The Hidden (The Hidden Trilogy) (8 page)

Beth made a disgusted face and pushed Josh’s legs off her. “Pig.”

Josh didn’t seem fazed. In fact, he didn’t even notice. He was too busy eye-fucking the blond girl. “Who’s she?” he asked Andy.

“I don’t know.” There was a slight hint of dreaminess in Andy’s voice. “I’ve never seen her before.”

God. Apparently
everybody
loves her.

I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Instead, I popped another grape into my mouth. “So you don’t like him,” I surmised to Andy.

He kind of shrugged. “I wish I could say no, but he’s actually not that bad.”

I snorted in response, which earned me stares from everyone in the group. My phone chose that moment to vibrate, and I pulled it out of my pocket, thankful for the distraction. It was a text message from an unknown number. I opened it and read:

If you’re still interested, I’d love to meet you for coffee this afternoon.

-Gabriel

My excitement wasn’t as big as it would’ve been a few days ago, and I had only one person to blame for that.

I glanced up at Thomas, surprised to see his dark blue eyes already on me. They were intent and heated. Like nothing else existed in the world and it was just me and him. It was dizzying and thrilling.

I didn’t like it.

My stomach somersaulted, and I exhaled a shaky breath as I looked to my lap. My phone’s screen went dim from lack of activity.

I hit reply, the screen lighting up again as I typed:

Sure. When and where?

Why
did hearing Emily say my name send a chill down my spine? What was wrong with me?

“Why do you keep look–” Mel’s eyes grew wide when she saw Emily. “Is she…?” Mel lifted her hand to point.

“
Yes
, and it’s not polite to point,” I said, pulling her hand down.

Her wide eyes quickly turned suspicious. “Do you know her?”

I shrugged. “Kinda.”

“Are you and her…?”

“
No
. No, it’s nothing like that.”

Mel looked Emily over. “She’s very pretty,” she said, the tone of her voice tacking on “for someone who associates with humans” as clearly as if she’d said it aloud.

I sighed. “Mel, don’t.”

“What? I’m just voicing my approval,” she said. “I’m happy you finally found someone…even if you couldn’t find the time to introduce her to your family.”

“I didn’t
find
–” I exhaled a long breath. “I hardly know the girl, Mel. You’re getting ahead of yourself.” I wrapped my hand around Mel’s arm, dragging her away before she could cause a scene.

Chapter Eleven

EMILY

I pulled into the parking lot of the small coffee shop in downtown Potomac Ridge. What the locals considered “downtown” was actually about ten blocks of shops and restaurants, centered around the six hundred block of North Main Street.

Gabriel wasn’t there when I walked in. I glanced at my watch, seeing I was a few minutes early, and headed for the counter to order. After I’d gotten my iced mocha, I sat down in an empty corner of the café. I didn’t have to wait long, as Gabriel walked in while I was still getting settled.

Sitting in the plush, dark green chair across from me, he ran his fingers through his hair. “Sorry I’m late. I, uh, got held up at school.”

I set my drink down. “No problem… Aren’t you gonna get something?” I asked, gesturing to the line of customers at the counter.

“Yes,” he said absently, waiving over a nearby barista. She’d been eyeing him as she wiped down a table with a wet rag.

She rushed over to our little corner, beaming the whole way as she subtly tried to fix her curly brown hair. “Can I help you?”

Gabriel smiled at her. It was the kind of smile that could stop your heart–slow, seductive, and flawless. Even
I
got a little weak in the knees…or vag, but whatever.

“Hi” –he glanced at her nametag– “
Lynette
. How’s your day so far?”

Her cheeks flushed as she dropped her eyes and smoothed her apron. “It’s good. No complaints here.”

“I’m glad to hear it. My day’s going pretty well too, but you know what would make it perfect?”

She shook her head, her eyes flicking up to look at him under her lashes. “What’s that?”

“A large coffee, black.”

She smiled so big I thought her cheeks would split. “Let me get that for you. Be right back,” she said, scurrying off to get his order.

I tried not to roll my eyes. Yeah, Gabriel was hot and all, but geez… I picked up my drink and took a sip. “You know she’s not actually a waitress, right? You’re supposed to go up to the counter and order.”

“Yeah, I know.” He grinned at me. “I just didn’t want to wait in line.”

I snorted, which wasn’t very lady-like, and quickly tried to cover it up with a cough. “What makes you think you deserve special treatment?”

He gave me an odd look and said, “My good looks,” like it was the most obvious thing in the world. When he didn’t smile or laugh, I realized he was completely serious.

I almost choked on my iced mocha.

Gabriel didn’t notice, as Lynette chose that moment to return with his coffee. “Here you go.” That stupid, overly eager smile was still stuck on her face. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“I think this’ll do it for now.” He slipped her a folded up bill. “Keep the change, sweetheart.”

She glanced at the money in her hand, her eyes going wide. “I– uh, thank you.”

He took a sip of his coffee and nodded dismissively at her. I guess he was done with her now that he’d gotten his drink.

Behind the counter, she showed her blond, perky coworker the money. Both of them looked at Gabriel in awe.

“You’re quite the hit. Women seem to love you,” I mumbled, seeing all the female eyes glued to the man sitting across from me.

He shrugged. “I do okay.”

I laughed and took another sip of my drink. “Well, at least you’re modest.”

He chuckled, but abruptly stopped and frowned. He looked down to the paper coffee cup in his hands, toying with the cardboard sleeve. “If it bothers you, we can leave.”

I shrugged and said, “I have a feeling it’s gonna be like this anywhere we go.”

“Probably. But still…I’d like you to be comfortable.”

Well, in that case, it wasn’t going to be here, where we were surrounded by horny vultures waiting to swoop in and pick him up. “There’s a bakery around the corner that’s supposed to have the best desserts known to man. You in?”

Beth sat up from laying on the couch when I walked in, setting her magazine down on the coffee table. “Hey, where’d you go?”

I kicked the door shut with my foot. “Out for coffee.”

She cocked an eyebrow, looking me up and down. “Then why don’t you have any?”

“Oh, I drank it there.”

“Mmm-hmm… So who’d you go with?”

I deliberately turned while I set my purse down, trying to hide my face. I sucked at lying. “What makes you think I went with someone?”

“Who drinks a cup of coffee at a coffee house
by
themselves
? Come on, now.”

I aimed for a neutral expression and faced her. “What? People do it all the time.”

She snorted. “Only people with no friends do that. And you, my dear, had a perfectly good friend sitting right here that you did not invite,” she said, gesturing to herself. “So what gives?”

“
Nothing
.”

She shrugged and picked up her magazine as she propped her legs on the coffee table. “Okay, if you say so.” She flipped the page, the glossy spread of celebrity fashion mistakes crinkling as it turned.

I relaxed a little, since she seemed to buy my story, and headed to my room. Just as I made it to my door, Beth said, “Oh, before I forget, someone named Gabriel called and said you left your lipstick in his car.”

Goddamn it.

I froze and squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could erase everything.

“So…” The crinkling sound of her flipping another page grated on my nerves. “Who’s Gabriel?”

I turned around, leaning against my doorframe. “He’s just a…friend.” Did three conversations make him my friend? Or did it only make him an acquaintance?

Beth threw her magazine on the coffee table and stood. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a date!”

“It wasn’t a date, it was just coffee.”

She fired off questions at lightning speed. “How did you meet him? Does he go to school here? Is he hot? He sounds hot.”

“Um… Could you start over?”

She grinned. “First things first–is he hot? He sounded really hot on the phone.”

I chuckled as Beth led to me the couch. “How can someone
sound
hot?”

“He has this deep, sexy, bedroom voice, and he was all”–she lowered her voice in what she thought was an imitation of his–“
This is Gabriel. Can you tell Emily I found her lipstick in the floorboard of my car? It must’ve fallen out of her purse while I was rockin’ her world in the backseat
.”

I laughed and hit her on the arm. “He did
not
say that!”

“He didn’t have to! It was all in the tone of his voice.”

I rolled my eyes. “I was only in his car for, like, five minutes. Just long enough to go from the coffee house to the diner on third and back.”

“So you didn’t have a quickie in his backseat?” Her face fell, like a little kid who’d just been told Santa Claus wasn’t real.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sight. “No, of course not. I hardly even know him.”

“How’d you meet him, then?”

“It was actually last week in a Dallas parking lot. His grocery cart got away from him and I helped get it back. When we got to talking, we found out we both go to the same school. Pretty crazy, huh?”

She frowned. “He didn’t
sound
like he was from Texas…”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. It was actually a myth that all people from Texas spoke with a “twang,” and it was one that really bothered me. I was from
Dallas
for crying out loud, not some hick town in the middle of nowhere. “Do
I
sound like I’m from Texas?”

She squinted at me for a second, and it looked like she was re-evaluating her earlier comment. “Good point,” she finally said. “So why didn’t you just come out and tell me about him? What’s with all the sneaking around?”

I glanced away. “I wasn’t
sneaking
…”

Beth gave me a pointed look–one that conveyed the word “bullshit.”

I sighed. “I didn’t tell you because I was hoping to avoid
this
,” I said, gesturing between the two of us. “I didn’t want to have to answer twenty thousand questions when it was nothing more than friends going out for coffee.”

She threw her hands up. “Well, until
I
get asked out by a sex god, I’m gonna have to live vicariously through you, so…deal with it.”

“You don’t even know what he– All right, whatever.” I quit while I was ahead, realizing it didn’t matter that Beth didn’t know what he looked like. She’d already made up her mind that he was Gabriel, God of Backseat Lovin’.

And for all I knew, she might be right.

Chapter Twelve

EMILY

“
Ugh
.” I huffed out a quick breath and threw off the covers.

Jesus 
Christ
, it was hot in here.

I climbed out of bed, reveling in the cool tiles under my feet, and quickly took off my sweatpants. I turned around to face my one and only window, popped the lock, and pulled up on the ledge. It didn’t budge on my first tug, but squeaked open on the second. I pushed it open as far as it would go, breathing a sigh of relief when a gust of night air rushed into my stifling room.

I climbed back in bed and turned on my side, facing away from the window. My eyes closed as I listened to the new sounds–rustling trees, crickets chirping, my curtains flapping in the breeze… I felt the familiar tugs of sleep pulling me down when a soft scratching noise dragged me back into consciousness.

I rolled over, my heart freezing when I saw the dark figure near the foot of my bed. Adrenaline kicked in as I scrambled back, bumping into my headboard. My hand shot out to my nightstand, trying to grasp something–
anything
–I could use as a weapon.

Shit
, all I had on my nightstand was a half-empty bottle of water and my stupid fucking alarm clock.

I grabbed the bottle and cocked my arm, prepared to chuck it at the intruder, when they stepped forward, into the sliver of moonlight coming through the window. It was enough for me to make out his features and see his hands, which were palms out in a non-threatening gesture.

I lowered my arm, blinking several times as I tried discerning if what–or better yet, 
who
–I saw was real. It appeared so. 

“
Thomas?
”

I gaped at him as he stood there, half-bathed in moonlight and half in the shadows. “What are you–”

All thoughts disintegrated as my eyes roamed over his naked torso, down to the muscled “V” of his hips, where his low-slung jeans sat. I swallowed. “What are you doing here?” I asked again, my voice cracking at the end.