Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) (20 page)

"Look, Kennedy, you're a beautiful girl. You're fun, and sexy... but I don't want to play your games. I want something real." As soon as he said it, he realized how true it was. There was something so empty inside him, creeping to the surface. He buried it so well the last few months; he'd even managed to hide it from himself.

She sat back in her chair and pulled out a pack of Mentos. "This
is
real."

"How can you even say that? This is nothing. We're talking in circles."

She popped a mint in her mouth. "If it weren't real, you wouldn't have asked me out, and I wouldn't have accepted. But you did, and I did, and now here we are. If it weren't real, it would be easier to walk away. But it isn't, is it? For either of us." She held her pack of Mentos out to him, offering him one.

He gazed at her. Her expressions were softer than the day he met her, and he almost liked her better this way—a little vulnerable, not spilling over with confidence.

He took a mint. "Do you want to get out of here?"

"For a walk on the beach?" she asked. "Or because I ruined things and the night's over?"

"No, you didn't ruin things." He beckoned the waiter over. "Not yet, anyway."

Pilot paid for their dinner and they walked out to Waikiki strip. The place was flooded with tourists, but they were mostly couples enjoying the evening. Kennedy placed her hand firmly in his as they walked.

He turned her hand over, touching the rings on her fingers absentmindedly. "So I guess asking you to Punahou's homecoming dance is probably out of the question."

"It's this weekend, right?" Kennedy tugged on the bottom of her dress until it covered most of her thighs.

He took his brown leather jacket off. "I know, it's probably short notice." He wrapped his jacket around her, rubbing her arms to warm her up.

"No," Kennedy said, pulling the coat around her. She breathed in deeply. "I mean, I can't go. I'll be out of town by then." She met Pilot's eyes. "Thank you for asking though. If I could go, I would."

Pilot tried not to show his disappointment. "Where are you going?"

"Back to LA on Friday night." Kennedy stared at the sand. "I don't want to though."

"The dance is on Saturday. Why don't you stay a few extra nights? You could stay at my house—we have a lot of guest rooms."

"Can't," Kennedy skimmed the shoreline with her eyes. "My sister and I don't get along that well.

She won't understand why I want to stay."

"But you don't need her permission, do you?" Pilot asked.

"It's weird," Kennedy said. "I feel like an adult, and I have an adult life. But I'm still only seventeen, so legally, she has say over everything I do."

"Yeah, that sucks." Pilot tried to imagine being done with high school and on his own. With James around, and more often not around, he was practically on his own anyway, aside from having Brie to take care of.

Kennedy made a face. "My sister is crazy. She forces me to do things I hate."

"Like what?"

Kennedy unwrapped her Mentos pack further, her hands shaking. "I can't tell you, obviously."

"Why?" Pilot took the pack from her and tore off a piece of the wrapper before handing it back. He wasn't sure what was so obvious about it.

Kennedy gave him a look. "Let's talk about something else, please."

"Uh, okay." Pilot wasn't sure why she was closing him out again.

"How's your paper going?"

"I turned it in today."

"Did you learn anything interesting from
Hawaiian Myths and Legends
?"

"No."

They walked in silence for a couple minutes before Kennedy spun out in front of him, dropping his hand. "You know what? If you don't want to have a normal conversation, let's go to my hotel room. You can add me to what sounds like a long list of girls who's names you probably can't even remember."

Pilot felt his chest tightening. "I've never told anyone about that, not even Brie or Rykken. It's not something I'm proud of, and it's not what I want for us. Not that there can ever be an 'us.'"

Kennedy grabbed both of his hands like she wanted to shake him. "You are so damaged. Did you know that?"

Pilot glared at her. "No I'm not."

"Yes you are. It's subtle, but underneath that calm exterior, it's there."

Pilot pulled away from her. "You keep shutting me out too."

Kennedy pulled his jacket tighter around her body—she looked like she was swimming in it. "Is it so hard for you to believe I like you for who you are, not for your name or your money or your status or whatever those other girls liked you for?"

"You haven't exactly made it easy for me to trust you."

"Because you think your problem is that you're famous. Do you think it's easy for
me
to trust
you
just because I'm not?"

"I don't know."

"I don't need your money Pilot. I have a trust fund and a job. And if I wanted a status symbol, there are plenty of people higher up than you in LA."

Pilot didn't say anything. She adjusted the collar of his shirt. He let his hand drift to the nape of her neck while the other got tangled in her ivory hair. His lips found hers, and once they started kissing, they couldn't stop.

Eventually she pulled away from him, practically shoving his chest to put distance between them.

"Let me guess," he said, breathing hard. "You have to go."

She wiped her lips with her thumb. "You're not the only one who's scared."

"I'm not the only one who's damaged."

She gave him a hard look. "Are you sure you want something real, Pilot?"

"No."

She took off his jacket and held it out to him by the collar. "Me either."

He grabbed her wrist instead of the jacket and pulled her closer to him, wrapping his hands around her waist. "But we're going to try anyway, aren't we?"

*****

The Flaming P had already been lit, and the bonfire was swarming with Punahou alumni of all ages.

The bonfire was a Homecoming tradition, and tonight the excitement was high because Punahou won their Homecoming game against their biggest rival Iolani just a few hours earlier. As an athlete and the varsity water polo team captain, he was expected to show his face. He stole a glance at the three girls sitting in fold-out chairs next to the fire.

"You were right about the map," Thessa told Brie. "Would you believe that James has been watching Milena this whole time? He has an entire file cabinet of all her travel."

"Brie," Sirena said, "you went on a lot of those trips. Do you remember anything—"

"No," Brie said. Her voice brought Rykken a mixture of pain and guilt. He hadn't spoken to her much the past week. She was always with Sirena or Thessa or Justin. And even when she wasn't, Rykken didn't know what to say to her. The distance between them seemed insurmountable, no matter how many times they apologized to each other.

"We went on
vacations
," Brie said. Her voice wavered. "We visited museums, memorials, tourist spots..."

"Those weren't vacations," Sirena said. "Milena was obviously looking for something."

"What would she be looking for?"

"We don't know. Neither did James—but he traced all the places she went. Her credit cards, her airline miles... somehow he gained access to all of it. That's what the map is for. It's a checkerboard of all the moves she's made."

"Thessa," a voice said. Rykken glanced back—it was Cora. The cheerleader made eye contact with him, before turning back to the Thessa, Sirena, and Brie. "Let's take a walk on the beach." It was a strange suggestion—aside from the fire, everything was pitch black because it was a new moon. Rykken wondered if they were trying to move away from him.

Thessa stood up, motioning for Sirena to follow her. Brie stood up also, but Cora shook her head slightly, almost imperceptibly. She whispered something Rykken couldn't hear, and Brie looked at Rykken.

So they
had
caught him.

Cora left, and Brie motioned Rykken over to where she was sitting.

"Hey," she said. "Where's Pilot?"

"No idea." He sat down in the chair next to her. She wore her cheer uniform, which Rykken still hadn't gotten used to—it went against everything he knew about her.

"I thought you two were inseparable," she said.

"I've barely seen him all week."

Brie frowned. "Pilot said you had extra polo practices though."

"Nope." Rykken watched Brie fiddle with a bar of chocolate and the tip of a stick she found. "Are you trying to make a s'more?" he asked.

Brie looked up from her work. "I've never made one before," she confessed.

Rykken bit back a laugh. Brie caught him, and smiled. "What?" she said. "Do you think we throw bonfires in Central Park?"

"Maybe homeless people do." Rykken took the stick from her. "First of all, you don't stake the chocolate, you stake the marshmallow."

He slid two marshmallows on the stick and handed it back to her. "Then, you hold them slightly over the fire, but don't let them catch the flames. I hate blackened marshmallow."

Brie nodded, fluttering her eyelashes lightly. "I'll keep that in mind."

The flames reflected in Brie's eyes, the orange patterns clashing against her green irises. Rykken knew she was just being nice. Still, they were having a conversation, a feat Rykken didn't want to take for granted.

"So, how much did you overhear earlier?" Brie asked. Her eyes darted between the marshmallows and his face.

Rykken felt like a deflated balloon—her question confirmed his suspicions that she was only talking to him to get information. "Just the part about your mom searching for an unknown object," he said dully.

"And the part about your dad tracking her across the globe."

She nodded her head thoughtfully. "You shouldn't eavesdrop."

"Okay Miss Headphones-in-the-Car." He looked up to watch her reaction, but she seemed calmer than normal. At least she wasn't gearing up to yell at him again.

"I did that to protect my family." She peeked out at him from behind a wall of hair, which fell in waves onto her shoulders. "I stopped when I realized how honest and good you are."

The tone of her voice was intimate, and it confused him. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.

She shook her head slightly, her forehead creasing in confusion. "To Pilot," she amended. "You're honest and good to Pilot, not me." Rykken sat back in his chair. "But I haven't exactly been kind to you either."

"We can change that though."

A soft smile spread slowly across her face. "Hating each other hasn't worked out so well for us, has it? Neither has ignoring each other. All that's left is being friends."

Rykken swallowed. That wasn't all that was left, but he didn't bother to correct her. He rested his chin on the rim of his thumb and index finger. "I'm sorry I was eavesdropping. I did it because Pilot wants me to keep an eye on you when he's not around." It wasn't the whole truth, but it sounded like something Pilot would ask of him.

"It's okay," Brie said. "Whatever you overheard tonight, you're misinterpreting it anyway. I'd appreciate it if you didn't repeat it to my brother."

"It sounded serious though. If you need someone to talk to—"

Brie looked up at him. "Maybe," she said. Rykken tried to keep his features in place to hide his surprise. She smiled at him again, ducking her head. "I
do
need someone to talk to. And I feel like you're a part of this anyway."

"Okay," he said, pushing his shoulders back. He normally tried not to look at her too much, but tonight it was almost impossible to take his eyes off her. "Let me know when you're ready."

Brie turned her marshmallows in the flames. "Since we're having such a good conversation, I need to ask you something. When you were wearing the pendant, did it leave any... physical evidence?"

Rykken's throat tightened. "I thought we were past the pendant stuff. Pilot and I haven't found the book or the pendant."

"I've looked too," she said. "No luck."

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Then it's over. We need to put it behind us."

"Rykken," she said. The way she said his name was so tender and vulnerable and sweet, he could kiss her. "Sirena told me she something on your chest."

Rykken's stomach dropped. He had spent hours in the shower, trying to scrub the crescent moon and star from the area right below his heart. When the mark didn't lighten, he tried to put it out of his mind—it was barely visible at practice, and no one had really noticed it besides Sirena.

Brie stared at him. He realized too late that she'd been watching for his reaction, despite his lack of words. "Can I see it?" she asked.

"Not now," he said.

She kept staring at him. "Has anything... strange happened to you since the pendant?"

"Like what?"

"Like, are you able to do things you haven't been able to do before?"

Rykken was startled by her question. "No." He leaned across his chair, until he was so close to her he could smell the smoke from the fire on her hair. "Brie, what's going on? Why are you asking me this?"

Brie's eyes flitted around his face, as if she were trying to look at every inch of it within a single second. "No reason," she said, but he recognized her disappointment in his answer. She pulled the stick with marshmallows on it from the fire. "Now what do I do with these?"

"Brie," Justin said. Rykken glanced up. Justin towered over them, his hands on Brie's shoulders. He bent down. "Come over here and hang out with me for a little while," he whispered into her ear, loud enough for Rykken to make out every single word.

"In a minute," Brie said. "I want to finish making my s'more first."

Rykken didn't look back to see Justin's reaction; he heard the annoyance in his tone. "Save me a seat for later then. I'm first up when we tell campfire stories."

She nodded and turned back to her marshmallows, oblivious to the effect she was having on both of them.