Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy 1)

Angela slipped out of her chair and circled Jared like a panther.

Kami intercepted the prowl and patted Angela’s red-silk arm. “I’m off to go do an interview with him in the hall.” She patted Angela again. “Trust me. I will explain everything.” She made shepherding gestures to get Jared out of the door without touching him.

Jared let himself be shepherded, glancing at her over his shoulder as if he was uncertain she was coming with him.

You idiot, she said fondly. She saw his mouth curve before he turned his head. Kami followed him out the door, which she shut and then sagged against. “Now tell me,” she said. “What the hell was that?”

In addition to leaning against the door, Kami was also keeping a firm grip on the doorknob. It was reassuring to have a firm grip on something. Jared stood in the echoing hallway as if his presence in the world was perfectly normal. Which it was, and she was going to have to get used to it.

Jared watched Kami. He was wearing the same blue T-shirt he’d been wearing in the garden, and the sight of it made her additionally uncomfortable. She wished again that he wasn’t quite so tall.

“I said, we should—” Jared began.

“I heard what you said!” Kami yelped. “I guess I was hoping I’d got it wrong and you hadn’t said the crazy thing you said. Since you did say the crazy thing you said, do you mind explaining it to me?”

Jared set his jaw and stared at the floor. “We should date,” he repeated obstinately. “Because this whole being-in-each-other’s-heads thing, there has to be a reason for it, doesn’t there?”

“There has to be an explanation,” Kami conceded. “Yes.”

Jared glanced up, taking this as encouragement. In this particular slant of light, his strange eyes were so pale they seemed colorless.

If it wasn’t for that, Kami might have called his look almost shy. She clenched her hand into a fist. One of them had to be reasonable, or they would ruin everything.

“And we’ve found each other,” Jared continued. “So this is, like, fate. Isn’t it? Soul mates. Isn’t it?” Every word seemed to be dragged out of him, but now he was looking at her steadily.

Kami’s voice came out calmer than she expected. “Let me get things perfectly clear. You want to date?”

Jared nodded cautiously.

Kami took a deep breath and stepped toward him, her fingers uncurling to reach out. Jared flinched, and she drew her hand back.

“As in boyfriend and girlfriend?” Kami pursued. “Sweethearts? Who canoodle?”

Jared nodded again, even more cautiously.

“Well, mi amore, this is awesome news! Let’s get right on that,” said Kami, and began to undo the buttons of her blouse. She looked down at the red buttons slipping out one by one from the black fabric of her shirt. She only had eight buttons, and there went the fourth.

Jared sucked breath out of a horrified void and shouted, “Stop that!” He angled himself to protect her from the eyes of a crowd that was not there. He hesitated, possibly because now he had a view directly down into shadows and curves.

Kami glanced up. Jared looked at the wall.

“Here’s the thing,” said Kami, doing her buttons up fast, trying to keep things casual. “I don’t think that people who are freaked out by each other’s physical existence should date.”

“I cannot believe you just did that,” Jared said. “Are you crazy?” He still looked shaken, which Kami found irritating. She was sure other girls received far more enthusiastic responses when they started with the undressing.

“Well, I can’t believe you walked in and said that,” she shot back. “In front of Angela!”

“I had to work myself up to it,” Jared said. “I may have lost my head.”

“I was acting on an impulse!” Kami said. “I still feel it was a sensible impulse.”

“So what you’re saying is, we’re both crazy,” said Jared. “Well, this is going to be fun.” He risked a glance down, and the tension eased from his shoulders when he saw Kami was fully buttoned. The corner of his mouth went up again.

Kami smiled up at him. Amusement passed between them, neither of them sure which was whose.

The bell rang and Kami beamed. “Thank God, I have English class. I don’t have to explain things to Angela yet!” Since the bell meant Angela would be emerging from their office any minute, Kami set off at top speed. “Come on, Jared,” she called. “Time’s a-wasting. We don’t want to be tardy.”

He followed her, keeping pace easily as she hurried down the stairs. “Look, you probably have the wrong idea about me. I mean, I read books, but I do it because I want to—because it’s like an escape in my head, like being with you. I always get in trouble in school.”