Spiral (Spiral Series) (21 page)

I tried not to roll my eyes at that. Cool for an attempted murderer. Cool for someone who is seriously bad at ste
e
ring a boat.

“It’s going to be a party!” said Jill with fake enthus
i
asm just as the doorbell rang.

Maxie was still glaring at me, but I avoided her gaze. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell Andrew what had happened. I didn’t even know
how to start
.

Happiness flooded me when Jackson
came into the room, having let himself in when no one came to the door right away
. I was ridiculously
pleased
that he had even bothered to come, then mad at myself for not having more faith in my oldest friend.

“How’s it going?” he asked
, his familiar and usually happy features c
louded with something
I couldn’t interpret
. I chewed my lower lip
as I wondered
if he was mad about
what had happened
earlier
. B
ut I didn’t understand why he w
ould be
.

“It’s good,” I said, attempting a smile, but I couldn’t help giving him a confused look.

Jackson nodded curtly. “Good. Is Pierce here yet?”

“No, but he’s coming.”

“Fine. Can I talk to you for a second?”
he
asked
,
urgently casting a glance around. My friends and Andrew were all trying to pretend they weren’t listening.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let
’
s go to my room.”

“Scandalous,” said Maxie with a grin. “Finally you take a guy to your room and it’s Jackson.”

I shot her a glare as Jackson followed me upstairs. Maxie desperately wanted me to have a boyfriend. She thought it was a moral failing
for
a
friend of hers, who
she said was gorgeous
,
not to
have a guy. “If only you dressed better” she would moan to me. I just ignored her. The town weird girl was not going to get a boyfriend any
time soon.
Once
when
the three of us were eating lunch between classes I had told her to concentrate on getting Jill a boyfriend. Jill had told me that if I ever said anything like that again we couldn’t be friends
,
and Maxie had laughed until she fell out of her chair.

Jackson closed the door to my room with a snap.
Maxie was being overly dramatic when she said that a guy had never been up to my room before
, because of course
Jackson had been up there
plenty of times. B
ut nothing had
ever
happened.
He always acted so neutrally towards me that s
ometimes I wondered if he even
realized
I was a girl.

Sighing, I folded my arms and waited for him to get to the point. He didn’t waste much time.

“Nat, what are you doing with that Pierce guy?”
h
e grumbled, pacing around and wringing his hands.

I gave him a curious look and said, “Maxie invited him. We see him at school. We’ve run into him a couple of times. I don’t see the big deal.”
Or how it’s any of your business, I added silently.

Jackson shook his head in irritation. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No,” I said, growing annoyed. “I am not kidding. I’m not much of a kidder. He’s nice. He saved us.” I refused to mention the weeding. Jackson would
truly have lost
it then.

The air went out of Jackson like a bal
l
oon being let go. “What happened?” His eyes were turning panicked and I felt bad for worrying him.

He stood stock still as I explained about Casey, Haley
,
and the boat. He listened to every word, only asking an occasional weird question
,
like what
had
Haley’s eyes look
ed
like when Casey turned the boat sharply
,
or had I felt cold.

“Are you okay?”
h
e asked once I had finished
. He reached to put a comforting hand on my arm, but his touch felt strange. For years I had loved it when it touched me, which he rarely did, and part of me still felt that way. But it was no different from a big brother with his little sister and it never had been, and I was starting not to care.

“I’m fine,” I said evenly. “Like I explained
,
Pierce was there.”

Jackson growled
again
at the mention of Pierce. He had stayed quiet when I told him how Pierce had showed up
in a
boat, but
his
eyes had gone hard.

“Listen to me,” said Jackson. “Pierce is trouble.”

I stared at him in surprise. “You talk like you’ve known him for years
!
”

“It’s a long story,”
he
said,
refusing to meet my eyes
.

“I have time,” I said, determined to find out what was going on. I sat trying to appear like the picture of patience
,
when all I really wanted was
to
grab him and demand
some answers
.

“Look,” said Jackson, exasperated with my questions. “Just trust me and stay away from the guy. He is nothing but trouble.”

I didn’t want to listen to him, but this was Jackson. I had known him for years. He was one of my oldest friends,
and
was I really going to ignore his advice for
the sake of
some guy I barely knew?

“Well, he’s coming tonight,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”

Jackson let out his breath, looking relieved. “I’m sure
it
will be fine. Maxie is probably swooning over him.”

I grinned. “You have no idea.”

Jackson snorted, his eyes turning serious again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, frowning. “What’s the big deal?”

Jackson shrugged, trying to act like he didn’t care. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I was just shocked to hear that you were in danger and I wasn’t there. I should have been. I’m sorry.”

My eyes softened as I looked at him.
H
e was genuinely upset.

“Really, we were fine. Pierce was there.”

The second it was out of my mouth I realized that it was the exact wrong thing to say, but Jackson took it in stride and just sighed. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I was afr
ai
d of.”

 
When we got downstairs, everyone was
sitting in the living room eating chips and drinking soda
, including Casey. M
axie was looking through Andrew’s collection of action movies.
Pierce hadn’t arrived yet.

I gave
Casey
a curt nod
, and he
smiled broadly, his round face lighting up, and said, “It was nice to see you yesterday
,
and
h
appy
b
irthday! I had no idea! That’s awesome.”

Maxie was looking at him in wonder, while Jill was glaring at him
as if
she wanted to eat him up and spit him out.

“Um, thanks,” I said, ignoring the fear that pricked my skin. Casey didn’t look like he had any memory of yesterday. When I looked at Jill
with a question in my eyes
she gently shook her head, telling me
without words
not to bring it up.

I nodded, but I could feel Jackson vibrating in anger as he stared at Casey. Carefully I put my hand on his forearm, and Jackson roused himself enough to look at me.

“Stop it,” I whispered. “You’re making a scene.”

“Excuse me?”
he
muttered. “That guy tried to kill you.”

“Maybe, but he
’
s hiding it really well,” I pointed out.

Casey was
either
the best actor I had ever seen
, or he had been under some kind of spell when he dumped us out of the boat
. I was a little surprised he had agreed to come and hang out with the not
-
cool kids, but I guess that was the power of Andrew.

A
nyhow, a
t my words Jackson’s forehead smoothed over. “Right, sorry
,” he said so that only I could hear.
“M
aybe he
’
ll admit to it later or something.” His words sounded h
o
llow, but I couldn’t worry about it now because the doorbell had rung again.

My heart jumped into my throat at the sound. I tried to hide my awkward confusion from Jackson, who was now staring at me instead of Casey. I wondered why I felt so unsettled and excited

“I’ll get it,” said Andrew, eyeing me when I
made no move to answer the door
. Doing what Jackson
had
said
-
avoiding Pierce
-
was going to be harder than I
had
thought. And let
’
s be honest, I didn’t want to.

I wandered over to the couch and sat between Maxie and Jill. The curtains were still pulled back and it was now fully dark. The beautiful array of colors
was
gone out of the sky. We would eat dinner soon. There was a love seat that was empty, but if I sat there and Pierce took the other cushion
,
Jackson would be mad.

Maxie bounded right up to Pierce.
“Hi
!
”
she
said. “I am SO glad you came. I was starting to worry. Did you have any trouble finding the place?”