pancakes.”

Darcy and I exchanged a look. Who was this person and what had he done with our real father?

“Um…I’d have to get dressed,” Darcy said, swallowing.

“Me, too,” I added, looking down at the T-shirt and sweatpants I’d slept in.

“I can wait,” he said with a semblance of a smile.

Neither one of us moved.

“Come on, girls,” my father wheedled. “It’s just breakfast.”

“Okay,” I said finally.

“Sure,” Darcy added.

Then we both padded out of the room past him.

“What’s with him?” Darcy whispered as we climbed the creaky steps.