Starcrossed (46 page)

“Thank you, dear. I’m just happy you’re home safe and that everything has, ah, worked out.” Clearly she knew about my compromise, but she managed not to look at all smug about it, unlike Sean.

Even better, she then promised to help convince my aunt to loosen up my restriction so I could spend more time with Rigel “as a friend.” Startled and pleased, I thanked her profusely, then haltingly proposed we tell the
Echtran
community Rigel was my personal bodyguard, to explain him staying close to me. It was an idea Rigel had come up with while walking me home, though of course I didn’t say that.

Mrs. O nodded after only a moment’s hesitation, surprising me again. “That’s actually quite a clever plan, dear. Particularly since everyone already knows about the role he and his family played in protecting you from Faxon’s forces.”
 

Molly sighed and murmured that it sounded terribly romantic. Though Sean scowled, it gave me hope that Molly, at least, would be a willing ally in helping me get some private time with Rigel.
 

Maybe this compromise thing wouldn’t be so bad after all.

fedhmiu
(FEY-mew):
implementation; application

The next day Sean joined Rigel and me on the way to lunch, deftly inserting himself between us. “So, guess we all need to figure out how this new compromise is going to work in practice, huh? I heard they might be putting hidden cameras in the halls and cafeteria and stuff, so we should all start playing our parts.” He reached for my hand.

Interestingly, the tingle wasn’t nearly as strong with Rigel right next to me as it had been at Thanksgiving, when I was seriously Rigel-deprived. Rigel, not surprisingly, started scowling.

“If we want it to be at
all
believable,” I said, easing my hand out of Sean’s, “it should be gradual, don’t you think? How about we all just act like friends for a while first?”

Now it was Sean’s turn to frown. “That doesn’t sound like what you told . . .
them
. Is it?”

I swallowed. Unfortunately, he was right—again. The Council was watching me now, whether with cameras or the spies they already had in place, and would know if I went back on my word. I’d promised them I’d make it look like I was with Sean, and now I had to follow through. Putting it off wouldn’t make it any easier.

“Okay, fine,” I snapped, making no effort to hide my irritation. Those stupid cameras weren’t up yet. “But there’s no way I’m staying completely away from Rigel, even at school. He’s supposedly my bodyguard now, remember? So you guys will have to work really hard to make it look like you’re friends.”

Neither Sean nor Rigel seemed to like that idea much, but after a moment they both grudgingly nodded.
 

For the first time in ages, they both sat at the same lunch table, one on either side of me. They did a surprisingly good job of acting like friends, too, talking about sports across me, with Bri offering frequent opinions from her side of the table. Their former animosity was so well concealed that I only felt the occasional stab of jealousy from Rigel.
 

Then, without warning, Sean turned to me and said, like it was the most natural thing in the world, “So, M, winter formal? What do you say? Will you be my date?”

Of course that stopped all conversation cold, every single head at our table whipping around to stare at us.
 

Biting back my instinctive refusal, I hesitated, trapped by Sean’s bright blue gaze while Rigel’s stunned fury mounted from my other side.
 

Crap! What should I do?
I thought desperately at him.
 

Immediately, I could feel him struggling to control the anger and jealousy that had exploded at Sean’s invitation.
Dammit! I don’t know. Why did he have to—?
He hesitated for a long moment while he continued to rein in his feelings, then slowly responded,
I think you have to say yes, M. You did make a deal. Sorry. I’ll . . . try to behave.

“Um, sure, Sean, I guess so,” I finally stammered after what had to be the longest, most awkward pause in history. “Thanks.” I even managed a pathetic attempt at a smile.

The staring didn’t stop. “Whoa,” Bri breathed, looking from Sean, to Rigel, to me, over and over. I wondered what she saw on Rigel’s face, but didn’t dare glance at him. Up and down the table there was muttering, the gist of which was, “Didn’t see
that
coming.”

Molly, sitting next to Bri, looked only slightly less startled and a lot more concerned. “Rigel?” she said tentatively.

“Hey, it’s fine,” he said almost jovially, in stark contrast to the emotions rolling off him in gradually diminishing waves. “Actually . . . do you have a date yet, Molly?”

Her eyes got wide. “Oh! Um, not—I mean, I sort of half-promised, but—”

“Wanna go with me?”

Her eyes got wider.

“You know, as friends?” he added.

At those words, Molly’s panicked confusion gave way to a smile. “Friends? Sure, Rigel, that would be great. Maybe we can all, um, ride together?” She looked at her brother and me.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” I said before Sean could refuse. Not that he necessarily would have, but I wasn’t taking chances. “We’ll all go together. As friends.”

Sean quirked an eyebrow at me, clearly not as pleased by my amendment as Molly had been by Rigel’s, but he didn’t dispute it. “Sounds great.”

Rigel and Sean both sat at my lunch table every day after that, and though they couldn’t completely resist occasional minor sniping at each other, they mostly acted pretty civil. Molly and Deb were clearly delighted. Bri occasionally pouted a bit because Sean no longer flirted with her, but with so many football
and
basketball players regularly vying for her and Deb’s—and Molly’s—attention, she couldn’t be
too
upset.
 

I found it easier and easier to pretend we were just one big circle of friends, even if I had to silently reassure Rigel about a dozen times a day that the new closeness between Sean and me was still strictly for show. Our table quickly became the most popular in the lunchroom, and I couldn’t help gloating a bit when I caught occasional glimpses of Trina’s jealous face.

Now that I was supposedly going out with Sean instead of Rigel, Aunt Theresa finally caved about my restriction, helped along by Mrs. O’s “persuasion”—and my own. Rigel started coming over to the O’Garas’ house some evenings, where he was allowed to sit next to me and even hold my hand while we studied and talked—something we could no longer do at school. It was always a wonderful relief, no matter how much Sean glowered.

One afternoon all four of us even went to Dream Cream together, just like I’d once fantasized back when Sean and Molly first arrived in Jewel—except that I had to sit next to Sean, with Rigel and Molly across the table from us. At least Rigel and I were able to carry on our own silent conversation during the lulls in the spoken one.

So while things weren’t ideal, they weren’t nearly as bad as I’d feared when I’d first made my compromise with the Council.

Even so, the winter formal was awkward.

Rigel’s parents had volunteered to chaperone, so they drove the four of us to the dance. They knew all about the compromise and why I’d made it, which was good, since otherwise they’d probably hate me for what I was doing to Rigel.

“Emileia has to be home by eleven,” Dr. Stuart reminded us before we parted at the gym doors, “so we’ll meet back here at a quarter till. Have fun.”

We all headed into the gym, which was festooned with paper snowflakes for the occasion. Fittingly, Jewel’s first real snowfall of the winter was predicted to start later that evening.
 

You look amazing,
Rigel thought to me for at least the third time since he’d seen me in my “new” (another of Bri’s castoffs) electric blue sheath. It fitted me well, especially since I’d filled out a tiny bit in the right places over the past couple of months.

Ditto,
I thought back with a grin. Rigel was heart-stoppingly gorgeous in his black three-piece suit. I was irresistibly reminded of Homecoming, my last (and first) dance with a date: Rigel. Everything had seemed absolutely perfect then, the bad guys vanquished and any Sovereign duties still comfortably far in the future. What a difference a couple of months had made.

“So, dance?” Sean asked, looking down at me with almost as much admiration in his eyes as I felt from Rigel.
 

It was a fast song, so I had no qualms about agreeing. Rigel and Molly hit the floor nearby, and a moment later Bri and Deb and their dates joined our circle, all of us exchanging compliments along with greetings.

By the end of the song I was feeling much less weird about the whole “first date with Sean” thing . . . but then a slow one started.
 

Even as I tensed, Sean put his arms around me with a grin I was sure would make Rigel want to punch him.

Yeah, but I won’t. I don’t think.

I resisted the urge to look around at Rigel’s thought, instead murmuring to Sean, “Don’t overdo it, okay?”

“C’mon,” he said, still grinning as he moved me in time to the music. “It’s me.”

“Exactly.” I tried to force myself to relax again.
 

Though now and then I felt one of his hands slide an inch or two up and down my back, Sean was a gentleman, never straying into questionable territory. As for me, I kept one hand totally motionless on his shoulder, the other on his upper arm.
 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Sean murmured when the song ended.
 

I rewarded him with a grudging smile. “I guess not. Thanks.”

Several fast dances followed. Since it was common knowledge Molly and Rigel had come as friends, she was soon asked to dance by various upperclassmen and we barely saw her again. The rest of us swapped off occasionally, too, Rigel, partnering mostly cheerleaders—including Trina, once—as well as a dance each with Bri and Deb. More than an hour into the formal, he came up to me as I finished a dance with Jimmy Franklin.

“Just one, you think?” he asked softly.

I glanced at Sean, talking easily with Amber, the cheerleader he’d just danced with. “Sure. I don’t think one dance counts as cheating, do you?”

His smile answered me just as another slow number started. Though it was bound to piss off Sean, I went ahead and put my hands on Rigel’s shoulders as his went around my waist.
We just can’t get carried away,
I thought to him,
as much as I wish we could.

Got it. You feel incredible, though, M. I love you so much!

We spent the dance carefully
not
clinging to each other while we exchanged increasingly passionate thoughts, so that when the music stopped, I was flushed despite our (physical) restraint.

As expected, Sean was frowning when came up to us a second later. “Had to be a slow one, huh?”

“We didn’t plan it that way,” I told him. “Anyway, it’s over now.”

Another slow song began and his frown disappeared. “This one’s mine, then. C’mon.”

This time he held me tighter than for the last slow dance, and once I had to nudge his hand upward when it strayed a little too low on my back. Rigel, partnered with Molly again, sent something like a growl into my mind. I hoped he wasn’t being
too
obvious, watching me while dancing with other girls.
 

“Thanks, M,” Sean said when the song ended. “That was great.
You’re
great.” He still had his arms around me, his bright blue eyes sparkling down into mine.
 

I smiled back and something in his expression changed. Deepened. Slowly, he lowered his face toward mine. I realized just in time what he intended and pulled back, alarm shooting through me.

“Sean!” I hissed. “That’s
not
in the bargain. Not now, not ever.”
 

He straightened abruptly, frowning again. “I just . . . Sorry. Just wanted to make it look good?”

I shook my head, not buying that for an instant. “We don’t have to make it look
that
good. Got it?”

“Yeah,” he said heavily, an intense, hopeless longing painfully clear on his face. “Got it.”

I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of . . . of something. Because I did like Sean and hated hurting him, even unintentionally. But not nearly as much as I would hate hurting Rigel.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s get some punch.”

Nothing else happened to put me on edge for the rest of the evening, other than the occasional frustration I felt from Rigel—and definitely shared. I knew he was remembering Homecoming, too.

At ten forty-five on the dot, we met the Stuarts at the side door and headed out of the school to find snow falling thickly.
 

“Sean, look!” Molly squealed, and I suddenly remembered they’d never seen real snow before.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Dr. Stuart. “We may have a white Christmas after all. I’m glad we brought the four-wheel-drive.”

I glanced up at Sean, who had stopped dead at the sight, and saw he was looking paler than usual. “You okay?” I asked, trying not to let the least trace of laughter betray itself in my voice.

He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then nodded. “Yeah. Sure. It’s just . . . There’s so
much
of it!”

Now I did laugh, as did everyone else, even Molly. “Rain comes down a lot harder, and that doesn’t seem to bother you,” I pointed out.

Sean shrugged, starting to look sheepish. “Yeah, well, you didn’t see me the first time it rained in Ireland after we got there.”

“He was a mess,” Molly told us, earning a glare from her brother. “I mean, all of us had to get used to it, but Sean—”

“Yeah, so I have a thing about stuff falling from the sky,” he cut in. “Sue me. I’m getting over it. Mostly.”

I put a hand on his sleeve, feeling guilty now for laughing, especially since he’d mentioned his near-phobia to me once before.
 

“Hey, it’s okay. I guess it would take some getting used to after living your whole life where . . . well, stuff never
does
fall from the, um, sky.” I still couldn’t quite imagine living under a fake sky, even though I’d seen lots of pictures by now.