Sophie reached over and put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
My brother just sat there, idling in the lane. He shook his head. “I’ve never hit anything in my whole—”
His sentence was cut off by another soft thump, this time on the roof.
This time, the car wasn’t moving.
“What the—” Daniel started.
But before he could finish his sentence, the thump was followed by dozens more. And not just on our car but also on the road, on the parked cars that lined the street.
We were shocked into silence as a murder of crows fell from the sky.
23
AFTER WE DROPPED SOPHIE OFF, DANIEL AND Noah exchanged theories on the way home. The storm. Disease. There were a bunch of scientific possibilities, but a feeling gnawed at me.
A feeling that it was something else.
Seconds seemed like lifetimes as I waited for Noah to come to my room that night. I stared at the clock on my nightstand, but the hours passed and he didn’t show. He didn’t tell me he would, but I assumed it.
Maybe I assumed wrong.
Maybe he fell asleep?
I threw off the blanket and slipped out of my room. The guest room was on the other side of the house, but I was confident I could silently make my way over and see if he was still awake. Just to check.
I stood outside the guest room door and listened. No sound. I pushed it open a crack.
“Yes?” Noah’s voice. Wide-awake.
I opened the door the rest of the way. A small lamp was on a circular accent table in the corner of the room, but Noah was painted in shadow. He was still dressed and he was reading, his face entirely obscured by a book. He lowered it just enough to reveal his eyes.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hello.”
“Hi,” I said again.
Noah lowered his book farther. “Is everything all right?”
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. “I just came to say good night.”
“Good night,” he said, and returned to the book.
I had no idea what was going on, but I didn’t like it. I half-twisted toward the door, then stopped. Glanced back at Noah.
He arched an eyebrow. “What?”
I’m just going to say it. “I’m just going to say it.”
He waited.
“I thought you were coming to my room.”
“Why?”
Well, that stung. I reached for the door.
Noah sighed. “I can’t, Mara.”
“Why not?”
Noah set down the book he was reading and crossed the room. He stopped next to me but stared out the window. I followed his eyes.
I could see the ridiculously long hallway that led to my bedroom from here, and the three sets of French doors that spanned its length. The hall light was on, which made it nearly impossible to see anything outside. But if someone went inside, Noah wouldn’t miss it.
Was that why he didn’t come? “You can keep an eye out on my room from my bed too, you know,” I said.
Noah lifted his hand to my cheek; I wasn’t expecting it and my breath hitched. He then ran his thumb over my skin and under my jaw, tilting my face up, drawing my eyes to his.
“Your mother trusts me,” he said quietly.
A mischievous grin curved my mouth. “Exactly.”
“No, Mara, she trusts me. If I’m caught in your bed, I won’t be allowed to be here. Not like this. And I have to be here.”
I tensed, remembering words I said to him not even a week ago, before I knew that Jude was alive. Back when I was only afraid of myself.
“I want a boyfriend, not a babysitter.”
The circumstances had changed, but the sentiment hadn’t. “You don’t have to be here,” I said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“I want to be here.”
“Why?”
“I can’t let anything happen to you.”
I closed my eyes in frustration. Either Noah didn’t understand what I was trying to say, or he was ignoring it. “Should I go?” I asked.
His hand was still on my face, and his touch was impossibly soft. “You should.”
I wasn’t about to beg. I broke away from him and reached for the door.
“But don’t,” he said, right when I touched it.
I faced him and stepped back into the room. He pushed the door closed behind me. My back was against the wood and Noah was almost against me.
I went in search of Noah with every intention of just sleeping when I found him. But now the beat of my blood, of my wanting, transformed the air around us.
I was consumed by the slow lift of the corner of his mouth and the need to taste his smile. I wanted to dip my fingers under the hem of his shirt and explore the soft line of hair that disappeared into his jeans. To feel his skin under my teeth, his shadowed jaw on my neck.
But here, now, with him only inches from me, and nothing to stop us, I didn’t move.
“I want to kiss you,” I whispered instead.