Page 37 of The Naturals
Michael dunked me again before he realized I’d stopped fighting. He turned around and saw Dean.
“You got a problem, Redding?” Michael asked.
“No,” Dean replied. “No problem.”
I gave Michael a sharp look and trusted that he’d be able to read me well enough for it to be effective, even in the dark.
Michael got the message. “Care to join us?” he asked Dean, overly politely.
“No,” Dean replied, just as politely. “Thank you.” He paused, and the silence swelled around us. “You two have a good night.”
As Dean disappeared back into the house, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d taken something from him—the place he came to think, the moment we’d shared the night he’d shown me the black lights.
“Truth or dare.” Michael’s voice cut into my thoughts.
“What?”
“Your turn,” Michael told me. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
Michael reached out to push my wet hair out of my face. “If Lia had dared you to kiss me, would you have done it?”
“Lia wouldn’t have dared me to kiss you.”
“But if she had?”
I could feel heat rising in my cheeks. “It was just a game, Michael.”
Michael leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine. Then he pulled back and studied my face. Whatever he saw there, he liked.
“Thank you,” he said. “That’s all I needed to know.”
I didn’t sleep much that night. I just kept thinking about Michael and Dean, the subtle barbs that passed between the two of them, the feel of each one’s lips. By the time the sun came up the next morning, I wanted to kill someone. Preferably Michael—but Lia was a close second.
“We’re out of ice cream,” I said murderously.
“True,” Lia replied. She’d swapped the silk pajamas for boxer shorts and a ratty T, and there wasn’t so much as a hint of remorse on her face.
“I blame you,” I said.
“Also true.” Lia studied my face. “And unless I’m mistaken, you’re not just blaming me for the ice cream. And that makes me terribly curious, Cassie. Care to share?”
It was impossible to keep a secret in this house—let alone two. First Dean, then Michael. I hadn’t signed up for this. If Lia hadn’t dared me to kiss Dean, Michael never would have kissed me in the pool, and I wouldn’t be in this mess, unsure what I felt, what they felt, what I was supposed to do about it.
“No,” I said out loud. I was here for one reason and one reason alone. “Forget breakfast,” I said, slamming the freezer door shut. “I have work to do.”
I turned to leave, but not before I caught sight of Lia twirling her gleaming black ponytail around her index finger, her dark eyes watching me a little too closely for comfort.
I made my way to the library to drown my sorrows in serial killer interviews. Wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor bookshelves bulged with carefully organized titles: textbooks, memoirs, biographies, academic journals, and the oddest assortment of fiction I’d ever seen: old-fashioned dime-store mysteries, romance novels, comic books, Dickens, Tolkien, and Poe.
The third shelf from the left was full of blue binders. I picked up the first one and opened it.
FRIEDMAN, THOMAS
OCTOBER 22–28, 1993
FLORIDA STATE PRISON, STARKE, FL