true, any of it. They didn’t understand Damien and they didn’t want to.
Grace walked quickly down one hallway, then another, both of them leading to the back of the school and the parking lot adjacent to the playing fields where she’d told Damien she’d meet him. Exiting the school was the easy part. She’d already scoped out the door near the gymnasium that she could use. Second period was good because for some reason no class had gym before third period.
The door to the gym teacher’s office stood open. Grace peered through the crack and saw Coach Wally Pembroke looking into the file cabinet, his broad back facing the door. She tiptoed past softly enough that she could hear his wheezing. He was supposed to be some sort of legend at Wickfield High. She’d heard other parents tell hers about how great it was that he was still teaching and how these kids were the third generation he’d taught in the town. Like it was some sort of accomplishment just to hobble about shouting, jowly cheeks turning red from the effort. He should be on an oxygen tank.
At the double doors, Grace shifted her bag and took one last look back down the hall before pressing carefully against the handle and exiting the building. She held the door so it wouldn’t slam closed, before walking quickly along the side of the brick building until she came to a corner where, with any luck, nobody looking out a window would be able to see her. She walked feeling as if there were eyes boring into her, half-expecting someone to call her name before she got as far as the parking lot, but nobody did.
She headed for a cluster of cars toward the rear, hunkering down between a dusty red pickup and a blue BMW, which just about summed up the differences in the town’s demographics, and slipped off her messenger bag to rest beside her. She wrapped her arms around her legs and tapped the toe of one sneaker against the asphalt. It would take Damien at least an hour and a half to get up here from Manhattan. And that was on a good traffic morning. All you needed was one slowdown and it could turn into a two-hours-plus trip.
The sound of an engine made her pop up, but it wasn’t Damien’s car pulling into the lot. Some ugly old green car belching out smoke from its exhaust pipe. She slipped back down between the cars, this time lying back, bag wedged under her head like a pillow.
It was a beautiful day. She hummed a cheerful Mozart sonata, playing the notes on the ground until she got caught in a tricky section and couldn’t remember the next measure. She looked up at the big puffballs of white clouds moving lazily across a bright blue sky. She shaded her eyes and made out the shapes in the clouds, remembering doing that with her mother when she was little.
They’d been lying on a beach then, up at Cape Cod, with the sand gritty between their toes and the sun like a blanket on top of them. “Do you see the alligator, Gracie?” her mother had said, pointing. “Look at its sharp teeth.”
She could remember the feel of the breeze against her skin and the distant caw of seagulls and how her father had been sitting nearby immersed in a book, his dark head bent over its pages. She had her own little yellow bucket and a blue shovel and she laughed as her mother sprinkled water over her head, cooling her off.
“What do you see in the clouds, Gracie?”
Her mother’s voice lilting somewhere above her, and she could remember the feel of a warm kiss pressed against the top of her head. What had she seen in the clouds? She couldn’t remember. Grace closed her eyes, tired of squinting. She had to have seen something, but all she could remember was her mother describing the things that she’d seen. Always the artist, nothing Kate Corbin ever saw was ordinary. Jungle animals, five-layered wedding cakes, an Aladdin’s lamp. What had Grace seen?
“I see a dog.”
“What kind of dog?”
“I don’t know, just a dog.”
“Greyhound? Boxer? Terrier?”
She could remember shaking her head, shaking off her mother’s insistence as if it were a touch. “No, no! Just a dog!”
“Oh, Grace. You need to have more imagination.”
Grace frowned at the memory.
“Are you going to sleep all day?”
Her eyes flew open. Damien was standing above her, leaning casually against the Mercedes, looking hot just like always, tight jeans and cool black T-shirt and those silver aviator glasses that she loved. His blond hair was cut brutally short. A smile played on his lips.
“Hey!” She scrambled to her feet and grabbed her bag. “I didn’t know you’d arrived.”
“You were in la-la land, baby.” He accepted her quick kiss, but when she lifted her lips from his, one of his hands reached out and pinched her right nipple, popping out of her bra and against the thin fabric of her knit shirt.
“Ow!” She pulled back, but his other hand wrapped around to hold her pressed against him.
“You miss me?” He increased the pressure on her nipple, all the while smiling at her.
It hurt, but she liked it, too. She could feel heat flooding her face. “Yes.”
“Show me.”
She kissed him again then, tentatively pushing with her lips dry against his, and then he let his lips part and her tongue darted forward like a bird dipping into an open flower.
He circled the nipple with his finger and pushed against it as if it were a button. She moaned against his mouth, pressing up against him instinctively. Along with her love for Damien was a bit of fear. Not that she was really afraid of him, not that, but just a little anxiety about what he was going to do next. She knew he was capable of doing anything. Wasn’t he proving that now by kissing her in this lot and touching her so intimately out here in plain sight where anybody could see them?
She wriggled out of his grasp, and this time he let her go. “We have to leave before someone sees us,” she said.
She hurried around the side of the Mercedes, noticing that the panels were coated with dust and the wheel wells and tires were rimed with dirt. Damien took his time getting into the car and adjusting the side mirrors before he pulled out of the lot.
“You’re going to get me suspended,” Grace said as he sped out of the parking lot and out onto the road. Damien drove fast, weaving in and out of traffic and slipping through traffic lights in that split second between yellow and red.
“You afraid?” His gaze jumped back and forth from road to rearview mirror. She knew he was keeping an eye out for police.
“I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“Then don’t come with me.” It was said matter-of-factly, but Damien suddenly spun the wheel and the car sped over onto the side of the road, tires crunching through leaves, before jerking to a stop. He looked at her coolly, his face set. She could see her own face reflected in his sunglasses.
She tried not to squirm in her seat. “What?”
“Either you’re coming with me or you’re not. I don’t have time for this shit, so decide.” The voice was cool and disdainful. She’d heard him use that voice before, but never with her.
“I’m coming with you,” she mumbled.
Without a word he spun the wheel again and jerked
