Please, let her be home.
She dialed. Her heart felt uncomfortably large in her chest.
“Hello?” her mother answered.
Walker shifted in his seat and Keira motioned to him to be quiet.
“Hi, Mom,” Keira squeaked.
“Hi, sweetie.” Her mom sounded sad and worried. “I was just getting ready to call you. You haven’t checked in for a while.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough day.” Keira was telling the truth, but she knew her mother would misinterpret her words. She wanted her to.
The silence on the other end of the phone became too uncomfortable to bear.
“We just left Susan’s. I was hoping we could swing by the house and say”—the word “good-bye” almost slipped out of her mouth—“hi. Is that okay?” Keira asked.
“I was hoping you’d say that. I thought we could talk over dinner. Even if you’re thinking of staying at Susan’s again tonight, you must need some clean clothes.” The idea of clothes—her own clothes—sent a horrible pang through Keira. She’d have to take some things. Pack for wherever they were going. And then leave everything else behind.
Including her piano.
The thought of leaving her instrument sliced through her. She hadn’t played in almost two days. The last time she’d been away from her piano for that long was freshman year, when she’d come down with mono. She’d thought she’d go crazy, lying there in bed, too tired to walk the seventeen steps to the piano. Her fingers ached for the smooth feel of the keys beneath them.
Keira gave herself a mental slap. “Dinner sounds great, but Walker and I have to . . . be somewhere. We won’t have very long.”
“Walker? I thought you were with Susan.” Her mother’s voice turned suspicious.
Keira winced. She hadn’t said exactly who was driving her. It wasn’t her fault her mother had assumed the ride would be with Susan.
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “He picked me up from Susan’s. We’re going out to dinner. Or we were. And then to a movie. Later.” Keira’d never been good at lying. She obviously needed to get better at twisting the truth, and fast.
Her mother cleared her throat. “I think having dinner with Walker sounds like a lovely idea. I’d like to spend a little more time with him, since he’s obviously spending a lot of time with you.”
Keira’s palms started to sweat. There was an accusation in her mother’s words, taut and sinewy as tendon. Like she knew, somehow, that Keira’d spent last night with Walker. If her mom tried to force her to stay home tonight, then what would they do?
“Um,” she said, but her mother barreled right over her.
“Bring him over. You can pick up some clothes, Walker can stay for dinner, and then after he leaves, I’ll drive you back to Susan’s.” Her mother’s voice was brittle.
The air in Keira’s lungs all came rushing out at once, in a little ugh of surprise.
“See you soon.” Her mother hung up, leaving Keira with a silent phone pressed to her ear.
She wanted to scream, but she settled for a frustrated growl.
“That good, huh?” Walker asked.
“It seems my mother is suddenly dying to see you. So much for thinking you’re the Big Bad Wolf,” Keira said, exasperated.
Walker laughed in the low, gravelly way that went straight through Keira’s middle, warming her.
“I’m pretty sure she wants me to come precisely because she thinks I’m the Big Bad Wolf.”
Keira threw herself back against the seat and gave in to her black mood. “She wants to drive me to Susan’s after. I don’t think she believes that I’m staying there.”
Walker stopped at a red light. He shifted his weight, leaning in until his forehead rested against her temple.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “We’ll figure something out. If I have to, I’ll just huff and I’ll puff”—he blew a trickle of cool air into the sensitive hollow behind her ear and Keira shivered—“and I’ll blow the house in.”
He was so close. She wanted to kiss him. She needed to kiss him.
But she couldn’t. As soon as he’d touched her, she’d heard the susurration of the Darkside trees, as their leaves shifted against one another in the wind. Kissing him would drop them straight into the forest. It would make another rip in Darkside.
It would call the guards.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Walker sighed and pushed himself away from her.
“Dinner won’t be all bad. You’ve got to be desperate to play, right? Having a little time with your piano won’t be so horrible.”
It would be wonderful, if I weren’t trying to say good-bye.
And her dad wouldn’t even be there. She pulled out her phone again and called him. His office and cell numbers both went to voice mail.
“Please call me back,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. If she could talk to him, maybe she could figure out a way to meet up with him.