Abandon - Meg Cabot [85]
His weight shifted uncomfortably. So did his gaze. He looked at the pool instead of my face.
“I was only apologizing,” he said stiffly, “for startling you. The applause was to compliment you on the improvement in your life-saving techniques since the last time you —”
“No,” I said, holding up one hand, palm out. “Stop. Just stop. We need to talk. Really talk. I promise I won’t call you names if you promise not to try to kill anyone.”
His gaze shifted back to mine. I read a myriad of emotions in his eyes in that moment — anger, shame, confusion, pain among them — before it fell to my necklace.
“You’re wearing it,” he said in a voice I’d never heard him use before.
“Yes,” I said. My heart still hadn’t stopped its loud thumping. The way he was looking at me wasn’t helping.
“I saw Richard find it this morning,” he said. “I saw you go into his office tonight.”
So he had been there. I should have known. No wonder the weather had been so awful.
That’s when I realized what it was that had been in his voice…the thing I’d never heard before.
Fear. He was afraid. Afraid of what Richard Smith might have told me.
“Yes,” I said again. “Look —” I glanced around. Though Uncle Chris had put all the outdoor furniture in the garage, there was a single spot where the uncompromising heat had already dried out a section of flagstone by the side of the pool.
“Come here,” I said, reaching for one of his hands.
He took a step backwards — not exactly yanking his fingers away but not willing to let me touch him. Yet.
“It’s all right,” I said in what I hoped sounded like a soothing voice. He really was like that gecko — unsure what we humans might do to him. “I just want to sit down somewhere that’s dry. It’s what I like, remember? Being dry.”
I don’t think he got the joke. He continued to eye me suspiciously as I seized his hand and pulled him towards the spot where I wanted to sit down…and even after I let go of his hand and sat down at the edge of the pool, putting both my feet in the cool water, he just stood there for a moment, looking at me as if he couldn’t figure out what, exactly, was going on.
I decided to ignore him. This is what you did with wild things, I’d learned from my volunteering with animal rescue groups. It worked. Let them figure out on their own that you aren’t a threat, that you aren’t even interested in them at all, really.
Then, eventually, if you were very lucky, they come to you.
Which, after a while, John did, sitting cross-legged beside me…but looking prepared to take off at the slightest sign of danger. Which was ironic, considering he was a death deity.
I didn’t even think about suggesting he take the boots off. There’d probably be an apocalypse or something.
Somewhere in the yard, the cicada, which had taken a break, started up again. Fortunately, the sound of the falling water was strong enough to drown out it and the frogs.
“What did Richard say?” he asked finally, after we’d sat there for a minute in total silence. He seemed stunned, which I guess was understandable. I’d neither screamed, called him names, nor thrown anything at him, a first in our relationship. He had to be wondering what the cemetery sexton could possibly have said to produce this change in my attitude towards him.
“Well,” I said slowly. I couldn’t quite believe myself that any of this was happening. I wasn’t quite sure how it was happening. If anyone had told me, even an hour earlier, that it was going to, I never would have believed them.
But now, somehow, it seemed natural.
Be sweet. That’s what Richard had said.
Well, that was one man’s opinion.
“He said this necklace had killed a thousand people,” I said.
John immediately tensed up, as if he were going to get up and leave