Intrinsical - Lani Woodland [3]
A flash of something I didn’t want to name pulsed through me, and I clenched my jaw as I turned away from Brent to start reading my magazine. I was soon lost in the trashy details of some actor’s life when a shadow appeared at the foot of my chair, blocking the sun.
I looked up into Brent’s eyes and my mouth suddenly went dry, my stomach tightened, and my brain turned to applesauce.
“Hey there,” he said, drying his hair with a towel, being careful not to drip on me as he sat at the end of my chair. He flashed me an easy grin and ran his fingers through his hair leaving the tousled locks artfully disarrayed.
I smiled, closing my book and placing it in my lap while trying to ignore my racing pulse. “What’s up?”
“Nothing really.” He paused before leaning close to me. “About yesterday, what you did.”
I bit my lip and felt my throat constrict. “Yeah?”
He scratched a spot on his neck and looked back toward Steve in the pool. “Never mind.”
Tension that had started to build inside me unwound and I breathed deeply. I reached out and grabbed a red candy. “Help yourself to the greens if you want.”
“Thanks, they’re my favorite.” He popped a few into his mouth and chewed. An odd feeling of satisfaction swept over me knowing the greens weren’t going to waste. Brent folded his towel as he swallowed. “So, are you liking Pendrell so far?”
“Yep. The student body is great.” It wasn’t until I had said the word “body’” that I realized my eyes had been studying his chest and I quickly looked away. He suppressed a chuckle, and I knew, mortified, that he had noticed.
Trying to make my voice not shake, I corrected, “I mean, everyone is so nice.” I nervously pushed my sunglasses high up on my nose. “How do you like it?” I asked back, trying to redirect the conversation to avoid any further humiliation.
“I really enjoy the student body here as well,” he said while eyeing me. “It got a lot better looking this year.” I lowered my glasses and gave him the evil eye as I thought about his group of giggly admirers. “Why did you come here?”
“I was considering going for a swim. I’ve heard the pool’s a great place for that.”
He sighed in exasperation. “No, why did you come to Pendrell?”
“It was this or Brazil. Besides, Cherie really wanted to come.” My fingers began gathering my hair into a ponytail.
His eyebrow raised in curiosity. “Brazil?”
“It’s where I was born. My dad was transferred to the States when I was really young, but now the company has called him back. My parents agreed that I could stay here and finish high school.”
“So how did you end up at a stuffy private school?”
“I was dragged into it by Cherie. She really wanted to come here for, uh . . . personal reasons,” I edited carefully, “and since I’m a Legacy kid and could get in easily, she begged me to come with her.”
“A Legacy kid, huh? So who was it?”
“My great-great-grandfather taught here way back in the day. And my great-grandfather and my grandpa were students here.”
That was my official story, the one that was polished and edited enough not to invite questions that probed into areas that I really didn’t want to dig into.
“Okay, so that’s your story, but why did Cherie want to come here so badly?”
I cringed internally and hoped it didn’t show. “She’s sort of a . . . history buff.”
“History? Our history department really isn’t that strong. Wouldn’t she be better off at . . .” he trailed off as he noticed my cheeks flush. He looked confused for a moment and then I could almost see a few pieces of information click together in his head. “Wait a minute. She wouldn’t happen to be interested in the Pendrell Curse, would she?”
I tried not to deflate into my chair like a saggy, popped balloon. “She might have mentioned it.”
Brent made a sound that was a mixture of coughing and clearing his throat. “Are you serious?” The corners of his mouth drooped slightly. “You don’t believe the stories about ghosts and curses, do you?”
The black mist from yesterday flashed in my mind.