Watercolour Smile (6 page)

“Hey there, Stephanie.” Poison’s mum smiled at me as I walked in, but there was something broken in her eyes. The soft brown colour had melted into the more permanent murk of a sorrow that can’t forgive, or can’t forget.

It was always the same. I hadn’t known her before Aiden died, but I assumed that she hadn’t looked quite so sad before then.

“Hello, Mrs. Singala.”

She fixed me with a half-way stern look, but it lacked the power of a proper delivery. “Courtney,” she corrected, not for the first time.

I just smiled and headed upstairs. If I stayed around her for too long my heart would jump out of my chest and throw itself onto her cutting board.

“This one,” Clarin announced as I walked into Poison’s bedroom.

He was holding up a blue dress that looked curiously tame for Poison’s taste.

“Seconded.” Poison raised her hand.

“Thirded,” I said, also raising my hand.

“That’s not a thing.” Clarin smirked at me and tossed the dress to Poison.

She shucked her clothes where she stood, pulling the dress on and then extracting her bra from underneath once she had it in place. I contained a laugh once the dress was on.

“Looks good.” Clarin nodded.      

She rolled her eyes. “Of course it does,” she said. “Have you met me?”

“There’s even a bow,” I said, pointing.

They both followed the direction of my finger, to where the higher-than-normal neckline had been adorned with a soft blue bow.

“Is it working?” Poison smirked.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Poor Mike. He clearly hasn’t learnt that the most dangerous things come in pretty packages, yet. But you’re about to teach him, right?”

Poison jumped over the bed with a laugh and grabbed a hold of my upper arms, giving one vicious twist that sent me into a tailspin toward Clarin. I collided with a hard chest, and Clarin easily steadied me, hooking his arms around me and squeezing… until my feet started to lift from the floor.

“Unfair!” I cried out.

“Tsk tsk.” Poison’s grin stretched, her lips revealing a suspiciously feline contentment. “You should know that Clarice is always on my team, little mouse.” She stalked up to me and bopped me on the nose with her finger. “You need to learn to fight back.”

“I fight back just fine. That’s not the problem.”

“Oh, yeah.” Clarin laughed, setting me down. “We know. You fight back a little
too
fine to risk fighting much at all.”

“Something like that,” I grumbled, my feet shuffling and my head down as I made to move past Poison.

She turned her back to inspect something on the bed, and I let my mouth lift into a smile a bare second before I acted. Clarin narrowed his eyes at my smile, but he was too late. I collided with Poison, my arms wrapping around her waist and sending her propelling toward the bed. She landed on the mattress with an
oomph
, the breath escaping from her lungs, her short blond locks half-obscuring her eyes—still frozen wide in shock.

“Of course,” she muttered, after recovering, “you’re the prettiest package of them all, aren’t you?”

I jumped off her. “I don’t know if the bow will work. He’s already seen what you normally wear. He sees you everyday at school.”

“Yeah but I told him I’m turning over a new leaf.” She lifted up onto her elbows, pushing the hair from her face.

“Are you really?”

She laughed. “Cupcake, I don’t change for nobody.”

“This one is for you,” Clarin interrupted, pushing something against my chest.

I took it from him, holding out the sky-blue, fitted lace dress. It had cap-sleeves and a high neckline, the top-half only a sparse lace covering. There was a white slip beneath the lace outline, ending mid-thigh and providing the cover that the lace was neglecting. It was beautiful, but I only stared at it.

“You promised.” Poison pouted when she saw the look on my face.

I puffed out a breath, pushing away all of the negative feelings and turning my back on them to change my clothes quickly. I pulled on tights and an oversized, soft grey cardigan for a little extra cover. If I hesitated any longer I wouldn’t end up going, and that would make it really hard for Noah and Cabe when the time came for them to show a little interest in the pining female masses of Hollow Ground College.

My stomach began to twist as Clarin did my hair into a loose French braid over my shoulder, and the twisting became somewhat of a tornado as Poison parked in front of a bowling alley and dragged me out of the car.

“Bowling?” I asked, incredulous.

She shrugged. “Mike’s idea. He’s probably well aware that the more innocent he makes himself seem, the more I want to ruin him.” She winked at me, and I tried not to laugh, or choke, or run back to the car and high-tail it all the way home.

We went inside and paid for our shoes, and then Poison was striding toward the far lane, where two guys were waiting. Mike was tall and lanky, his hair close-cropped and his eyes fixed on Poison’s approach. He pushed his glasses up nervously and visibly swallowed. I chewed on my bottom lip. The other boy was sitting with his back turned, and all I could see was a close-cropped head of dark hair.

Poison launched herself at Mike, hugging him tightly. His face went red, and the other boy stood up, stretching to his full height and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Poison.” His voice was familiar.

“Callaghan.” She nodded at him, her eyes flicking back to me. “You know Seph, yeah?”

He turned slowly, and it hit me a little too late.

Danny.

Oh no
.
No no no
.

“Hello,” I said meekly, moving to the row of chairs opposite him. I sat down and concentrated on swapping my shoes so that I didn’t have to look at him.

“I told you the direct approach wouldn’t work,” he whispered, sitting next to me.

I froze. “You set this up?” I straightened, seeing that Poison and Mike had gone off to choose their bowling balls.

Danny was leaning back in his chair, his fingers tapping at his knees, watching me. “Yeah? Is that bad?”

I chewed a little harder on my lip. “I’m…”

“Chill,” he interjected, touching my knee briefly as he stood again. “It’s no big deal. Just bowling, right?” He smiled and headed off to the rack of balls.

I whipped out my phone, my finger hovering over the list of contacts. Before I could decide what to do, the phone vibrated in my hand: a message from Noah.

Where are you?

I glanced up at the others, worrying my lip so hard that I tasted blood. I texted him the address of the bowling alley and stuffed my phone back in my pocket just as Poison returned. I shot her an apologetic look and her shoulders slumped. She groaned.

“Everything okay?” Mike sounded concerned, his hand light on her back.

“Yeah.” She recovered quickly. “I just realised I told my stupid cousins where I was going tonight. They’ll probably turn up at some point.”

Danny froze, his eyes snapping to mine. He wasn’t quick enough… I saw the annoyance clouding the grey of his irises before he shuttered the emotion and the stormy expression blew away. I got up to pick a bowling ball and then returned to my seat, cuddling the heavy sphere in my lap and bouncing my toes against the ground nervously.

“You bit yourself.” Danny touched my chin, tilting my head to the side. His finger swiped the cut on my lower lip and it came away with blood on it. He didn’t look at me, merely placed his finger in his mouth and sucked it off.

A wave of emotion rolled through me with all the severity of a nerve-army tossing fire-balls of fear, confusion and embarrassment at my carefully-constructed social mask. I could feel the alarms going off in my brain, and I imagined little nerve-soldiers marching forward to fix the breach before I could overreact. My phone vibrated again.

I pulled it out, seeing Silas’s name.

“
Shit
,” I muttered under my breath.

Poison stalled on her way past me, whirling. “Seph? Did you just use a naughty word?”

I made to shove my phone away but it vibrated again. Quillan this time. They had felt my freak-out.

I licked over the cut on my lip. “I bit myself,” I said by way of explanation.

She knew that something was wrong, but she was too smart to push it right now, so she passed it off as a joke.

“I knew there was a dirty-mouthed little dictator under that adorable exterior. Where do you keep it all hidden?”

“My boobs.”

She threw her head back and laughed. Mike coloured. I didn’t dare look at Danny, but it was all worth it to make Poison laugh like that. She reached out and patted my head, and I knew I was forgiven for ruining her date. I played it cool for ten minutes, taking my turn bowling and answering Danny’s polite questions just as politely as he had asked them, and then I escaped to the bathroom. Unsurprisingly, Poison followed me in.

“I’m sorry,” I said as soon as the door was closed. “I’m so sorry. I told them the address. I just… I—”

“It’s okay.” She soothed my stuttering with a smile. “I saw the way he looked at you. This whole thing was Callaghan’s set-up wasn’t it?”

“Yes… but I can tell that Mike likes you. Maybe they came up with the idea together?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Callaghan must be pretty into you though…” She pinched my cheek. “Don’t worry, cupcake. I’ll forgive you this time.”

I wrapped my arms around her middle and then pulled back quickly to check my phone.

Why are you having a panic attack in a bowling alley?
Silas.

I frowned, typing a message back, and Poison glanced over my shoulder.

You’re tracking my phone?

His reply was instant.

Is that a serious question?

Poison groaned. “Tyrants.”

I’m fine. I’ll tell you when I get home. Noah and Cabe will probably be here soon.

Not probably. They’re outside
.

It was my turn to groan now. I navigated to Quillan’s text.

Tell me that everything is okay or I’m sending in Silas
.

Everything is fine!
I sent the text as quickly as I could and we hurried back out into the bowling alley. Unfortunately, Cabe and Noah had already found Mike and Danny. They were all sitting down, postures rigid, not speaking.

“Ah, damn,” Poison muttered, taking my hand and dragging me towards them.

“Why did I think I could do this?” I whispered to her as we drew near.

“Because, like me, you’re fabulous,” she shot back, before making her voice a little louder. “Cousins! How nice of you to drop in. You
could
, hypothetically, take a day off babysitting your sister’s virtue. Hypothetically.”

“Sure,” Cabe smirked. “But it’s much more fun this way.”

I glanced at them, wary because Cabe’s eyes weren’t sending me happy sparks and Noah looked downright grim.

“I feel like I skipped out on my parole officer,” I said uneasily.

Cabe’s expression softened. “You don’t like us hanging around?” He placed a hand over his heart. “I’m wounded.”

“You’re up,” Noah said.

I looked at the screen, realising it was my turn. I had to move back to my seat to grab my bowling ball, and that meant making eye-contact with Danny. He was unreadable. I clutched the ball with shaking hands and bowled it straight into the gutter. I stood there, watching it crawl to the other end as Noah materialised behind me.

“This was a bad idea,” he whispered. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come…”

“It’s fine.” I turned and glanced up at him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

His golden brows inched closer together, his ocean-bright eyes drawing into a scowl. “You’re beating yourself up over this.” He sounded frustrated.

I didn’t have anything to say in response to that, and the others were watching us, so I walked away. I glanced at the u-shaped cluster of seats as I returned, worrying my lip again. The action caused a twinge of pain and so I stopped, moving away from the row of seats Cabe and Noah had claimed, walking past Mike and Poison and settling next to Danny.

I can do this
.

Maybe I couldn’t do it half an hour ago, but I could do it now.

Probably.

Danny straightened—apparently surprised—and shot me a hesitant smile. It was sweet, and maybe a little scary, because Danny was not a sweet-looking guy. He had too many piercings, too many tattoos, and he had licked my blood. Licking a person’s blood was
not
a sweet thing to do.

Cabe tilted his head, watching me, but it wasn’t with annoyance over the seat that I had chosen. He was concerned, trying to hide it behind a casual smile. His sunlight was starting to glint back into existence, so I wriggled my fingers at him.

“Hey, Lucifer.”

“Hey, Seph.” He chuckled.

We were supposed to go to a restaurant after the bowling alley but everyone seemed to unanimously come up with a half-hearted excuse about having too much homework to do. Poison and Mike wandered outside to talk briefly, and Danny pulled his keys out of his pocket, swinging them around nervously.

“Walk me out?” he directed at me.

I gave a stiff nod and followed him, not making eye-contact with the others. I knew it was too much to ask that they didn’t follow me, but when I looked back and didn’t see them anywhere, I was thankful that they were at least making it subtle. Danny approached a sporty, navy-blue convertible and pressed a button to unlock it. He opened the door and then slid himself behind it, leaning against the frame.

I wondered, briefly, why he was working at a tattoo parlour if he had the kind of money that would be needed to buy expensive cars.

“Well that was awkward,” he said.

“Sorry.” I was twisting my hands, looking at the ground.

“If you don’t look at me I’ll have to touch you,” he warned.

My head snapped up. His words were a harsh sort of shock, at complete odds with the calm that my common sense was attempting to instil, due to the ease of his tone. His grey eyes showed equal parts amusement and frustration.

“I don’t really date.”