Page 16 of The Blairville Legacies

Chapter 2

Mady

The pages of the book no longer smelled of her. What remained was merely the coffee note. Bitter and yet somehow soft.

Automatically, warmth arose in my chest.

“Your mother is addicted to this devilish stuff.”

He had laughed and taken her in his arms, kissed her tenderly as if it had been their first year.

Blinking, I tried to focus on the book. The words blurred, and a wild pile of letters made it impossible to decipher a single word.

I slammed the book shut and wiped away the tear with the sleeve of my emerald-colored cardigan.

Enough reading, even if I didn’t know what to do with all this time until summer was over. My bookshelf was full of horror and dark romance books I’d borrowed from the public library, but if all I did was read all the time, I might get neglected here.

My gaze wandered from my coffee cup to the window, down to the street, where a young man with a suitcase in his hand was hurrying up the stairs of the abandoned house next door.

I held my breath.

Julian. The loner from high school with the dark hoodies. I’d never understood why Nash had pushed him away like that. Why he had pushedmeaway...

Automatically, I reached for the coffee cup, but it was empty.

With a sigh, I withdrew my hand and tried to focus on the present.

Julian had just strolled through the overgrown garden of the white house. Carrying a suitcase...

Confused, I watched the street. And then I spotted the girl with shoulder-length brown hair. She followed him into the house.

The ringing of the front doorbell forced me away from the window and down the stairs.

I didn’t even have to peek through the glass to see who was standing there on our porch. Relieved that she hadn’t forgotten me yet, I pulled open the front door.

With a crooked grin, Mia looked around to the street as usual and entered the house I’d been holed up in for weeks.

She wrapped her arms around me, and I automatically felt better. Longing mingled with lightness, but I suppressed the urge to pull her tighter against me. It was as if I needed that hug. Still, I quickly let go of Mia.

“God, you wouldn’t believe how demanding Dad is again,” she laughed, heading up the stairs, “and this time it’s not because of the missing people cases.”

The Bexleys had managed to get Mia’s father and my big brother unnaturally worried about us two with their news channel. Until a month ago, we had been out in the woods, enjoying the weather and gossiping about annoying girls in high school, but now there was a curfew for those under age, which meant Mia wasn’t allowed out after 10 p.m.

I actually likedBlairville Police Chief Graham Bardot, her father, but this measure was excessive.

I followed my high school friend up the stairs and thought three times about asking her. And then I did.

“Is he drinking?”

Mia said nothing until we arrived in my room. I regretted bringing up the subject. I had a talent for bringing up the wrong topics.

“No...,” Mia finally sighed, running a hand through her full dark blonde hair. It had grown longer over the past few weeks, whereas mine seemed to have stopped growing a year ago.

“But he’s been giving me lecture after lecture about how careful I need to be.” She rolled her eyes and dropped into the pastel green beanbag. “Withboys... And then he did start seriously telling me about birth control.”

I laughed softly, and a pillow crashed into my face two seconds later.

“Ouch!” Giggling, I sank back onto the windowsill.