Gabrielle (3 page)

And yet, apart from her obvious beauty, all most people saw were the red and purple streaks in her hair, the thick eyeliner under her eyes, and her general air of boredom.

I had barely slid into my seat next to hers when she said, “I'm in love.”

“Who is it this time?”

Missy had been “in love” a hundred times...and had rotten taste in guys.

She shook her head, her golden blonde hair with its unnaturally colorful streaks moving around her shoulders. “Seriously, Gabi, this time it's the real thing. He's the one.” She looked around the room as if she were trying to find someone, and lowered her voice. “His name is Dylan.”

Still thinking about what had happened in the practice room the previous afternoon—about
him
and all those strange sensations still swirling around in the bottom of my belly—I was only half listening as she said, “He's got this gorgeous dark hair that flips over one eye, these incredible soulful eyes, and I swear just the way he looked at me made me shiver. I can already tell that he's going to be incredible in bed.”

Her words finally registered. Not the part about sleeping with him. The dark hair part.

The soulful eyes.

“His breath smelled like mint,” I said before realizing I was speaking out loud.

Her pencil went still on her drawing pad as she turned her full focus on me. “You've met him?” More softly, suspicion ringing in the words, “And you know how he smells?”

I had always been unfailingly honest with myself. I knew that I was pretty, but that my small-boned frame and my black hair and green-blue eyes were not particularly remarkable in any way, just quintessentially French looking. Whereas Missy was stunning. Curvy with great hair and big green eyes, not to mention her wicked sense of humor. Her charisma shone through and made her more than just another gorgeous girl, no matter how average she worked to appear.

There would be no competition between Missy and me for Dylan.

Next to her—along with most of the other talented, beautiful girls at my school—I would not even be a blip on his radar.

Still, I couldn't help but repeat his name silently in my head.

Dylan.

His name fit him so well. I found myself tasting it on my lips a split second before I stopped myself from breathing it aloud.

No. What was the point? Perhaps he'd like to play piano with me again.

But he'd do everything else with Missy.

My stomach twisted as jealousy fought to take hold...and I fought to resist it.

I forced a shrug. “I met someone in the practice rooms yesterday. But he didn't tell me his name. It's probably not the same guy,” I fumbled, totally embarrassed by the fantasies I'd been building up about some out-of-my-league guy. And yet, even though odds were he was never going to come near me again, I couldn't help but hope that I was wrong.

Because I wanted to sit with him again at the piano. I wanted to hear him play and sing.

I wanted to feel that connection, wanted to be overwhelmed by it again.

The final bell rang just then and our teacher began his lecture. We were working on short stories and mine was about a normal girl who'd just learned that when she turned eighteen, she'd inherit a legacy of extraordinary powers. I hadn't yet decided what her extraordinary powers were, but I did know that my protagonist was going to be completely confused by the unexpected

“gifts” she'd been given.

I was pulling my English notebook out of my backpack when the class suddenly went quiet and I knew without looking up who had walked into the room.

Dylan.

His eyes locked with mine for split second before he looked away. He handed a slip of paper to the teacher, then grabbed the nearest open seat. My heart was pounding hard. He looked even better this morning than he had in the practice room.

The seconds had never clicked by so slowly as I waited for class to end, waited to see if he would come over to me, waited to see if what I'd felt in the practice room had been real or just my imagination on overdrive.

Finally, the bell rang, and I could feel Missy's eyes on me as I slowly closed my notebook, slipped it into my bag, and stood up. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dylan getting up, too, and heading for the door.

Away from me.

All around me, people were getting up and going to their classes, but I just stood there in the middle of the classroom and stared at his empty seat.

“We need to talk,” Missy said as she pulled me out of the room and into the hall. “I've got a test I can't miss next period, but I'm hunting you down at lunch.”

I'm not sure what went on in my classes before lunch. I was there, but not. On autopilot, at lunch I walked into the cafeteria and grabbed a smoothie off the counter. Missy grabbed me from behind.

“Dylan was in my chemistry class too,” she said. “And can we talk about the way he looked at you this morning?”

We sat down at our usual table by the window. I couldn't let my hopes rise again. It hurt way too bad when they were smashed into the ground.

“He was just scanning the room,” I told her.

“No,” she insisted. “It was like he hit you with a laser beam.”

Not that I didn't completely appreciate the idea that he might have looked at me like I was special, but at the same time I was confused. “I thought you said that you were in love with him.”

She snorted. “Just a figure of speech. When I meant was that he's hot.”

Only Missy would think of love as a nothing, meaningless word.

Right then, he walked in. Again, his eyes locked immediately with mine and held them.

Before I could help it, blind, pathetic hope swelled in my chest and I was just about to raise my hand to wave, my mouth opening on a silent
Hi
, when a couple of pretty juniors behind him said something and giggled. He grabbed some food and sat down with them.

Not me.

“Harsh,” Missy breathed.

It took me less than ten seconds to decide I wasn't going to sit there and feel bad again.

So he was going to act like we'd never played that Metallica song together.

Fine.

Telling myself the only thing I was really mad about was that I felt like he'd stolen my secret music refuge—and that it wouldn't be the same to play that song now, not when his phantom presence would be in the room with me—I stood up and threw away my still full drink.

“Whatever.”

Missy looked longingly at her completely intact veggie burger, then tossed it and followed me out of the cafeteria.

“You're too good for him anyway.” Missy grabbed my arm. “Wanna go splatter paint in the art loft?”

Perfect. That way I'd have a physical representation of the way my guts felt.

A week later, the practice room door opened. “I've got to get out of here. Come with me.”

I looked up at Dylan in surprise. He hadn't said a word to me in class or the cafeteria, had acted like those precious minutes at the piano had never happened. I'd been left feeling foolish.

Stupid.

Raw.

But now that he was only feet away, I simply stared at him, my heart jumping as I drank in the beautiful lines of his face. I'd dreamed of him, the barriers I'd erected falling with sleep, but my imagination had not done him justice. He was a hundred times more potent here, in the doorway, staring down at me.

I'd locked the door again—not because I was playing anything I shouldn't be, just because—but he'd obviously picked it.

Again.

The words, “You've got a thing for breaking and entering, don't you?” came rushing out, dripping with sarcasm and the anger I couldn't seem to repress no matter how hard I tried.

His brows came down farther over his eyes, his face darkening as he stared at me. “Only when you're in the room.”

I was shocked that he'd come here for me, surprised that just any girl at a piano wouldn't do when that's the way he'd acted so far.

“Come with me,” he said again.

Part of me wanted to leap off the piano bench and go wherever he wanted to take me. But I had a student-teacher conference coming early the next morning and desperately needed to make some headway on at least one song this afternoon.

Still, that wasn't really the reason why I hesitated. He'd barely said two words to me until now, but now that he wanted my company, he expected me to come alive and jump to do his bidding?

Frankly, the woman in me that my grandmother had molded from a little girl, the one who demanded respect and courtesy from people, didn't like that at all. Which was why I made no move to gather my notes or stand up.

I hated how I'd felt all week. And it wasn't even as if he'd slept with me and dropped me cold, something that happened to girls every day at my school. We'd only played a song together and the aftermath of that closeness had been enough to crush me.

I could hear my grandmother's voice in my head:
Chin up, ma petite. Shoulders back.

Proud. LeGrandes are always proud.

I waited for him to figure out why I wasn't going with him, and as the silence between us grew, I expected him to walk away. After all, he had given me my chance, hadn't he? There were plenty of other girls waiting in the wings. Girls who would gladly take off their clothes. Girls who would get on their knees before him without even blinking an eye.

Despite my grandmother's past—or maybe because of it—she had always cautioned me not to sell myself too cheaply. In my mind, she reminded me that I had watched dozens of girls—prettier, sexier, far more exotic girls than me—throw themselves at this boy during the past week without making any impact at all. This was the first time we'd been alone since that afternoon in the practice room at the piano. Since then, he'd always been surrounded by a group of giggling, posing admirers.

Remembering all of this, I decided that if he couldn't figure out what I was waiting for, then he didn't deserve all of these stupid things I was feeling.

With a small, disappointed shake of my head, I turned back to the piano. I had just laid my fingers back on the keys when one word drifted softly into the room.

“Please.”

Beyond glad that he had figured it out, forcing myself not to rush, I gathered up my music pages and lyrics and slipped them into my shoulder bag. But before I could sling it over my shoulder, he picked it up.

A gentleman always carries a lady's things.
Another one of my grandmother's lessons.

He held the door open for me as I passed through and I smiled again. He'd just passed another test.

He was silent as we walked, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, his head down.

“How was your first week?” I asked.

“Okay.”

I'd never felt this awkward around a guy before, like the me I knew had been replaced by some blank-brained stranger. And I didn't like it. Just as I didn't like the idea that he'd sought me out and pulled me away from my work just to play games with me.

Which was why the words, “Why have you been acting so weird around me?” fell out of my mouth.

The light turned green and I walked quickly across the street, leaving him standing on the curb behind me, glad for the chance to steady myself after asking the embarrassing question. I waited on the other side of the street for him as he ran to beat the red, a taxi taking the corner close to his heels.

“I don't hang with girls like you,” he said, his voice gruff as we walked into the park, past a troupe of teenage jugglers.

His thrown-out g
irls like you
stung, but I refused to let him hurt my feelings. I didn't even know him. I didn't need to know him. Seven days ago he hadn't existed. There was no reason I couldn't turn back time in my head.

In my heart.

“I've got to get back,” I said, but then I realized he was still carrying my things. “Could I have my bag?”

He didn't give it to me. Instead he said, “I'm blowing this,” and then his hand was on mine and he was pulling me into him. I felt completely off balance, both inside and out as he held me there in front of him.

“I tried to stay away from you.”

I was utterly confused, not only by the idea that he'd wanted to keep his distance, but that it had been impossible.

Of course, deep inside, I understood. The strong pull I had felt was not one-sided.

“Why?”

“You and me. We don't belong together. But all week I've thought about you,” he said in a low voice.

At the same time that he was telling me how wrong I was for him, he was taking me down the stairs of the subway station. He didn't tell me where we were going and I didn't ask, just kept replaying
All week I've thought about you
over and over in my head in the crowded car.

Ten minutes later he was pulling me back up the stairs at a station I'd always passed.

“Where are we?”

“Some place I think you'll like.” And then he was opening the door to a small store stuffed floor to ceiling with old records.

My heart skipped a beat. Honestly, it felt like it did. I loved the musty smell, the way customers were standing in front of turntables with headphones on and blissful expressions.

“There's nothing quite like hearing the classics on vinyl,” he said by way of explanation.

“Even if you don't have a record player at home, I figured you'd like listening here.”

I wanted to throw my arms around him, tell him he'd just done the nicest thing any guy had ever done for me. He guided me over to M and slipped an album into my hand, the one that had the song we'd played together.

Our song
.

Time melted away as I put on one record and then another. Dylan moved through the store listening to everything from jazz to rock to classical and I couldn't help but think that he was even more beautiful than I'd previously thought. Because he'd paid attention to what I liked