Lux (The Nocte Trilogy 3)

Last Funeral Home on the Left.

Dad will need a miracle to rent the tiny Carriage House out, and I feel a slight pang of guilt. Maybe he really does need the money, and I’ve been pressuring him to give it to Finn or me.

I turn my gaze away from the house, away from my guilt, and out to the ocean. Vast and gray, the water punishes the rocks on the shore, pounding into them over and over. Mist rises from the water, forming fog along the beach. It’s beautiful and eerie, haunting and peaceful.

We arrive at the hospital early, so we decide to get coffee and breakfast in the cafeteria while we wait.

I grab my cup and head to the back, slumping into a booth, while Finn buries his nose in a Latin book.

I close my eyes to rest for a minute longer because the perpetual rain in Astoria makes me sleepy.

The sounds of the hospital fade into a buzzing backdrop, and I ignore the shrill, multi-pitched yells that drift down the hallways. Because honestly, I don’t want to know what they’re screaming about.

I stay suspended in my sleepy dark world for God knows how long, until I feel someone staring at me.

When I say feel, I literally feel it, just like someone is reaching out and touching my face with their fingers.

Opening my eyes, I suck my breath in when I find dark eyes connected to mine, eyes so dark they’re almost black, and the energy in them is enough to freeze me in place.

A boy is attached to the dark gaze.

A man.

He’s probably no more than twenty or twenty-one, but everything about him screams man. There’s no boy in him. That part of him is very clearly gone. I see it in his eyes, in the way he holds himself, in the perceptive way he takes in his surroundings, then stares at me with singular focus, like we’re somehow connected by a tether. He’s got a million contradictions in his eyes…aloofness, warmth, mystery, charm, and something else I can’t define.

He’s muscular, tall, and wearing a tattered black sweatshirt that says Irony is lost on you in orange letters. His dark jeans are belted with black leather, and his fingers are long and bare.

Dark hair tumbles into his face and a hand with long fingers impatiently brushes it back, all the while his eyes are still connected with mine. His jaw is strong and masculine, with the barest hint of stubble.

His gaze is still connected to mine, like a livewire, or a lightning bolt. I can feel the charge of it racing along my skin, like a million tiny fingers, flushing my cheeks. My lungs flutter and I swallow hard.

And then, he smiles at me.

At me.

His eyes are frozen on me as he waits in line, so dark, so fathomless. This energy between us… I don’t know what it is. Attraction? Chemistry? All I know is, it steals my breath and speeds up my heart. I feel like I’ve seen him before, but that’s so stupid. I would remember something like that.

Someone like him.

I watch as he pays for his coffee and sweet roll, and as his every step leads him to my back booth. There are ten other tables, all vacant, but he chooses mine.

His black boots stop next to me, and I skim up his denim-clad legs, over his hips, up to his startlingly handsome face. He has a slight stubble gracing his jawline and it makes him seem even more mature, even more of a man. As if he needs the help.

I can’t help but notice the way his shirt hugs his solid chest, the way his waist narrows as it slips into his jeans, the way he seems lean and lithe and powerful. Gah. I yank my eyes up to meet his. I find amusement there.

“Is this seat taken?”

Sweet Lord. He’s got a British accent. There’s nothing sexier in the entire world, which makes that old tired pick-up line forgivable. I smile up at him, my heart racing.

“No.”

He doesn’t move. “Can I take it, then? I’ll share my breakfast with you.”

He slightly gestures with his gooey, pecan-crusted roll.

“Sure,” I answer casually, expertly hiding the fact that my heart is racing fast enough to explode. “And I’ll take a bite. I’m starving.”

“Perfect,” he grins, as he slides into the booth across from me, next to Finn, ever so casually, as though he sits with strange girls in hospitals all of the time. I can’t help but notice that his eyes are so dark they’re almost black. He cuts his roll into two and offers me half, and I chew the bites.