Page 18 of Exposed

perhaps,

everything.

Chapter

Four

Iam drowning in an ocean of darkness. The sky is the sea, dark masses of roiling clouds like waves, spreading in every direction and weighing heavily on me like the titanic bulk of Homer’s wine-dark seas. I lie on my back on the rooftop, leftover heat from the previous day still leaching out of the rough concrete and into my skin through the thin fabric of my dress.

I sense a presence as I wake up, but I don’t open my eyes. Perhaps you found me. There are only so many places I can be. I feel you sit beside me, and your finger touches my hair, smooths it off my forehead.

But then I smell cinnamon, and cigarettes.

I crack my eyes open, and it isn’t you.

“Logan.” I whisper it, surprised. “How are you here?”

“Bribes, distraction, it wasn’t hard.” He shrugs. “You weren’t in your apartment. I don’t know. I just felt... pulled up here. Like I knew I’d find you up here.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He fits a cigarette to his mouth, cups his hands around it, and I hear a scrape and a click. Flame bursts orange, briefly, and then the smell of cigarette smoke is pungent and acrid. Hischeeks go concave, his chest expands, and then he blows out a white plume from his nostrils. “No, I shouldn’t.”

“Then why are you?” I sit up, and I’m self-conscious of that fact that my dress is dirty and wrinkled and has hiked up to nearly my hips, baring far more of me than is proper.

“I had to talk to you.”

“What is there to say?”

Your eyes flick shamelessly over me. A breeze kicks up, and my nipples harden, my skin pebbles. Perhaps it isn’t the wind so much as Logan, though. His eyes, that strange and vivid blue, his proximity, his sudden and unexpected and inexplicable presence on this rooftop, in my life.

“There’s a lot I could say, actually.” His eyes, certainly speak volumes.

“Then say it,” I say, and it is a challenge.

Smoke curls up from the cigarette between his fingers. “Caleb, he’s not who you think he is.”

“This is not the first time you’ve said that,” I say. “And you know, do you? Who he really is?”

“Certain things, yes.” He takes a long drag on the cigarette, holds it in, blows it out through his nose again.

“You sneaked in here to tell me Caleb’s secrets?”

He shakes his head, almost angrily, blond hair waving around his shoulders. “No, I didn’t,” he confesses. “You made the wrong choice. You should have stayed with me. We could have had something amazing.”

“There was never a choice, Logan.” It feels a little like a lie.

“Yes, there was.” Another long inhalation, exhaling smoke through nostrils like a dragon. “Whatever. Not gonna argue with you about that. What I came here to tell you was that I did some digging.”

“What do you mean, digging?” I need something to do with my hands, somewhere to look that isn’t Logan.

“I looked around for information on you.” He says it quietly, flicking his thumb across the butt of the cigarette, ash dropping away and scattering in the breeze.

“Did you find anything?” I almost don’t want to ask.

I pluck the lighter from his hand, and it is warm from his palm. Translucent green plastic, a centimeter or two of liquid sloshing at the bottom. Black tab, silver wheel, and a mouth for the flame. I roll my thumb over the wheel, creating sparks. Do it again while pressing down on the black tab, watch flame spurt to life. The pack of cigarettes is on the rooftop by the toe of his boot. He sits cross-legged beside me, shamelessly, openly eyeing my body, my cleavage, my thighs, the black sliver of silk over my core. I reach over, take the pack of cigarettes. He watches me, but does nothing. I withdraw one of the cylinders and fit the tan, speckled end to my lips, as I watched him do. Spark flame, touch the flame tip to the end of the cigarette. When smoke rises, I inhale.

“You’re going to cough your brains out,” Logan warns.