Arrows (20 page)

“A lead arrow is out of the question.”

“Why?”

“It’s too risky! The assembly could easily run a report that shows her arrow is missing. You know her arrow has already been tracked.”

Then one of her dark eyebrows lifted. “Oh my God.” She carved her hands through her hair. “Wow. Really—wow. You think you’re in love with her, don’t you?”

Her knowing the truth was dangerous, but I felt more relaxed than I had in weeks, almost like I’d been subconsciously waiting for the moment when she would know. “I never expected any of this. It just happened.”

“Please. You don’t love her. You know that, right? It’s not like you’ve been shot.”

“I’ve never felt this way before.”

“Obviously. You’re human.”

“Tell Tek I’m waiting.”

She began to shake her head, then shoved by me and gripped the doorknob, her pale mouth a straight line. “Fix your mistake. Don’t ruin my life because you think you’re in love.” She kicked over the bow near the door. “You’ll need that, too.”

“If you want, you can take my chip.”

She was already gone, the door left open. I righted the bow and ran my finger along the silver wire, strong as steel.

I closed the door and sat against it. The golden arrow shimmered on the couch. The wrong arrow. The thought of leaving Karma with Danny, cheating and lying my way back home? That idea left me empty. Maybe that was the point. Maybe I was being punished for interfering with something far more powerful than an arrow’s venom…human love.

I set the arrow in my closet and slammed the door. Along the bottom, a strip of golden light emanated from within. I flung the door wide and snapped T-shirts from the hangers, bunching the cotton over the arrow to block its light. When I shut the door, the room was black.

The arrow, hidden.

But nothing could block it from my mind.

Day 58

The candles in the room flickered as I walked to the door.

“Welcome to my awesome place.” With a wave of my arm I stood back, smiling, and Karma seriously looked like she might burst with happiness.

“Wow,” she said. “You really went all out.” The door at the bottom of the stairs rattled from the wind. My apartment, which I’d scrubbed all day, wasn’t the worst dump in the world. At least by candlelight, it looked inviting. She held the baby carrier a few inches forward. “Nice to see you again, stranger.”

“It’s been a while, huh?”

“Two and a half weeks.” She watched me, like she was trying to figure out what was really going on.

“I’ve been busy.” I moved Nell to the middle of the room, making faces, which she loved. She was bundled up in pink from head to toe. “Planning to stay the night?” I joked, meaning the two bags and fuzzy blanket Karma had lugged through the door and piled next to the couch.

“Shut up,” Karma said.

I unstrapped Nell, which turned out to be a lot harder than it looked when Karma did it, and tried to hold on to her while wiggling her arms out of her coat. Her boots were pink with fur along the top. Ridiculous, but in a cute way, I guess. She kicked a lot, which made it almost impossible to remove them. “I think she grew since the last time I saw her.”

“Babies grow fast,” Karma said. “It smells good in here.” She glanced around. “How many candles do you
have
?”

“Candles?” Not my fault that tea lights came in packs of a hundred. “Oh, you know. Saves on electricity.”

“You might be crossing the line a little there.”

“Really? I can blow them out if you’re serious….”

I made no attempt, nor had any intention, of blowing them out. I remembered the way she’d looked by candlelight in Milwaukee.

Karma shrugged. “Go green, I guess.”

“Go green?”

“Never mind.”

She spread out the blanket and knelt beside Nell, who was frantically trying to move and talk at the same time, legs pumping, neck strained. Karma’s eyes caught the light, little golden sparks that burned in the center, shadows jumping across her face. “Do you need help with dinner?” she asked.

“I’m all good. Juliette helped me plan a few essentials.”

“Essentials? Like what?”

“A salad with lots of healthy, dancer-type stuff, and cheesy bread. She said the salad would impress you and the cheesy bread would be a guilty pleasure.”

“Oh my God, she said that?”

“She did.”

“I had no idea you talked to her about this.”

“Every man has his secrets.” I sat on the opposite side of the blanket, which felt really safe and really dangerous at the same time. Karma was wearing a tight black dress, leggings, and tall boots. She’d obviously done her hair, which was down, the curls prettier than normal, tendrils framing her face.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re beautiful,” I said.

“Oh. Thanks.” She stood and began wandering around the room. “Do you have any music?”

I dug my phone out of my pocket. “What are you in the mood for?”

“How about the Black Keys?”

“Okay.”

The timer went off on the stove at the same moment the drums kicked in.

“Let’s take this party to the table,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

The oven creaked open with a blast of heat, filling the air with the scent of butter and cheese. I fumbled to plate the salad, lost a few strawberries in the process, and rounded the corner with a pounding heart.

“For our first course,” I said, “a strawberry walnut salad with grilled chicken and a champagne vinaigrette.”

“Impressive.” She moved Nell beside her on the blanket, shaking a toy above her daughter’s outstretched hands. “That’s a pretty fancy salad.”

I sat in the chair across from her and stared until she took a bite. I leaned forward a little.

“Is it good?” I asked.

“So good.” She licked the tip of her fork. “I love salad.”

“That’s what Juliette said.” I sounded way too eager.

She chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed and set down her fork. “I’ve decided how I’m going to use the scholarship money if I get it.”

I twisted the end of my fork against the lettuce. “Oh?”

She reached for one of the glasses of water I’d set out. “There’s a dance program at the University of Southern Mississippi, which is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Danny’s school.”

“That seems far,” I said. “How are you going to take care of Nell all alone like that?”

“Two and a half hours is a lot better than twenty. Danny and I will still be able to see each other every weekend. If things
don’t
work out with the scholarship, maybe I can apply for a grant.” Her smile had definitely faded. “Or there’s always financial aid.”

“What about New York?”

She gave a little head shake. “That’s not going to work.”

“You haven’t cancelled your admission yet, have you?” If she waited until Tek got back to me, her plan would definitely change.

She smoothed her hair behind her ear. “It’s on my to-do list.”

“Is that really what you want? To be in Mississippi by yourself, no support, just so you’ll be eighteen hours closer to Danny?”

She stabbed the greens on her plate over and over. “Of course that’s what I want.”

“Is that what
he
wants?”

“He said he wanted us to go with him.” Her tone was verging on angry, which was how it always seemed whenever he was the topic of conversation.

While she shoved a forkful of salad into her mouth, I raised my glass. “Okay. To the future.” After a few seconds she lifted her glass.

“To the future.”

There was sadness where there should have been excitement. Our glasses clinked. We finished our first course to the welcome racket of the rock music. I really thought Tek would have come by now—that Phoebe would have talked to him, set things straight. I had to get that lead arrow before she called New York. I didn’t feel hungry, but I kept eating.

“So good,” she repeated when she was done. Then her eyes widened and she dug my bucket list out of one of the bags she’d brought. “We have to cross this off. Here, you do the honors.”

I drew a black line through the words, though I couldn’t stop thinking about how everything on the napkin had been an excuse to spend more time with her. Two and a half weeks apart. Too long. The list was already getting short. “Let me grab the second course.”

In the kitchen I lined up the plates until they were exactly straight and placed a piece of cheesy bread in the center for each of us. Before I rounded the corner, Nell had started to fuss.

“Oh, baby,” Karma crooned. She shook the toy and nodded at the plate I set before her. “I like my cheese a little brown on top, too.”

“I know.”

“You did not.”

I just smiled mysteriously. Nell broke out in a full-on fit.

“Little babe!” Karma patted her back and smelled her butt, which seemed to pass the test, but Nell wasn’t getting any happier. “I just fed her, but let me try again.”

A ten-minute ordeal of forcing a bottle into her mouth, having her choke and cry, Karma burping her, rocking her from one side of her body to the next—none of it worked.

“Let’s go for a walk, like in Milwaukee,” I suggested.

“Oh, no, that’s okay.”

Nell’s cry sounded madder by the second. “Let’s just try it,” I said, moving toward the door.

“I don’t want to.”

“She’ll love it.”

And then I saw the fear in her eyes.

“I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us,” Karma said. She was trying really hard to make the explanation sound normal.

“Doesn’t Danny know we had this planned?”

“No.” Her face was stricken, Nell screaming in her ear. “He’s with Dmitri.”

“Have you guys talked about Mississippi?”

“Of course we have.”

I paused. “Karma. I don’t mean to be a jerk, but I have to say something. You’re giving up your whole future for a guy you can’t even be real with.”

“If you want to be my friend, you have to stop doing that,” she said quietly.

“Doing what?”

“Talking bad about Danny. I love him, and it hurts when you say things like that. It makes being your friend really hard.”

“Then why are you even here?”

“Because I’m lonely!”

Nell stuffed her fist into her mouth, almost as if she was soothed by the sound of her mother’s outburst. Karma hugged her baby close. “I’m lonely, and I can’t stay away from you.”

I didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare erase the space between us.

Karma’s posture softened as she closed her eyes. “I don’t know why. I don’t even have an excuse, but I can’t stay away. You make me feel important, and happy, and I don’t know.”

“You are important to me.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I’m trying to get everything in place so I can come back to Lakefield. Remember?”

“I’m not even that nice to you.”

“You’re everything to me.”

She blinked and sighed the longest sigh possible. My pulse was racing, so it was a good thing when she tipped Nell onto her back in her arms. “She’s asleep.”

“Do you want to lay her down in my room for a while?”

“Do you have some pillows I can set up around her?”

I nodded and we tiptoed to my room.

The golden arrow was in the closet, hidden, of course, but still. Nell didn’t wake when Karma eased her onto my comforter, and we crept out of the room.

“Yes!” she exclaimed when we were back at the table. She smashed a high five against my hand. “Sometimes she’s impossible to put down, then all of a sudden she’s out.”

I closed my fingers around her hand. “Dance with me.” She started to pull away, but I held firm. “I know this is crossing the line.” We stood in the middle of the room, candles everywhere. “I want to dance with you alone, right now, no judges, no competitors. Just us.”

Karma hesitated. “You make it sound like this is our last dance or something. We still have to plan your going-away party. You’re coming back in what, three months?” We both seemed happier when she said it.

“We won’t be able to dance at the party.” I placed my other hand on her waist. “And it will be a while after that.”
Maybe never.

“I don’t know why you’re only moving for three months. That’s stupid.”

I held her hand high and she spun slowly. “You’ll have to trust me when I tell you that I don’t have a choice.”

“Are you a criminal?”

“No.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“Not really.” I swallowed, because I didn’t feel like lying to her about my past when she was so close to being in my arms.

“If things work out—will you come with me when I get my tattoo?” I asked.

“You’re not serious about that, are you?
Lakefield, Wisconsin?
”

“I never want to forget this place.” I released her long enough to switch the song to something slower. Acoustic folk. When I took her hand and waist and pressed her against me, the protest that had to be at the tip of her tongue wasn’t spoken. The music played, a love song, and for a while we just danced, touching where we could, me being careful not to cross the line any further than I already had. We understood each other when we danced. Our bodies just fit together.