He was taken aback by the question—looked almost indignant about it, really, which lightened my mood for some reason.
I said, “You don’t even know what to apologize for.”
I turned to go, and he stopped me with a soft, “Wait.”
I met his gaze again, determined not to let him off the hook, though my anger somehow managed to evaporate for no good reason at all.
He dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out his pack of cigarettes, then thrust them back in and sighed. “It’s for whatever it was I saw in your eyes before you left me at the church. I’m not sorry for saying what was obviously correct, but I am sorry for causing that.”
I stared him down until he was forced to look away, which would have made me smile on any other night. How he managed to insist on his own rightness and still make me feel better, I’d never have been able to say. But he looked so handsome standing there with his hands in his pockets, his eyes open to the sky, as if the very air held answers to the question of me. I couldn’t help myself. I grasped the lapels of his wool coat and drew him down so I could press a soft, chaste kiss. His struggling to free his hands made me smile against his lips. But I spun out of reach before he could hold me in place.
“What . . . ?”
I must admit watching the great mind of Sherlock Holmes struggle to ask even a single question was perhaps the best part of that wretched day. Other than the kiss itself. I caught my fingers touching my lips and turned my back to him, looking over my shoulder briefly to say, “Looked like you needed a distraction.”
I walked across the lawn to the lit-up path. Listening to his hurried steps as he scrambled to catch up with me was definitely the second-best part.
Chapter 8
I had too much in my head when I went to sleep that night, and spent most of Sunday staring at the picture of Mr. Patel and Mum. I took time between homework assignments to memorize the minutiae of the background until I was sure I’d know the room they were in were I to walk into it by accident, regardless of any changes to the decor. I’d been reduced to naming the people by appearance to keep them in my head. There were seven in all—Mr. Patel, my mother, the Blue-Haired Girl, the Man in Green, Striped Man, Mustache Man, and the man with his arm around my mom, whom I called Stepdad.
When I finally went to bed Sunday night, my sleep was troubled. Each member of the snapshot played a part in my dreams, leading me down paths, promising to reveal their identities if we could just get to the paths’ mythical end. I woke with the quest at the forefront of my thoughts and was so distracted, I washed my hair three times and only realized I’d forgotten to put on makeup entirely when I was most of the way to school.
It wasn’t like me at all to have flitting thoughts. I was out of control. Off plan. I should’ve told Sherlock I wasn’t interested in his little crime the very minute I discovered my mother’s picture at the funeral. I should’ve placed the photo in my little box of my mother’s things and left it for after school—after I’d graduated and escaped Baker Street and all that held me there. After I’d discovered a way to take my brothers with me.
But I couldn’t quit. Not now. The closeness of Lily’s dad’s murder had made the crime interesting to me. The photo brought it even closer, made solving it feel like an opportunity to discover another one of Mum’s secrets. That it also was an opportunity to get lost in the confusing mire that was Sherlock Holmes? I couldn’t let that stop me.
I took a deep breath and grabbed my book for maths, shoving it into the messenger bag at my hip. Then I stood, perplexed, staring at my locker and wondering where my book for maths had escaped to.
Sherlock appeared at my side so suddenly, I half expected a soft puff of smoke to surround him. “Morning,” he said, his lips jerking into a grin like a nervous tic. Without warning, he pushed his face too close to mine.
I fell into my locker door to escape him, so that the edges dug into my back. “What are you doing?”
That was apparently not the answer Sherlock expected. I could almost see his mind racing for some possible context. It took only a second or so for him to snap back, “Kissing you.”
“You can’t just walk up and kiss someone like that.” He was still too close, so I sidestepped to put more space between us and then slammed shut the locker door.
His confusion elongated his face. “But I thought—”
“Thought what?” Admittedly, my tone was angrier than I felt.
Sherlock scowled and turned so that it looked like he would just walk away, but at the last moment he turned back, pointed a finger at me, and said, “You did.”
He was right. I had. And in some fool moment, I’d even meant it. But I wasn’t about to start up some dumb teen fling. Not now. I had too much else to do.
“It was just a kiss. God, Lock. You’re like a kid sometimes.”
“A kid,” he echoed.