The Awakening Series: Volumes 1 - 3 Page 9

  "Stay out! I mean I think I'm okay, but please don't come in here."

  I could hear Jace shifting around just outside of the bathroom door, but it didn't sound like he was getting any closer.

  "Are you sure you're okay? What happened? It sounded like you fell…"

  "Yeah, some kind of crazy green insect charged me and it kind of freaked me out. I tripped over my own legs and just about cracked my head open on your beautiful, dangerous floor."

  "I'm sorry, Selene. I really should have put down some bathroom mats. I was going to, but all of my old stuff was the wrong color so I didn't even bother having the movers pack it up. I've got some new mats arriving tomorrow, but that's not very useful right now. Are you really sure you don't need any help?"

  I double-checked that my towel hadn't come off during the course of the fall, and then shifted around gingerly in an effort to figure out how much I'd hurt myself.

  "No. I mean, yes, I'm sure I don't need you in here while I'm sprawled on the floor wearing nothing more than a towel. I don't think that I broke anything. Just a second and I'll try to stand up."

  I grabbed ahold of the cabinet with both hands and then slowly pulled myself back up to my feet, wincing at the pain in my butt. I probably hadn't broken my tailbone, but I was going to have some spectacular bruises—at least nobody was going to see them.

  "Yeah, everything but my dignity is intact. You can stop worrying. How long have you been standing out there, by the way?"

  "Not long. I'd just walked into my room when I heard you scream. I saw your shoes downstairs when I came in to grab some stuff from the kitchen and then I passed Kat on my way up here."

  I looked around the bathroom searching for my underwear and then felt my heart sink. They had landed in the single biggest puddle from my trip over to get a towel. I hobbled over and picked them up off the floor, but my suspicions turned out to be right—they were soaked through. There was no way I was wearing them anytime soon.

  "Selene, what's going on?"

  I closed my eyes and wished with all my might that everything that had just happened was nothing more than a bad dream, but when I opened them again I was still standing there in a towel in Jace's bathroom.

  "Nothing much. I dropped my underwear in a puddle, so I'm basically just wishing that I'd never been born."

  Jace was silent for several seconds. "Wrap a towel around yourself—I'm coming in."

  "What? No, you can't come in here!"

  This was already embarrassing enough—the last thing I needed was for him to see me looking like a drowned rat.

  "Are you covered up?"

  "I've got a towel on, but you're not coming in here."

  "If you've got a towel on then you're more covered up than you would be in a swimsuit."

  When his hand appeared on the edge of the door I squeaked. "Jace, no! What if it falls down?"

  "Hold it up. You're going to have to trust me, Selene."

  I opened my mouth to try to come up with another argument, but it was too late. The door was open and he was standing there in nothing but a pair of old jeans that hung from his hips like they were barely winning the war against gravity.

  "You're not wearing a shirt…"

  "Yeah, sorry about that. I spilled stuff on it while I was marinating the steaks and I didn't want it to soak through and ruin my jeans—these are my favorite pair."

  "They are very nice jeans."

  What I really meant was that his warm, chiseled body made them look nice, but thankfully I wasn't quite so far gone as to just blurt that out. Jace smiled like he knew exactly what I'd been thinking.

  "Thanks—all of the rest of my shirts are in here though so I was waiting for you to finish before coming in to get a replacement."

  His eyes briefly traveled down my towel-wrapped form and I inched the towel a little higher around my torso as I valiantly fought off the blush I could feel trying to ambush me.

  "How exactly are you planning on saving the day this time, Superman?"

  "Follow me and see."

  Jace skirted the worst of the puddles as he made his way over to the closet, opening the door with a hiss of pressurized air. I followed hesitantly, worried that my towel was somehow going to slip despite the fact that my arms were pressing against my sides nearly hard enough to leave bruises.

  By the time I made it over to the closet, he'd already let go of the door and started moving boxes around. I was going to have to lift an arm up if I wanted to open the door and join him in there. It was just one arm, but it felt like playing Russian roulette. I almost didn't do it, almost just stayed out there in the bathroom rather than going into the closet, but I couldn't resist the lure of being in his presence.

  I took a deep breath, grabbed ahold of my towel with my left hand to augment the death grip my left arm had on it, and pulled the door open with my right hand. Jace looked over at me for just a second before returning to his search.

  A few seconds later he turned around with a big box in his arms. "This is it. Sorry, I just didn't know how to direct you to the right one."

  "So the contents of that box will save me from embarrassment? I didn't realize that they'd come up with portable time machines that small…"

  "Ha, ha. Even when mortified you still manage to hold onto your sense of humor."

  "Really? How do I let go of that? I could really use another hand to hold onto my towel."

  That time I got nothing more than an absent nod—Jace was already focused on something else. "Look, Selene, I need you to promise me that you'll hear me out, that you won't freak out until after you know the full story."

  "Wow, that's ominous—I'm not sure that I want to know what's in that box now."

  He shrugged. "That's fine with me—it would make things a lot easier if I don't have to have this conversation now. You can always just go commando. I'll leave so you can pull your pants on."

  Jace started to walk around me, box still in his arms, but I suddenly couldn't let him walk out on me without finding out what was in the box. The last two days had been filled with nothing but secret after secret and this was the first time that anyone had offered to explain anything.

  I grabbed Jace's arm. "Stop. I'm not going commando, so go ahead and just come clean about the fact that you collect women's underwear."

  I'd said it mostly in jest because I couldn't come up with any other explanation for how he was going to solve this particular problem. The sickly grin I got in response seemed to indicate that I struck uncomfortably close to the mark.

  Jace set the box down and then looked back up at me again before he started to open it. "Remember, you promised to let me explain everything before you freak out."

  I watched as Jace opened the box and revealed something that looked like a time capsule. Rather than the box of frilly underwear that I'd been afraid he had stashed in there, I seemed to be looking at a random collection of…well, junk.

  Jace started pulling things out, stacking them on a nearby box. A leather-bound book similar to the ones I'd seen on his bookcase was first, handled with the reverence of a true bibliophile. That was followed by a couple pairs of jeans, and a toiletries bag.

  There was a sense of familiarity to it all, an inexplicable feeling of déjà vu. I didn't know any of this stuff, hadn't seen it before, but I felt like it was familiar in some way.

  I reached over to the pants and fished them out from the bottom of the pile. I'd actually wanted to go after the journal first, but something told me that Jace wouldn't have let me read it—not yet, not until after he'd finished explaining.

  I unfolded the jeans and shook my head in confusion. It was a designer brand from my mom's era, something I recognized solely by chance. The cut was timeless, but there was no question in my mind but that the clothing I was looking at was older than I was.

  Jace had paused for a second while I examined the jeans, but now he pulled out a heavy leather jacket that was a smaller, more feminine version of the one that I
'd been wearing for the last two days, the one that he'd loaned me. The jacket was followed by a bunch of tops, one of which caught my eye.

  I pulled the blue fabric off of the top of the pile and my heart sped up as I got my first good look at it. Jace pulled several bras out of the box, which should have made me blush and stutter, but I was too focused on the shirt to give anything else much attention.

  My sweater had been my unconscionable splurge from last year, the thing I couldn't afford and which I shouldn't have purchased, but which I bought anyway. The year before I'd purchased a blue top that was completely unremarkable other than the fact that I liked the color and it fit me perfectly, making it look like I actually had boobs without hugging my stomach so much that I looked like a fatso.

  I'd had to borrow an extra twenty bucks from Ari to buy it and had spent the next three months babysitting and doing other odd jobs to pay her back. I'd worn it so often that it was nearly falling apart. It would have been my go-to outfit this morning instead of the sweater if not for the fact that the last time I'd worn it my dad had told me it wasn't decent any more now that parts of the material had become nearly see-through.

  That shirt was still sitting at home in my closet, but this shirt, the one in my hands, was an exact match. Despite my inner turmoil, my hands weren't shaking as I gently placed the blue shirt down and picked up one of the bras.

  It was my size—exactly my size—just like the shirt, just like the pants, and just like the panties that Jace had finally pulled out of the box. He at least had the grace to look embarrassed as he offered them to me.

  "Here, they are all brand new. They've been laundered, but never worn—there are more in here that are still in the manufacturer's packaging if you'd rather. I don't know what you—"

  I cut him off as I reached into the box and pulled out a package of brand-new underwear. "How long have you been in town, Jace?"

  "We told you—we arrived yesterday."

  "Tell me the truth! You didn't just arrive yesterday, you've been here for years spying on me—it's the only way you could have a box of clothes that was obviously intended for me." I grabbed the blue shirt with my other hand and shook it in his face. "Did you follow me to that store two years ago? Is that how you ended up with this?"

  I wanted to close my eyes and slam my head into the wall. I'd been so stupid. Of course any cute, rich guy who was interested in me wasn't going to be well-adjusted. Of course Jace was secretly some kind of stalker pervert. I didn't know how he'd managed to follow me around all these years without me seeing him, but maybe he'd been hiring people to do it.

  All I knew for sure was that I needed to get away, needed to get somewhere safe before he realized how big of a mistake he'd made by telling me.

  I jumped up to my feet and started towards the closet doors, cursing myself. I should have pretended to be fine with everything so that he wouldn't realize that I was going to run away as soon as his back was turned.

  "Selene, it's not like that. Hear me out."

  "You're right, it's not like that. I'm sorry, I think my shower was too hot and it's been too long since I had anything to eat. I'm just a little light headed."

  I was through the doors and I headed directly towards the counter. I grabbed my clothes—everything but my gym shirt, which I kicked out of the way so that the door would swing shut behind me—and made a beeline through the bedroom.

  "Selene, where are you going?"

  "It's just so hot in here, Jace. I'll be right back, I just need to step out and cool down a little."

  As soon as I crossed into the bedroom I broke into a sprint.

  I've never been much of an athlete, but I surprised myself at just how fast I managed to get going across the soft, springy surface of the carpet. As surprising as that was, it was nothing compared to the shock of having Jace appear in front of me less than five feet before I would have arrived at the door out into the sitting area.

  When I say appeared I don't mean that he ran really fast and caught me by surprise. There was literally nothing but empty space in front of me, and then he was there filling it as though he'd teleported.

  I tried to stop, tried to change direction so that I wouldn't crash into his waiting arms, but I was moving much too fast to have a prayer of doing either. I half expected to knock him over when we collided, but he absorbed all of my momentum without even grunting, and then grabbed me by the shoulders.

  I dropped my clothes and tried to hit him, but it was like watching a child try to hurt an adult. I wasn't fast enough or strong enough either one. He grabbed my wrists as my fists headed towards him and immobilized them with a vice-like grip that was only a hair's breadth from being painful.

  "You promised to hear me out and that's what you're going to do, Selene."

  "Let me go!"

  I threw myself toward him, trying to bite him, but he flipped me around so that my back was pressed up against his chest, my arms crossed in front of me and my wrists down next to my waist. It was like he'd put me in a strait jacket.

  I lifted my foot to slam it down on Jace's instep, but he jerked me to the side, throwing my balance off, and then tripped me and took me down to the floor. I'd never fallen that fast before. Somehow I landed on the carpet on my back, with Jace straddling my hips and my arms pinned above my head. I never would have expected my towel to weather that kind of rough-housing, but somehow it had stayed more or less in position. That only lasted until I struggled though. The first time I tried to pull my arms free my chest nearly popped free of the towel.

  It was probably silly that the imminent threat of nudity was what finally broke through my panic, but that was what did it. I was still scared, but I was now thinking clearly enough to realize that there was no way I was going to get away from Jace.

  The sun wasn't setting yet, but it was low enough on the horizon that it cast Jace's chest and abs into stark relief. I'd grown up wrestling my dad and even the occasional neighbor boy until after I turned nine and they couldn't take being defeated by a girl, but that was all years ago and it had never felt like this.

  My heart seemed to be skipping every other beat and tendrils of warm energy seemed to be working their way down my arms from my wrists where Jace was holding onto me. I was suddenly aware in ways that I hadn't been before just how big his upper body was. He was so much bigger than me that I'd never had even the slightest chance of throwing him off me even if my towel hadn't been threatening to come off.

  The knowledge that I couldn't win combined with the addictive feel of his skin against mine finally calmed me down. It was uncanny the way that he always seemed to know exactly what I was feeling. As soon as I'd calmed down Jace let go of my arms and then he sat back as I reached down and adjusted my towel. There wasn't a ton that I could do while he was still sitting on me, pinning my towel against my body, but I managed to make it so I wasn't in quite such immediate danger of exposing myself.

  "Are you finally ready to listen?"

  "Do I have a choice?"

  "You could put your fingers in your ears and yell at the top of your lungs to drown me out."

  I shook my head. "You'd just pull my fingers out of my ears."

  "Knowing that you couldn't succeed doesn't always stop you."

  I didn't understand how Jace managed to do that. Between one heartbeat and the next he'd changed how I felt. He'd gone from being scary psycho-stalker back to being the guy I'd been so busy falling for.

  "Fine, I'll listen. Are you going to let me get up?"

  Jace considered the question for several seconds before finally shaking his head. "Sorry, I'd like to, but you might freak out again and I don't think your towel would survive another takedown like that."

  That made me blush again, and this time I could feel the heat spreading down to the broad expanse of exposed skin that my towel wasn't up to covering.

  "I promise not to run again."

  "Sorry, Selene, that ship has sailed. You're going to just have to lie there while
I explain things."

  My exasperation was strong enough to cut through even the haze his good looks threw over me.

  "Fine, please proceed. Explain why you've been following me around for the last few years. Explain why you've been stockpiling underwear for me. What can you possibly say to make it sound like you're not some kind of creep?"

  Jace sighed and then took a deep, bracing breath. "I haven't been following you around, and I wasn't stockpiling those clothes. Everything in that box was already yours. You gave it to me a long time ago."

  I wanted to laugh in his face, wanted to tell him that he was delusional, but something inside of me refused.

  "Do you know how crazy that sounds?"

  Jace laughed bitterly. "Considering that this isn't the first time I've had this conversation? Yes, I'm very much aware that it sounds like I'm a lunatic."

  "I don't remember meeting you before yesterday, Jace. I might not be the sharpest crayon in the box, but I'm pretty sure I would have remembered meeting you sometime over the last couple of years."

  "It didn't happen within the last couple of years. You gave all of that to me a lot longer ago than that."

  "That makes even less sense. I was a late bloomer—I wouldn't have even fit into most of those clothes before a couple of years ago."

  "I know. You told me that when you gave me the box, told me that if we found you before you turned fifteen I needed to keep my hands off of you until you'd had time to grow up a little more."

  I giggled at the thought of me of all people telling Jace to keep his hands off of me. The old me would have told any boy to keep his distance, but meeting Jace had changed all of that. In fact, lately I'd had a hard time thinking about anything other than Jace's hands touching me.

  There was more than just a touch of hysteria to my giggle, but I figured that could be excused given the circumstances.

  "So what are we talking about, time travel?"

  "No, not even close."

  "What then?"

  Jace refused to meet my eyes as if second-guessing the decision to tell me. Part of me was tempted to tell him not to worry. My earlier concerns notwithstanding, I wasn't entirely sure that I was still capable of disbelieving anything he told me.