“What’s so bad about what you’re doing?”
Walker shrugged. “I’m away from home, running my own life without her input. I think she really believes that if my parents hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have become so independent, and Smith never would have seen me as a role model. I think she finds the fact that they’re dead very inconvenient.” The last word was so bitter that Keira could taste it on her own tongue.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m glad you told me.” She reached out and put a hand on his arm. Walker tensed as though he meant to pull away, but then she felt him relax. He put his hand on top of hers and shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t have, but I can’t see how it matters. Anyway, my parents—they thought they were protecting me. I know they really believed that it was the right thing to do. Sometimes, though . . . ” He paused. His eyes met hers and his gaze prowled through her. “Sometimes it’s hard to know which thing is the right one.”
An obsidian tendril sprang from the table, rising into the space between them like a vine. It hovered in the open air for a moment before slithering around Walker’s neck and sinking into his skin. The world seemed to slow and shrink around Keira, until all she could see was the darkness writhing against his throat. He leaned closer to her and stared, like he was watching her lose her mind. The black mark slipped out of Keira’s vision, disappearing as quickly as it had come.
“Sometimes, there’s more to something than meets the eye. Things not everyone notices,” he whispered.
She pulled away from him. Oh, God. He could tell.
Struggling to regain her mental balance, Keira picked up her fork. Her hand hovered above the last bite of her pie. The point.
“Make a wish,” Walker reminded her, signaling the waitress for the check.
Let me be his right thing.
There were a thousand things she should be wishing for instead of that. Sanity, for one. An acceptance letter from Juilliard. A million dollars. But instead of changing her wish, she scooped up the pie and put it in her mouth. Eating a bite of dessert had never been so terrifying. She’d just asked the universe for the most foolish thing imaginable, and even more foolishly, she didn’t care.
Across from her, Walker dropped a few bills on the table. “C’mon. I’d better get you home.” He offered her his hand, helping her out of the booth, but once she was on her feet, he didn’t let go.
Keira didn’t either.
Chapter Sixteen
AS WALKER DROVE HER home, Keira snuck a glance at his profile. His dark eyes were focused on the road. In the set of his jaw, she could read the history that he’d worked so hard to hide. He’d given her something, by telling her about his parents. Trusted her. It drove her to give something back, to tell him one of her own secrets.
“So, something really bizarre happened this weekend.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to suck them back in. They sounded so overdramatic.
“Oh yeah? What?” Walker glanced over at her.
Heat crept into Keira’s cheeks, and she hated that he could see how uncomfortable she suddenly was. But she was committed to saying something.
“I wrote a song.” She stared out the window, turned resolutely away from Walker’s gaze.
“Really?” he asked. There was genuine interest in his voice. “I didn’t know you composed, too. Exactly how many interesting talents are you hiding from me?” There was an echo of double meaning in his voice—a question beneath the question—but it wasn’t his usual innuendo.
“I don’t know that I’d call it a talent. I’ve never actually composed anything before—that’s why it was so strange. I was trying to play and it—it just wasn’t working. And then, I don’t know, it was like my fingers were making up this song on their own. Ugh. That sounds crazy.”
“It doesn’t sound crazy. It sounds amazing. What inspired that?” he asked.
You.
The word caught in her throat, refusing to come out. She’d wanted to share something with him, open up the way he had in the diner, but she wasn’t ready to take it quite that far.
She shrugged.
“Well, I’d love to hear it,” Walker said, turning on to her street.
“It’s a long way from being ready,” she told him, “but when it is, I promise to play it for you.”
He answered her with a smile that caught her like an undertow, dangerous and fast, dragging her toward him. Only this time, she was all too happy to go.
? ? ?
Inside the house, Keira dropped her bag in the front hall, wandered into the living room and hit the blinking button on the answering machine. She braced herself, waiting to hear her dad’s newest excuse for missing dinner.
Instead, it was Susan. A suspiciously muffled-sounding Susan, whose voice cracked on every third word as she begged Keira to call her back.
What the hell? Why didn’t she call my cell?
Keira scooped up her bag and dug out her phone.
Six missed calls.
Oh, shit.