Sang

Two Weeks Earlier

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Cold seeped through the windows upstairs in the Lee household. Mid-January in South Carolina wasn’t as cold as Illinois, but the darkness and cooler temperatures made me want nothing more than to stay in bed with a blanket and a book.

Kota’s bedroom was still. The drapes to the windows had already been pulled back to let in what early morning sunlight could get over the trees. The room was cool in purple and pink hues.

I had two or three blankets piled up around me.

Luke was pressed to my side, hip to hip.

The narrow twin mattress left little room, so no matter where I rolled over, he was at my back, my front, everywhere. Luke’s legs were crossed on top of one of mine.

When did he crawl in with me? I barely remembered him coming in. I must have been sleeping extra hard, or I’d gotten so used to someone crawling into the bed with me that I dismissed it entirely.

Luke draped an arm over his eyes. His breathing was steady. I slowly blinked at him, keeping still so I wouldn’t wake him. His tapered shoulders were bare. The tan he’d built up during the warmer months hadn’t faded much. His blond hair was getting as long as mine, and it framed his face, splaying out over the pillow.

I considered getting up to wash and dress, but I was comfortable next to Luke. The bed was warmed by the two of us sleeping so close together.

The other reason to stay in bed as long as possible was Erica.

Even though it was an early hour, Erica was downstairs rattling around in the kitchen. Kota had joined her not long ago. Their voices floated up, mild tones. I couldn’t really hear what they were saying. When I was around, Kota’s mom seemed to ask a lot of questions.

Luke turned his head to me, with one brown eye opening. An arm stretched lazily across my shoulders. He tugged me closer until my back was to his chest, and his lips dipped down at my spine along my neck.

I flipped over so I could look at his sleepy brown eyes. “Good morning,” I whispered.

“I like mornings like this,” he said. Even though I had flipped, he kept an arm around me, his forearm resting on the side of my rib cage loosely. “Erica isn’t going to work today?”

“It’s so hard to keep track of her schedule,” I said. “Sometimes she’s getting in at two in the morning. How does she do it?”

“It works for her. I think she likes the non-routine.”

The volume of voices downstairs rose, mostly Erica. She didn’t do it often, but I’d been in the house for about a week consistently now, and I was getting used to hearing it. Usually, she got very animated around Kota.

I sometimes listened, because often the questions were about me.

A couple of weeks ago, the Sorenson house had been taken over by my stepmother. She returned from the hospital and Marie took care of her, with a little help from the Academy.

They both seemed relatively happy with the arrangement. With my father staying at a small rental with his new fiancé until a divorce finalized, everything was settled.

Except for me.

The paperwork for the divorce was handled delicately. Each side had hired Academy lawyers, luckily. The lawyers were careful with the documents they prepared, limiting my name in each page until I’d eventually disappear before any official record was signed for the court.

The only one concerned at all was my father, who asked carefully about keeping me.

We all knew the reason was to keep my background a secret. His assumption was that my stepmother wouldn’t want me anyway.

I wasn’t in the clear, but the guys assured me repeatedly I wasn’t going back to anyone.

And me being at Erica’s house for a week left her with a lot of questions about what was going on at my house. She trusted Kota, but she knew something was wrong and she wanted to know. Kota explained there was a divorce pending, but he left out a lot of details and claimed he didn’t know because I didn’t know the full details either. She had accepted this, but she did pry for updates.

Luke moved to curl a lock of my hair. He made the curl taut against his finger, and then quickly released it. “You’d look good with curls, I think.”

“Hmm.” I didn’t have much opinion about curls or my hair while I was listening to the voices downstairs. “If Erica is home, maybe we should go somewhere else today.”

“Might be a good idea to get you to stay overnight somewhere else,” he said. He sighed and got up on his elbow. The blanket we shared slipped off of his shoulder, exposing his bare chest underneath. As he twisted and stretched his arms, the blanket fell off of his waist and revealed he was wearing a pair of Kota’s pajama bottoms. They hung loose and low on his hips. “She doesn’t mind you staying at all, but with her odd hours becoming odder, it makes it harder to manage...”

I breathed out slowly. “Our schedule.” I didn’t say it, but the Academy had the guys keeping odd hours, too. And because I was here, the guys were constantly streaming in and out of the house.

“It will be different once we’re back on a school schedule full time. Now that our class schedules have changed...” Luke twisted his back as he sat up, stretching. He scratched at his forehead. “Are the cakes ready yet?”

“Cake?” I asked.

“Pan in a cake,” Luke said. He shook his head and blinked a few times. “I mean cake in a pan. Pancake. Don’t talk to me. I mean don’t listen to me, I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

I laughed a little as I sat up and combed my hair away from my face. “I think we need breakfast to come up with something. I could go back to Nathan’s.”

“You’ve spent months at Nathan’s,” he said. “Come stay with us for a while. We’ve got the room.”

It sounded like fun, but there was a problem with staying anywhere long term. “But what about Uncle?” My black hair clip was on the bedside table. After combing my hair with my fingers, I pulled it all back, twisted and then attached the clip. “Isn’t he going to think it’s weird if I’m staying overnight for a while? Won’t he have the same questions as Erica?”

Luke shrugged and moved to put his feet on the floor. He absently scratched near his eyebrow. “I don’t even know. But he asks about you. Like why I’m not out with you on Friday nights. It’s sort of hard to explain.”

There were lots of things that were hard to explain to others. The secrets we kept were so strange I wasn’t sure anyone would understand. Even Academy members like Uncle found us odd.

I moved to sit beside Luke, leaning into him and pressing a cheek to his shoulder. He stared off, either daydreaming or thinking. I listened passively to the voices downstairs and general noises in the house but enjoyed the simple moment of being next to him.

He still smelled of vanilla and sugar, although he had taken on a bit of Kota’s spice scent. The mix worked surprisingly well together. His blond hair was wild, sticking out at places, but framed his high cheekbones. His lean muscles and tan skin had once made me think of him akin to clothing models. The longer hair softened his angled jaw and chin, but in a notable way.

Compared, I felt like a mess. I wore my own pajama bottoms, but I was pretty sure the shirt was Nathan’s. I touched the collar of the T-shirt absently, wondering where he was and if he’d slept at his house alone again. He’d done so almost all week.

Luke tilted his head and blinked rapidly, looking at me as if realizing I was there. He reached around, hugging me around the shoulders and kissed the top of my brow. “We can’t forget, the important thing is you’re out, right? We will always have to juggle us anyway, given the Academy and everything, but it could have been much worse if we left you there. That’s one thing not to worry about anymore. Everything else is cake...in a pan.” He laughed at his own joke. “I’m starting to sound like Silas.”

He was right about us and the continuous need to mind our schedules. I could have been stuck at my stepmom’s house, sneaking around and at great risk. I wrapped my arm around his back, hugging him in return. “I don’t mean to be so glum. I’m just... I mean there’s a lot to think about.”

He chuckled and nuzzled my face until I tilted it enough and he could kiss my cheek, closer to my mouth. “I don’t have much to think about. I’m all in. Whatever happens. Okay?”

I knew he wasn’t just talking about the living situation, but the relationship we had developed, between the nine guys in our group and myself. I sighed but smiled at him. “I do worry about the others...”

He kissed my lips briefly and his fingers smoothed over the skin just above the elbow. He slowly slid his fingers up my arm, under the sleeve, massaging a little with his fingertips. “I’ve known them for a good long while. If any of them really felt they wanted to not do any of it, it would have been out the door by now.” He lightly held my arm and pulled me in, his lips meeting mine and putting more pressure into his kiss.

I closed my eyes, a little passive at first as my mind was slow to readjust. Eventually, I became more animated, responding to his kiss, leaning into him.

Suddenly, the door to Kota’s bedroom down below opened. Swift footsteps thundered up the stairs.

Luke leaped away from me, turned, and rushed into the bathroom, but not before Erica popped her head up. He closed the door just as she finished clearing the last step.

My cheeks warmed quickly. The guys came and left often enough. I suspected most of them didn’t ask to stay, so Erica usually wasn’t surprised to see them. However, I had been up here alone with him, and he’d not had a shirt on. We had been quiet.

There was only one bed unmade...

Erica slowed at the top of the stairs, her smile frozen on her face. She glanced at the bathroom door and then at the bed. The rollaway bed had been put away.

The rule was to stay overnight, Kota slept on the rollaway and I slept in his bed. If the others stayed, they usually had sleeping bags on the floor. Most of the time we followed this, but Luke had come in really late and just crawled into the bed with me instead of waking us up pulling out sleeping bags.

“I...” I muttered. I stopped myself, not wanting to lie to her. I also couldn’t stop the heat in my cheeks, and I knew I was blushing. I just didn’t know how to respond.

Erica turned to me. Her smile was still there but it flickered with confusion. “Did he stay over?”

“He...woke me up. I was sleeping in...” I stuck with partial truths, like what Mr. Blackbourne and the others often did when they needed to be careful with what they said. “But he beat me to the bathroom...”

“Don’t wait on him,” she said. She motioned to me. “I came to get you anyway. I was going to make breakfast, but Kota volunteered to go pick some up from Bob’s.”

I relaxed, hoping I was overthinking her glances and pauses. I hurried over to her, and she tugged me by the arm to get me to follow her downstairs.

I only hoped she didn’t see too much into Luke running off like he did.