Compulsion: Magnetic Desires (3 page)

"She’s at a sleepover."

"Okay then. Do you want to watch a movie?"

I nodded, and followed her, thinking I would have to sit on one of those damn couches, and be worried I was wrecking the leather. Instead, she led me upstairs to her bedroom. Moving about the room, she organized our little picnic and chose a DVD while I stood frozen in the doorway. This was new territory for me, and I leaned against the door, swallowing. Her room was a mess of girly stuff. The walls were covered in posters of actors and boy bands.

I tried to ignore her bed, sitting in the middle of the room, but my gaze kept returning to the lacy white comforter and pillows. It was a bed, nothing more, where she slept, naked. Shaking my head, I hoped to clear the image. Hell, she’d wear pajamas. In my mind, those pajamas didn’t appear. I could still see her naked on the bed. Shit! The last time I’d been unable to reign in my thoughts had been embarrassing enough. There was no way I wanted a repeat performance of that day. Either I had to leave or suck it up and think of this as my sister’s room. Putting one foot in front of the other, I joined her on the bed to watch the movie.

I couldn’t have said what movies we watched. It was both torturous and pleasurable to be that close to her. We talked at times, or she did, and I’d added a word or two, but when I left her house close to midnight, she hugged me and told me she was glad we were friends.

I raced home in the rain, not caring I was getting drenched, or shivering. She was my friend and I’d be damned if I didn’t want to make it more.

"I
couldn’t understand why she loved him, especially when there had been signs he wasn’t the boyfriend he pretended to be. I didn’t know what to do with them. I guess I was too selfish to be willing to upset the balance of my friendship with Clo."

January 2005

"Happy Birthday." I handed Clo her present. It wasn’t much, but after I bought the parts for the GTO, I didn’t have much left to spend. "It’s only something small."

She took it and gave it a squeeze, before tearing into the gold paper. "I’m sure I’ll love it."

I was pretty sure she would. If I’d been her boyfriend, I might have gotten her jewelry, but I knew this would speak to her inner nerd. The paper fluttered to the floor, and she unfurled the dark blue material. "Oh my gosh. You got me the Tardis."

"It’s a poor assimilation, but I didn’t know what else to get you."

"I love it." She bounced. "I’m going to go put it on."

"Hello, Orion." Mrs. Williams smiled as she came out of the study. "Do you know when Zack will be here? We’re ready for dinner."

I shook my head. "Maybe practice ran late."

Fluttering her hand in the air, she headed toward the kitchen. "That’s all right. I’m sure he’ll be here soon."

"I guess." I had no idea if practice, or something else, kept him from being with Clo on her birthday. Wasn’t it time he let her go? So she could be where she was meant to be, with me.

Clo bounded down the stairs, wearing the T-shirt I’d bought her. It hugged her figure, and the blue contrasting against the deep auburn of her hair made her eyes stand out more than usual. My mouth watered as I racked my mind for the right words to tell her how amazing she looked. That wasn’t supposed to happen over a T-shirt. A boring pathetic gift shouldn’t have been the hottest thing I’d seen on her, but it molded to her perfectly.

Mr. Williams glanced at his daughter as he stepped out of his office. "Your mother said dinner was ready."

"What about Zack? He isn’t here yet." Clo pouted.

Mr. Williams stared at me. "This isn’t him?"

"No, Dad. This is—"

"So who are you and what are you doing with my daughter?" The intelligent glint in his gaze as he assessed me made me wonder how many bodies he’d buried in the woods.

"Orion, sir. We’re friends." I concentrated on returning his gaze, and tried not to stare at his feet.

"Friends?"

"Yes, Dad. Orion’s my best friend." Clo tucked her hand into my elbow.

"Right," he drawled, darting a glance between the two of us. "Why don’t you have friends that are girls?" Then he turned on his heel and headed into the dining room, calling over his shoulder, "Dinner is now."

"Your dad is... scary," I whispered, hoping it would come out comical, and not how I felt. "I mean, really scary."

Clo took my arm. "No. He’s a pussy cat."

Mr. Williams stood drumming his fingers on the back of his chair when we entered, and pointed to the one beside him. "Orion, you can sit here and we can have a chat, man-to-man."

Since when had family dinner counted as a birthday party? I nudged her with my knee, and she gave me a tight smile while Mrs. Williams served dinner.

"So you’re not the boyfriend?" Mr. Williams asked.

I was sure we had already established the fact that I wasn’t, but his shrewd gaze seemed to see straight through me. I shifted in my seat. "No sir, I’m not."

"How is it you’re such good friends with my daughter, then?"

"We hang out with the same group of people, and she’s been tutoring me."

"You’re friends with this Zack fellow, who’s dating my daughter?" he interrupted, before I could finish answering his first question.

"You could say that." Not that I would.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Williams asked.

"We grew up together."

"Right." The way he drew that one word out was disconcerting. "Are you in the habit of getting close with your friends’ girlfriends?"

I choked as a lump wedged itself in my throat, and reached for my drink.

"Dad." Clo rolled her eyes. "You know how hard it is for me to make friends. The girls at this school are super cliquey."

He turned his gaze to her. "I just don’t understand why you make friends with these guys who want more than your friendship."

Oh fuck, did he have me pegged. Clo blanched, and then her cheeks heated and she hung her head, her hair cascading to cover her embarrassment.

I cleared my throat. "It’s not like that Mr. Williams. I have a lot of friends who are girls. Clo and I, we just get along really well. That’s all."

He cocked his head to the side, considering my answer. "She does seem to have trouble making friends."

I expected more. I waited for him to continue, but he turned his focus to his dinner, silent for the rest of the meal.

Mrs. Williams seemed to go the opposite way. She filled the silence with random remarks about her day at the spa. Clo kept her head down, and pushed food around her plate without putting any in her mouth.

Mr. Williams pushed his plate away, drawing everyone’s attention to him. "Genevieve, get the cake."

"Clo hasn’t finished dinner, and Zack isn’t here. Shouldn’t we wait?"

"I’ll be having a talk to that boyfriend of yours." He pointed a finger at Clo.

That was a conversation I wouldn’t want to be at the receiving end of. I glanced at my watch. Mr. Williams turned to his wife. "I have to get back to work. Can we, at least, cut the cake?"

Clo jumped up and cleared the plates, and her mom went into the kitchen, returning with a cake box.

She lifted the lid to reveal a chocolate cake with Happy Birthday scrawled over the top in pink icing. Clo hated chocolate cake. How did they not know that about her? Her dad, in his gruff manner, cared, but he was too busy to spend time with her, and her mom seemed too wrapped up in herself.

My parents drove me crazy. My sister was an annoying brat, but our family dinners were loud and happy, and birthdays were bigger. For Clo, it was the one night she got to have dinner with both her parents. I squeezed her hand under the table.

When her father left, Clo took my hand and led the way to her room. "I’m sorry for making you come. I hoped with you and Zack here, it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable, but I was wrong. It was worse."

I held onto her hand until she pulled away. "This is normal for your family?"

"Every birthday." She sat cross-legged on the bed and patted the spot beside her.

"And the chocolate cake?"

"Every birthday."

She had to be lonely in this big house with parents who were too involved in their own life to even realize who she was. It made it easier to understand why she’d fallen for Zack. His attention, any attention, was more than she got at home. If she let me, I would show her how much she deserved to be loved.

She glanced at the window. "Where do you think he is?"

"I don’t know." Splayed out on the bed beside her, I tugged her down next to me. Zack needed to bow out of the picture instead of stringing her along. She deserved better, but I didn’t want to be the one to make her suspicious. I couldn’t be the one to make her sad. "How about I stay until he shows up?"

"Okay." She snuggled into me, resting her head on my shoulder, and began to flick through TV channels. "How about Vampires?"

"And Slayers?"

I wrapped my arm around her and forgot about Zack, while we watched episode after episode, and she fell asleep nestled up against my side.

"C
lo tutored me in English, and I taught her what I knew about cars. The more time we spent together, the closer we got. I loved every minute, and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. I tried not to want more. All I wanted was for her to be happy."

March 2005

I wiped the dipstick on a rag, and put it back. The GTO ran smoother than it had since Dad bought it. Over the past six months, I’d spent a lot of time working to get it running the way it was supposed to. Resting my hands on the chassis, I leaned under the hood. "Hey, come here."

Clo got up off the floor and discarded the Chemistry book she’d been studying. Dusting the seat of her pants, she made her way over to me.

"You see this?" I ran my hand over the engine. "It’s a Bobcat 400."

She stared at the innards of the car before examining her fingernails. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

I chuckled. "Basically, it means it goes fast."

Hitching a leg on the bumper, she leaned against the chassis. "I’m never going to understand it when you talk about cars."

With the backdrop of my prize possession and her hair cascading down over her shoulders, her beauty forced me to take a step back. It was either that or wrap her leg around me while I kissed her, my hands tangled in her hair, but I couldn’t put her in that position. I couldn’t be the one to break her and Zack up, even if he deserved it. "Do you want to take it for a spin?"

She glanced over her shoulder at the car. "Maybe one day you could take me for a drive, and we could have a picnic out near Red Dog Hill."

The idea appealed to me, but I didn’t think she knew that Red Dog was where everyone went to make out. Still, I wouldn’t say no to taking her up there. "I’d like that."

"We better get to studying. Zack is picking me up in an hour."

I’d almost forgotten him; I wished I could. Wiping my hands on a fresh rag, I went to the fridge to get a couple of sodas. Clo gathered up her books, and we headed into the backyard.

"What are we studying today?"

"Chemistry for me," she replied, "You have an English paper due Monday. You need to finish it." She snatched the book out of my hand.

"Is that a challenge?" I took a seat at the table. When I read and wrote, the words on the page often got jumbled and backward until I couldn’t make sense of them. Until Clo had started studying with me, I’d often gotten so frustrated I’d give up, but since we’d started working together I found myself needing to live up to what she believed I was capable of.

"You’re doing a lot better. Come on, get organized," she said over the top of her chemistry book. I’d picked it up once out of curiosity, but I hadn’t understood a word of it.

Letting out an exaggerated groan, I leaned down to get my books from my bag. We played this game each time we studied together, and I’d never admit to how much I enjoyed it, or how much my grades had improved because of it.

"Get your homework out already," she snapped at me and stuck out her tongue.

"Fine."

I’d interject questions whenever I got stuck, and she helped me find the answers. She never gave them up, insisting I do the work myself. Shoulders aching, I scribbled down the final words on the two-page essay, and glanced up to find her checking her watch. The sun was trekking toward the horizon, and I rubbed a hand over my eyes.

"Zack should be here any minute." She jumped up and stuffed her things back in her bag.

Happy I’d finished my English paper I picked up my bag. "We’ll go up to the house and wait. I’m starving."

Dumping both our bags inside the door, I went into the kitchen and she trailed after me. "Do you want anything?"

She darted a glance between her watch and the front door. "Yes, I guess."

I opened the fridge and stared at the almost empty space. "How do you feel about peanut butter?"

She nodded, and I set about slathering it on a couple of pieces of bread. We each took a plate and settled at the kitchen table while we waited for Zack to show up. While she kept checking for him, I couldn’t help but hope he didn’t show up.

"I don’t know why he does this." She stared at her watch. "Why is he always late? Do you think he forgets me?"

I chewed on a mouthful of sandwich, and put my hand over her watch so she wouldn’t keep checking it. "I don’t think anyone could forget you."

Her gaze lifted to mine, her blue eyes wide, and she took to fiddling with her hair. "You always say the right things."

It wasn’t hard when the right things were the truth. If only I could tell her everything that was on my mind.

A horn blasted out the front, and my fingers tensed on her wrist for a moment before I let her go. What else could I do? A small part of me argued I could pull her into my arms and tell her he wasn’t what she needed, but she was already rushing for the door. The peanut butter tasted like paste, and I dumped the rest of my sandwich on the plate beside the pile of crusts she’d left. That was all I was as long as she had Zack. Nothing but the scraps she left behind.