Rebel Belle (23 page)

The gravel and shells crunched under Ryan’s tires as he pulled the car up to Magnolia House. My heart thumped steadily in my chest as I stared at his headlights. How many times had I looked at this house and thought it was the prettiest place in the world? How many times had I pictured myself living there, sweeping down those wide front stairs in a Scarlett O’Hara gown?

Now staring at it, all I could think was that not only would I never live in Magnolia House, but that I might actually die there. Tonight. I tugged at my gloves. They were damp and wrinkled, and I realized my palms were sweating.

I was so busy fiddling with the row of pearl buttons, trying to get the stupid gloves off, that I didn’t notice Ryan watching me until he reached out and began undoing the buttons himself.

“Here,” he said softly. His fingers were surprisingly gentle as they pulled the buttons through their little loops, and for the first time in a long time, something swelled in my chest as I watched him. It wasn’t love. Or at least, it wasn’t the boyfriend kind of love. But it was warmth and affection and this . . . I don’t know, gratitude.

Ryan was a good guy. He always had been. Once he’d finished half the row, he tugged at each finger until the glove slid off my hand. “Thanks,” I said as he handed it back to me. One hand free, I went to work on the other glove myself, even though I could feel his gaze like an actual weight on the curve of my neck.

“We’re done, aren’t we?” he asked. I raised my head, the left glove still half on, half off.
For a second, I thought about pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe if I smiled at him and made a joke about the gloves, I could stop this from happening. But did I want to? Was there room for Ryan in my life—short as it might be—now?
I knew there wasn’t.
But even more, I wasn’t sure there had ever been room for Ryan. Not really. Not the way he deserved. Still, I couldn’t make myself say anything.
Ryan wasn’t stupid. He knew what my silence meant. His throat worked, and his eyes were shiny. “Well, we had a good run of it,” he said, broad shoulders shrugging inside his tux jacket. He looked the handsomest I’d ever seen him, like he was meant to wear formal wear every day of his life.
I laughed, but it sounded sad. “You make it sound like we’re getting divorced.”
He laughed too, dashing at his face with the back of his arm. “Hey, we’ve been together nearly our entire high school lives. That’s, like, twice the length of a lot of marriages.”
Smiling, I reached out and took his hand. “I love you, Ry.”
Sniffing, he nodded toward the house. “I know that. But I’m not an idiot, Harper. There’s someone in there you wanna be with more than you wanna be with me.”
I actually recoiled at that. “W-what are you talking about?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Harper, you and David Stark have been circling each other since kindergarten.”
My mouth suddenly felt dry, and I busied myself taking off my glove. “David and I . . . maybe we have ended up being friends after all, and I guess we have some stuff in common—”
“He gets you, Harper. That way you throw yourself into everything you do, he does that, too. And he’s a walking encyclopedia like you, and I bet he doesn’t even play video games—”
“I like
War Metal 4
,” I insisted, but Ryan shook his head.
“It’s okay, Harper. I actually feel kind of . . . good. You know, doing the noble thing, stepping aside in the face of True Love . . .”
He was trying to joke, but my throat suddenly went tight. If Ryan had any idea what was really going on between me and David, that it was so much more complicated and so much worse.
“Ryan,” I said feebly, but he shook his head.
“It’s okay,” he repeated even though he sounded a million miles from “okay.” “Just go.”
I felt like there was more I should say. We might have only been together for two years, but Ryan had been a huge part of my life.
But in the end, I just nodded again. It was better like this. So with one last little wave, I got out of the car and walked into the house.
Saylor was hanging her coat in the front closet when I walked in. “Where are your gloves?”
I stared at her. “Seriously?”
She rolled her eyes, exasperated. “You sound like David. And while I know there are—” she glanced around us—“more pressing matters at hand right now, it’s still important that you look the part. Now I’ll ask you again, where are your gloves?”
Adrenaline had made me jittery, and my hand shook slightly as I gestured back out the door. “I left them in Ryan’s car.”
Saylor lifted an eyebrow. “And is Mr. Bradshaw coming inside?”
“I-I don’t think so. We broke up.”
Closing her eyes, Saylor rolled her lips inward. “Was tonight the best time for that?”
Anger flared up in me. “I don’t know. I’m not sure there is a best time for your boyfriend to dump you.”
“You and Ryan broke up?”
Bee had just walked in the front door, Brandon a few steps behind her.
“Kind of?” I said before shaking my head. “No, not kind of. We broke up, yes.”
I don’t know what kind of expression people make after they’ve watched a puppy get stomped, but it had nothing on Bee’s face in that moment. “Right before Cotillion?” she asked, shocked. “You broke up with your boyfriend half an hour before the most important night of your life?”
Taking a deep breath, I picked up the hem of my dress, moving closer to Bee. “First off, this is not the most important night of our lives. There are going to be lots of important nights. And secondly, he actually broke up with me, and it’s . . . it’s okay.”
“It’s so not okay,” Bee said, her dark eyes watery. “You can’t possibly be okay. Harper—”
Behind me, I could hear the kitchen door opening. A couple of men in black pants and white shirts came through, carrying a small table between them.
I met Saylor’s gaze. The cater waiters. They didn’t seem particularly assassin-like, and they weren’t even looking in this direction. But then, Dr. DuPont hadn’t seemed scary either until he’d had a scimitar at my neck.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I told Bee as there was another bustle from the kitchen. The door swung open again, and this time, my Aunts Martha and May swooped in. May was carrying a giant silver punch bowl, while Martha had a ladle tucked under her arm.
“I am older than you, Martha,” May insisted. “It is not right that you’re making me carry this all by my lonesome.”
“You are two minutes older,” Martha replied, “and that punch bowl hardly weighs a thing. Besides, Mother left it to you, so it’s
your
responsibility to carry it.”
May grumbled at that, but then Martha saw me, raising the ladle in greeting. “Oh, Harper! You look so pretty! May, doesn’t Harper look pretty?”
“I can’t see her over this stupid bowl,” May muttered, staggering toward the table the waiters had set up.
Despite everything pressing down on me, I laughed. “Where’s Aunt Jewel?”
“She’s wheeling the cooler of punch in,” Aunt May said, finally getting the bowl situated in the center of the table.
Right. The punch. I thought again of David’s vision, the wave of bright red washing over everything. “Where’s David?” I asked Saylor, and she nodded upstairs.
Maybe he had some valuable, punch-y insights.
Bee was still standing in the doorway, her arms folded. “Why do you need to see David?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Thankfully, Saylor covered for me. “With Mr. Bradshaw and Harper’s sudden and unfortunate situation, Harper will need an escort. I always bring David as a spare just in case these things happen.”
It was probably the last thing Bee wanted to hear, but at least it made sense. I turned away before I could see her scowl, and headed up the stairs to David.

When I walked into the bedroom, David was standing in front of the window. His tux jacket lay crumpled on the bed, and his bow tie hung around his neck. From the look of his hair, he’d been pulling at it, and one hand was in his pocket, jangling some loose change.

“Nervous?” I asked, and he spun around.
“Are you—” he said, and then he saw me. “Oh. Wow.” I’d had that reaction from a lot of people. Mom, Ryan, the 
salesgirl at the bridal shop. But hearing
David
say it, seeing
David’s
 eyes go wide, made me suddenly self-conscious. I had to stop myself from twisting the silk skirt in my hands, and Ryan’s words rang in my head.

Harper, you and David Stark have been circling each other since kindergarten.
And maybe we had. But it’s not like any of it mattered anymore.
So I put my shoulders back and walked over to David. “You’ve seen the dress before.”
“It looks different tonight—” David said, but I just kept talking.
“Any sign of . . . well, anything?”
Shoving his hands back in his pockets, David turned to look out the window. “No. But . . . I can feel it. She’s here. Or close by.”
I could feel it, too. An awareness shivered along my skin, like I was being watched. For all I knew, Blythe was already in the house, waiting around a corner.
“Do you want to see if you can have a vision?” I asked, offering him my hand. He took it, but this time, there was no spark, no frisson of electricity. His hand was warm and soft in mine and he absentmindedly ran a thumb over my knuckles. Now there
was
a spark, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with our powers. Still, I’d had a boyfriend up until about ten minutes ago, and things were way too screwed up to start pulling romance into it now.
And added to the fact that I might have to kill David one day . . .
I pulled my hand back from his, moving a little bit away. “Well, speaking of visions, the one you had with me and Saylor. Do you remember all the red in it?”
He screwed up his face, thinking. “Yeah. A bunch of red stuff, really bright. At first I thought it was blood, but it’s the wrong color.”
Leaning against the giant four-poster bed, I clasped my hands behind my back. “Can I say something insane?”
Snorting, David turned his gaze back out the window. “Tonight would be the night for it.”
“I think . . . I think it’s my aunt’s punch. In the vision.”
David frowned. “That sugary stuff that makes your brain hurt? I . . . yeah, I guess it was that color red.”
“Do you think it means anything?” I asked, looking out the window with him. More cars were pulling up now, and I could hear the soft murmur of voices as people began milling around downstairs. Soon all the girls would come up here to huddle together in one of the other bedrooms, waiting for Cotillion to start. Would Blythe wait, too?
“I doubt it,” David said, and at first, I thought I’d spoken my question out loud. But no, he was talking about the punch. “If shit goes down, it seems likely the punch will spill, right?”
I didn’t want to think about shit going down, people running and screaming, my aunts’ punch sloshing to the floor.
“Ryan isn’t coming,” I told David. His head jerked up, but I didn’t elaborate. “So you’ll have to escort me. Which is probably for the best since it’ll keep me close to you for . . . whatever.”
“Right,” he said, and then his lips lifted in something close to a smile. “Whoever would’ve thought we’d end up going to Cotillion together?”
I smiled back. “That?
That’s
what’s bothering you about this night?”
His laugh was low and husky, but nice, and I suddenly wished I’d spent more time getting to know David instead of always competing with him. Somehow, in these past six weeks, we’d become friends. It might’ve been nice to have him as a friend all along.
I heard the discordant sounds of the band starting up somewhere downstairs, and I glanced at the delicate silver and diamond watch around my wrist. “Damn,” I muttered. “I guess it’s time to get started.”
David started pacing again, hands still in his pockets, practically vibrating with nervous energy. I remembered when that used to annoy me. Now, all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay. I wanted to rest my cheek against his collarbone, and have him tell
me
we were going to get through this. But the music was getting louder now, turning into a recognizable song.
“I’m going to go see where the other girls are and check things out one last time,” I told him. “Escorts need to start lining up on the stairs in—” I checked my watch again—“about ten minutes.”
David stopped pacing, dropping his head into his hands with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “God, what is the point of being able to see the future if you can’t actually
see the future
? I keep . . . it’s like digging through sand. I can’t see anything,”
“Hey,” I said, pulling one of his arms down. “It’s okay. You know what Saylor said. The closer you get to eighteen, the clearer the visions are going to get.”
He looked at me, eyes wild. “Harper, I saw you die. I saw you in that dress, bleeding to death on those stairs.” He pointed viciously out the door. “So don’t tell me it’s going to be okay.”
I swallowed hard. “Saylor said not every single one of your visions comes true. This one won’t. I won’t let it.”
I must’ve sounded braver than I felt because David gave me a tiny smile. “You would be too stubborn to die.”
“I am, trust me.”
We stood there, staring at each other. I didn’t even realize we were holding hands until I turned to go and had to disentangle myself.
I was already to the door when he called, “Harper.”
“Wha—” was as far as I got, because in a few long strides, David crossed the room and pulled me into his arms. I was so stunned that it hardly even registered that he was kissing me until . . . oh.
Oh
.
This kiss didn’t make my stomach flutter; it made my skin sing. It made me raise myself up on tiptoes so I could kiss him back harder. It made me want to kiss him anytime, anyplace, even if we were in the middle of Main Street.
I tangled my fingers in his hair, and his hands gripped the silk around my waist before sliding around my back, holding me so tightly that it should have hurt. But it didn’t, not even the littlest bit.
When we broke apart, we stared at each other, dazed and breathing hard. “I just . . .” He took three more quick breaths. “I needed to know.”
“Oh, God,” was all I could manage to say. This was what was between me and David Stark? This was what seventeen years of snarking and fighting and competing had been covering up?
His eyes dropped to my lips. “I think we should do it again, though. To be sure.”
He barely got the last word out before I was pulling his mouth back down to mine. Any idea I’d had that maybe it had been the shock, or the fact that it was my first kiss with someone who wasn’t Ryan since ninth grade, flew right out the window.
This time, I nearly shoved him away when the kiss ended. “This,” I panted, pressing a hand to my abdomen, “is really inconvenient right now. We— No!”
David had been moving closer to me, but froze as I held up my other hand. “Okay, so now we know. And we will deal with that later. Provided we don’t die.”
He shook his head, like he was trying to clear it. “Now that I know, I really, really don’t want to die.”
The smile that broke out over my face had to be the goofiest, giddiest thing ever, and I quickly tried to suppress it. Tonight was about being a stoic superhero type, not a flustered teenage girl. I cleared my throat. “Me neither. So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, okay?”
He took another step closer, but I was already moving toward the door. “Wait here until it’s time to go to the stairs. Keep an eye out for Blythe, and . . . stay.”
And then I made myself walk out of the room. Shutting the door firmly behind me, I leaned back against it and blew out a long breath. This was absolutely the last thing I needed. I had been single for all of fifteen minutes, I had an insane tiny witch person trying to kill me, and she was going to attempt a spell that might take David away from me for good. Now was not the time to feel all swoony and weak of knee.
Still, I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked onto the landing, peering down at the room below. It was nearly full now, and I noticed nearly everyone had a cup of Aunt Jewel’s punch. It was the weirdest thing to me how everyone openly acknowledged that it was terrible, but kept drinking it anyway. Manners in action, I guess.
Scanning the crowd, I looked for anyone who seemed out of place, but these were almost all faces I recognized. There was no sign of Blythe, no sign of anything out of the ordinary.
“Harper?”
Miss Annemarie stood at the top of the stairs, an empty punch cup in her hands, a faint pinkish mustache on her upper lip.
“Miss Annemarie,” I said, straightening up. “What are you doing up here?”
She placed her cup on the little marble-topped table on the landing. Downstairs, I could hear the string quartet playing something stately and elegant. “Looking for the little girls’ room. The one downstairs has a line you wouldn’t believe. “
There was a small powder room off the main landing, and I walked towards it. “It’s right here,” I told her, opening the door.
“Oh, goody,” Miss Annemarie said. And then with a shove way harder than any octogenarian should be able to give, she pushed me inside.