And just like that day in the bitter waters of the river, it was Jay who saved her, who dragged her to the surface as he held on to her.
His hand on hers was safe and solid . . . and lifesaving. “And what about you, Vi?” he questioned, pulling her gaze back to his just like that. “Who do you like?”
She would have come up coughing and sputtering, the same way she had when he’d pulled her out of the river, but this answer was easy and came to her lips without a second thought. “You, Jay. It’s always been you. It always will be you.”
He reached for her then, and she was off her feet in an instant, giggling breathlessly as they landed in the sand beneath them. “I knew you’d say that,” he told her as he buried his face in the hair that curled wildly around the side of her face.
The sand was still warm from the late summer day, and it molded around them, cradling them. “Then why’d you ask?” she insisted, already breathless and surrendering to his touch.
She could feel him grinning as his lips brushed over hers. “Because I wanted to hear you say it.” And then he kissed her, his tongue slipping past her lips, and the sounds of the river faded, along with the light of the bridge and the worry of secrets kept and those revealed.
“Wait,” she gasped, whispering as she reached up and pushed him away from her. She tried to sound serious as her heart hammered painfully inside her chest, but it was so terribly hard with him watching her like that, his eyes wide and expectant.
“What is it?” he asked, his breath hot against her own.
She grinned back at him, feeling devious and wanton. “I’m gonna need you to take off your shirt now.”
CHAPTER 13
“GRADY! GRADY, WAIT UP!” VIOLET SHOVED HER way through the crowded hallway, hoping he could hear her above the ruckus. Hoping he’d care enough that it was her calling for him to stop.
She doubted he really wanted to talk to anyone at the moment. He hadn’t exactly received a warm “Welcome back!” from the student body. It was more like the cold shoulder with a side of “What are you looking at, creep?”
It didn’t matter that the police had exonerated him, and that no charges had actually been filed against him. The damage had already been done. In the eyes of the White River student body—maybe in those of everyone in Buckley—Grady was a murderer. Or at least close enough.
Violet was panting after chasing him up a second flight of stairs, weaving her way in and around students in her path. When she heard Grady’s name being passed between two girls who weren’t even trying to keep their voices down, Violet glared at them.
“Get a good earful?” one of the girls sneered at Violet. “This is a private conversation, why don’t you mind your own beeswax?”
Violet thought about stopping, about confronting the two of them right there in the hallway, but she hesitated on the words beeswax, giving them each a second glance. They were young . . . freshmen probably. Ninth graders. What kind of bully would that make her if she lit into them, even if they deserved to be set straight?
She shot them an impatient glare, deciding to ignore their ignorance. “Grady,” she called again, when she saw him lingering in front of a bank of lockers.
He glanced up when he heard her, and she saw the look in his eyes—the one that said he wasn’t sure whether to stand there and wait for her, or to dart away. To disappear into the crowd and avoid her—and everyone else—altogether.
She couldn’t blame him really. She was sure it had been rough so far . . . and it was only halfway through his first day back.
Opening his locker, he shuffled through papers and books as she approached.
“I was starting to wonder if you were ever coming back,” she said, suddenly feeling awkward and unsure. She wanted him to know he had an ally, but she also remembered that not so long ago she’d wanted nothing more than to avoid him. The same way everyone else was doing now.
“Me too,” he said, digging a book out of his backpack and shoving it in his locker. “I probably wouldn’t have if my parents hadn’t’a gotten sick of watching me play Call of Duty all day. But, hey, lucky for me everyone’s excited to see me.” His voice sounded flat . . . empty. “Look at them. I’m, like, some sorta pariah.” He nodded down the hallway, and almost all the kids in the vicinity pretended they hadn’t just been watching him seconds before as all eyes shot in different directions. “They won’t even look at me.”
“That’s not true.” Violet touched his arm. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“Yeah, well, you might be the only one. No one’ll even talk to me.” He rummaged around in his locker some more. “I might as well have done it.”
Violet tried to imagine being in his shoes, to have everyone talking about you, wondering what kind of person you are. Wondering whether or not you really were a killer.
She watched as he pulled out the same book he’d just put into his locker. He held it in his hands, looking at it as if it were foreign, as if trying to remember what he’d come there for.
“Come on,” she told him, reaching out and slamming his locker door shut. “Come have lunch with me. With us,” she insisted. Jay would have to accept Grady’s presence. At least until some newer, better, juicier bit of gossip came along and bumped Grady back out of the limelight.
She thought he might argue with her; in fact she’d expected it. Instead, he looked down at her gratefully. “Are you sure?” he asked, and she just nodded.