Shadow of the Past (22 page)

“They saw that, y’know. You’re not
exactly endearing yourself to them if you keep up shit like
that!”

Mark let out a deep breath, and was
very glad that his helmet covered his whole face so he could keep
her from seeing his clenched jaw and flushed cheeks. He blew out a
large, lungful of air and then finally said, “I’m sorry. You’re
right I just . . . fuck! I can’t even breathe in this get-up! I
look fucking ridiculous! And your brother? Oh my god, are you
kidding me?”

“Hey,” she said, reaching around and
stroking his chest. “You look fine, okay? And yes, he is a giant
ass, but this will really help you out with them, okay? Trust
me.”

“I do, I just--” he was interrupted by
the impatient beeping of a car that had crept up behind them.
“Fucking A,” he muttered, taking off down the street.

“What do you want to do?” she asked
when they next came to a stop. “Do you want to go home and change
or something?”

He thought about it for a moment, and
then realized that Joe was probably out at the bar with his crew,
and the house was just sitting there empty. It was also a giant
mess, as it always was, but the thought of an empty house was far
too tempting.

“Well,” he said. “Joe has
left for the night, and won’t be back until late. We
could
skip the movie and
hang out at my place for a while. If you wanted too.”

“That,” she said, giving him a squeeze,
“definitely sounds doable. Besides, I’ve been very curious to see
your place anyway.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

In his rush to get her over
there, Mark had forgotten
how
messy and disorganized he and Joe had left the
place. The living room was filled with empty beer cans, and as Mark
was showing her around trying to act cool about the whole thing, he
suddenly remembered the half-eaten bowl of cereal in his room that
was quickly spawning life.

“Well,” Mark finally said, waving an
arm around the small, cluttered living room, “this is
it.”

“It’s nice,” she said, looking around
and taking it all in. Mark couldn’t help but wonder if he looked as
out of place in her house as she did in his. “What’s
upstairs?”

“Just the bedrooms,” Mark
said.

“Oh really?” Christine said, wagging
her eyebrows, and then with a sudden burst of speed she took
off.

“Hey!” Mark cried, racing after
her.

By the time he got to the top of the
stairs, she was already down the hallway. “Hmmm!” she called in a
loud, sing-song voice, “which one is Mark’s room?” She was heading
towards the door at the far end of the hall, and before Mark could
call out to her, she flung open the door to Joe’s room.

“Whoa,” she said with a grimace.
“Please tell me that’s not it.” As messy as he left the rest of the
house, Joe saved his special messes for his boudoir.

“No,” Mark said, coming up behind her.
“That’s my Uncle’s room.”

“Thank God,” she said, backing away and
closing the door. She spun around, and before she could dart around
him, Mark grabbed her.

“Is this part of the tour?” she
said.

“No, the rest is upstairs.”

“The roof?” she said with a wry
smile.

“No, the attic. That’s my
place.”

“Oh really?”

She kept stepping closer, and Mark
found himself backing up with each step until he stumbled back into
the doorknob.

“So am I the first girl that’s gotten
to see your attic hideaway?”

“Maybe,” he said, reaching behind him
to open the door. She stepped back just enough for him to open it,
and when he did she squirmed past and raced up the
stairs.

“It’s messy!” was all Mark could bring
himself to say as he darted after her. As delightfully forbidden as
the idea of having her in his room was, faced with the reality of
it, he found his mind racing to see if he could remember if he had
left anything embarrassing out that she shouldn’t see. He was
pretty sure all his dirty underwear was in the laundry basket, and
the Playboys he liberated from the garage were safely under the
mattress.

“I’ve wondered what this would look
like,” Christine said, as he came up the steps. She was standing on
the far side of the room, where the ceiling was the highest,
turning slowly in place.

“I hope it’s not too
disappointing.”

“No, this is cool,” she said. “The
house we had before the last one had a big attic for storage, but
my folks wouldn’t let us even play up there.”

“Well,” he said, “it’s not much, but
it’s mine.”

“You make it sound like your own
sovereign nation,” she said, turning back to face him and putting
her arms around his neck.

“In a way, it works like that. My uncle
and I don’t do a lot of family time.”

“Really?” she said with mock
surprise. “I never would have guessed. I mean, given the
positively
glowing
way you’ve mentioned him in the past--”

He cut her off with a kiss, and within
a couple of seconds Mark had found they had drifted over to the
edge of the bed. “Whoops,” he muttered, and then the two of them
toppled sideways down onto it.

“Whoops indeed,” she said, rolling over
on top of him, and before Mark could warn her, she sat up and
bumped her head on the low, sloping ceiling. The head of the bed
was right up against the wall where the ceiling was at its lowest,
giving only about two feet of head room.

“Ow,” she whined, rubbing her head. “I
bet that happens a lot.”

“No, I don’t get a lot of girls bumping
their heads in my bed,” he said.

“I find that hard to believe,” she
said, leaning down closer to him.

“No, it’s true, I . . . well, this is
really embarrassing, but I’ve never really done anything like this
before.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s no
different than being in the park. Just more comfortable.
Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, leaning up to kiss
her.

Chapter
Twenty-One

“I love you,” he said, kissing her
hair.

She kissed his bare chest, but she knew
she wasn’t going to get off the hook that easily. As the seconds
stretched on, she could feel the arms around her tense up, and she
knew she was going to have to say something.

“Mark,” she said, lifting her head, “I
really, really care about you, and,” she paused, seeing the sudden
flash of hurt in his eyes, “I could definitely love you
too.”

“But you don’t.” He looked
away.

“Hey,” she said, using her finger to
turn his face back towards her. “Maybe not yet, but I just need a
little bit more time before I say that, okay?”

“I understand,” he said, the glum
slowly creeping away.

“I hope so, Mr.
‘I’ve-never-done-this-before.’ What kind of line was
that?”

That did the trick, and he looked away,
blushing this time. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” she said, leaning down to
nibble at his ear (which she had discovered made him squirm and
make the cutest little “squeaking” noises), “that either you were
just messing with me or you’re just naturally gifted.”

“Now you’re just teasing me,” he said,
pushing her away with a smile.

It was more exaggeration than teasing,
but frankly it was a relief to be with a boy who wasn’t pushing her
head down or strategically guiding her hand every ten seconds. He’d
gotten her down to her underwear, but he hadn’t pressed the issue
any further.

“Did you mean that?” Mark said, pulling
back from her.

“About what?”

“About me being . . . well, ‘loveable,’
I guess.”

“Mark,” she said, trying to keep her
rising exasperation out of her voice, “I mean everything I say to
you. You’re special to me, and I could see myself getting only
closer to you. I don’t want to just say, ‘I love you’ back just
because, y’know?”

“I know. I just--” Mark started, and
she placed her finger over his lips again.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she
said, “you’re the best thing in my life right now, and you make me
very, very happy.”

He smiled and kissed her finger. “That
does help.”

“Good,” she said, and then glanced over
at the alarm clock, “because if I don’t get home in fifteen minutes
this’ll be the last time we get to do this before the end of the
year. Where did you throw my pants?”

“I didn’t throw them. They’re right
over there.” She got up and picked them up, and as she did she made
the small pile of books they were resting on fall over.

“Sorry. I’ll get it,” she said. She
started picking up books and setting them all together in a pile
when one of them caught her eye.

“What was that?” Mark said, pulling his
shirt over his head. “Oh, hey! That’s okay, I can get that
later!”

The book was old and brown, and the
gold leaf on the book read “Bizarre Crimes of Northern New Jersey.”
There was a pen stuck in the middle of it, and she opened it to the
pages it marked. “What’s the big deal?” She playfully pulled the
book from him. “This looks wild!”

“Hey, wait! Wait!” Mark said,
scrambling over her shoulder to grab the book from her. Before he
grabbed it from her, she could see the chapter heading. “Cedar
Ridge Slayings” leapt out at her as the pages whizzed past her
face.

“Whoa,” she said. “What’s the big
deal?”

“Nothing,” he said, backing away and
flushing deeper than he had in the entire time they’d been in the
attic. “It’s nothing, I just . . . it’s just something stupid. For
school. I didn’t want it to get, uh, damaged.”

“Oh really,” she said, putting her
pants on. “You didn’t want it to get damaged so you snatched it
from my hands? That said ‘Cedar Ridge Slayings,’ didn’t it? And
who’s Corwin?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, tossing the
book under the bed. “It’s just something I was reading, okay? It’s
not a big deal!”

“Mark,” she said, taking a deep breath.
“I’m not making it a big deal. You are. If you don’t want to talk
about it for some reason that’s fine, but don’t go ape-shit on me
okay?”

He took a deep breath, and after a
couple of seconds walked over and put his hands on her shoulders.
“You’re right. I just thought with everything that’s happened you’d
be weirded out.”

“So it doesn’t have anything to do with
Clara, or Ms. Kennedy?”

“No, of course not,” he lied to
her.

“Okay,” she said kissing him quickly
and then walking over to get her shirt. “That’s fine, because I
didn’t even think that it might be, but since it’s not then there’s
no big deal.” If Mark wanted to look in to old crimes in the area
for some reason that was his business, especially if it helped him
deal with Clara and Ms. Kennedy’s deaths.

“Oh,” he said. He could feel the flush
coming back. “Good. I’m sorry, really.”

“I know. Now c’mon. We don’t want to be
late.”

Their kiss in her driveway was too
brief, but Mark was desperate to make sure that she forgave his
panic over the book. She pulled away quickly, inclining her head
slightly towards the lighted window on the second floor. “I don’t
think you want them to notice your wardrobe change.”

“Okay. Tonight was great, and I’m
sorry. I didn’t want to ruin it by being such a spaz.”

“It’s okay,” she kissed him again.
“It’s no big deal. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

He drove off, not wanting to go home at
all. He knew that if he wasn’t there when Joe got home, nights like
this were never going to happen again. He’d had no idea that they
were going to end up nearly naked and making out in his bed and he
didn’t want to do anything that was going to jeopardize the chances
of that happening again.

Yeah, if only you hadn’t
freaked out on her over a library book. You had a nearly naked girl
in your bed for the first, and now probably last, time and what do
you do? You get pissed that she touches your library book! Too bad
that was all she wanted to touch.

His own internal berating distracted
him so much that he didn’t hear the sudden rev of a car engine or
see the glare of headlights reflecting back at him in his mirrors
until the impact threw him forward, hurtling the scooter towards
the curb.

He desperately tried to get control
back while slowing and pulling over to the side but he was hit
again, harder this time. The front tire of the V slammed into the
curb, and Mark was flew over the handlebars, rolling across asphalt
and grass and into the park he and Christine had spent so much time
in.

He propped himself up onto his knees,
pain flaring in his wrist. He tried to figure out what had
happened. Were his lights off? Had he slowed down suddenly? He
could only imagine Joe freaking out on him for getting into an
accident, not to mention getting sued by some yuppie bastard who
hadn’t even noticed he was in the road.