Sean
“What’s up with you tonight, Sean? Why aren’t you talking to anybody?” Molly asks midway through the evening. “This is supposed to be a party, you know. Did you and Kira have a fight or something?”
“A fight? No. We’ve barely talked to each other since Tuesday night.” Which is perfectly true.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Alan leaning in close to her right now, like he’s been doing way too often at school. Again, I have to tamp down a totally inappropriate twinge of jealousy.
“Why?” Molly demands, snapping my attention back to her—though I still keep half an eye on Kira and Alan. “Because of what Mum said? Don’t be stupid. You like her, I can tell. And she likes you. Why are you both so determined to fight it?”
I huff out a breath. “Because—”
“Don’t give me that line about it being too soon. You told me you took Missy Gillespie to Homecoming because you were trying to move on, get M out of your system. If you were willing to go out with a Duchas girl to do that, why not an Echtran girl you obviously like a lot better? You claim you’re sick of people feeling sorry for you. Maybe you’ve decided you like it after all?”
I turn to glare at her. “What? Of course I don’t like it. That’s not—” I break off at Molly’s knowing smirk. “Why don’t you go chat up one of the new guys yourself, and leave me alone?”
“Maybe I will. Meanwhile, go talk to Kira. You know you want to.”
“She seems to be busy at the moment.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder in her direction.
Molly glances that way. “You’re kidding, right? I can tell from here she’s giving him the brush-off—again. But he obviously doesn’t give up as easily as you do.”
Against my will I look and sure enough, Alan’s walking away with a sulky look on his face. My spirits lift despite myself. Still, I’m not about to—
“Tell you what,” Molly says. “How about I go distract Alan—he is kind of cute, after all—and you go talk to Kira. Or would you rather I nag her to talk to you…?”
Shaking my head in exasperation—because Molly’s just interfering enough to do that—I turn my back on my sister and slowly make my way to where Kira’s standing, a little apart from everyone else. Kind of like I’ve done all evening.
“This is supposed to be a party,” I say from behind her, trying to ignore the way her brath seems to reach out and surround me. It’s the closest I’ve been to her since Tuesday night. “You don’t look like you’re having much fun.”
A tiny shudder seems to go through her as she pulls her gaze away from the group around M and Rigel to glance up at me. It makes me wonder if my brath feels extra strong to her, too—not that I plan to ask.
“You don’t seem to be doing a lot of mingling, either,” she points out, one brow raised. Apparently she noticed me avoiding everyone, too, though I haven’t noticed her looking my way.
“Yeah, well, I’m not a big party person,” I reply with a shrug.
“Especially lately?” she asks shrewdly.
I shift uncomfortably. Molly’s taunt just now about people feeling sorry for me was bad enough. Kira alluding to it is worse. To avoid her knowing gaze, I watch the group surrounding M and Rigel.
People have apparently talked them into demonstrating their graell telepathy, because Erin Campbell is scribbling notes she only shows to one of them. Everyone claps when the other one recites it perfectly.
“Nice party trick,” Kira comments.
That forces a snort of laughter from me. “Yeah, they should take it on the road, do children’s birthdays.”
She chuckles, too. “Too bad it would make the Duchas suspicious. Otherwise it could be a great alternative career if the Sovereign gig ever falls through.”
Her words are an abrupt reminder of why I decided to cool things with her before they could get serious. “It’s not going to fall through,” I murmur. “You may as well give up on that idea.”
“Maybe if you told me why it was so important for her to be Acclaimed in the first place,” she replies so softly even I can barely hear her. “You never did get around to that, remember? I’ll bet it was some lame reason having more to do with putting Royals back in power than improving things in Nuath.”
“No. You’re wrong.”
“Prove it.”
For a moment I struggle with myself, weighing the risk of her spreading the story of how close Nuath came to annihilation against the risk of her continuing to agitate against M’s Sovereignty. Finally, I nod.
“Fine. I’ll tell you. Tomorrow. We can go shoot hoops again and…and talk. Okay?”
She stares up at me, skepticism clearly warring with curiosity. Curiosity wins. “All right, then. Tomorrow.”
The small crowd around M and Rigel finally breaks up and one or two people drift our way. Molly, I notice, is chatting animatedly to Alan, just like she promised.
“That’s so cool. They really can read each other’s minds,” I hear Kira’s sister exclaiming to the other two new girls, Erin and Jana.
Both nod enthusiastically. “I just wish the graell wasn’t so rare.” Jana heaves a melodramatic sigh. “It’s so romantic. I wish it would happen to me.”
I have to bite my tongue to keep from snapping, “No. You don’t.”