Chapter 50 Just One
POV: Carly
The clock was what broke it.
She opened her eyes at some point and the red digits on the other side of the room swam into focus and she pulled back and sat up so fast the covers went with her.
"No no no no." She said.
Niko sat up behind her. "What."
"It's 7:20." She said.
He looked at the clock. Then at her. "And?"
She was already off the bed. "And I was supposed to be back by 6:50. You were supposed to set an alarm. That was the condition. I specifically said six thirty."
"Six fifty." He said.
"Six thirty." She said.
"You said six fifty." He said pleasantly.
"I said six thirty!" She hissed, already hunting the floor for her pajama pants.
He pressed his lips together.
She pointed at him. "Do not laugh at me right now."
He was absolutely laughing at her.
She pulled her pajama pants on over the boxers and turned looking for her tank top.
"Sweetheart calm down." He said. "Whitney is not your parent. What is she going to do."
"She is my best friend and roommate who I specifically was not supposed to let notice I was gone and I also have class at eight which means I have ten minutes to walk back across campus, shower, get dressed and make it to the other side of the building and if I'm caught on this side of campus at this hour there will be questions I cannot answer right now."
He stared at her.
"Are you done." He said.
"No." She said and kept getting dressed.
He watched her from the bed with his arms loosely crossed and that expression he wore when he found her genuinely entertaining and was not pretending otherwise. She could feel it without looking at him.
"You're very cute when you're panicking." He said.
"You're very unhelpful when I'm panicking." She said back.
She found her tank top on the floor near the desk and turned her back to him and pulled the Henley over her head. She heard him go very quiet behind her and did not turn around because she already knew what his face was doing and she did not have time for that right now.
She got the tank top on and shook her hair out and turned around.
He was looking at her with a expression she could not completely read. Something that was trying to be casual and not quite landing there.
She softened slightly.
"I'm not running." She said quietly. "I just have class."
He nodded once. "I know."
She believed him and did not like how much she believed him.
She grabbed her jacket off the hook and her damp things from last night and stuffed them under her arm and looked around the room one more time like she was memorizing it which she absolutely was not doing.
He stood up.
She crossed to the door and stopped with her hand on the handle and turned back to him.
He was right there. Still shirtless. Boxers hanging off his hips. Curls completely destroyed from sleep. Looking completely unbothered and completely devastating about it.
She opened her mouth.
"Hey." He said quietly. He reached forward and tucked a curl behind her ear and left his hand there against her cheek for a moment. "I meant what I said last night. About waiting."
She felt it land clean in her chest.
She nodded.
He nodded back.
She pulled the door open.
He caught her by the collar of her jacket and pulled her back and she stumbled into him slightly and looked up and he was already looking down with that expression.
"Not even a goodbye kiss." He said. Innocent as anything.
She gave him a look.
He gave her one back that said he was completely serious.
She looked at the empty corridor over his shoulder. Then at him.
"Just one." She said.
She pushed up on her toes and kissed him.
She intended it to be brief. It was not brief. It was warm and deep and his hands found her face and she grabbed the front of his Henley and for about thirty seconds she forgot entirely that she had somewhere to be.
She pulled back breathless.
He looked equally affected which helped.
She licked her lips and stepped back.
"I'll call you." She managed.
His smile was slow and real and she turned away from it before she agreed to never leave.
She made it three steps down the corridor.
"Don't let me interrupt."
She stopped.
A boy was leaning against the wall just past Niko's door with his arms crossed and a smirk stretched across his face that she recognized immediately even without having met him before. Same bone structure as Niko. Same effortless posture. Similar shade of dark blonde hair worn shorter and pushed back from his forehead. His eyes were a darker shade of blue, more grey than ocean, and they were moving between her and Niko with barely contained delight.
He was younger. Not by much. But younger.
And he was absolutely going to make this the worst possible moment.
"Oh come on." He said to Niko. "Why'd you stop? I was enjoying that."
Niko's jaw went tight. "You have five seconds to explain what you're doing on this floor."
The boy tilted his head toward Carly. "I think the more interesting question is what she's doing on this floor." His smile widened. "At seven twenty in the morning. In what I can only assume are your clothes."
She felt the heat hit her face.
He stepped forward and extended his hand. "Deacon Monroeson. Lovely to finally put a face to the name."
She shook it on autopilot. "Carly."
"McPherson." He finished. "Oh I know. Leader of the witch faction. Supreme of the coven. Cheer captain. The list really does go on." He tilted his head. "Never seen you on this side of campus before. In my brother's room, no less."
Niko stepped in front of her. Not aggressively. Just there. Between her and his brother's attention like a wall that had appeared quietly.
"That's enough." He said.
Deacon raised both hands in faux surrender and kept smiling.
Carly took a breath and stepped slightly to the side. "It was nice to meet you Deacon. I really need to go."
She felt Niko's hand brush the back of her arm briefly as she moved past him. Just his fingers against her sleeve for one second.
She kept walking.
She did not run.
She kept her chin up and her pace steady and she made it to the stairwell and through the door and then she was in the stairwell alone and she pressed her back against the cold wall and closed her eyes for three seconds.
Then she straightened up and kept moving.
POV: Deacon
He watched her go until the stairwell door closed.
Then he turned back to his brother.
Niko was still facing the direction she had walked. His expression doing that thing it did when he was feeling something he had not yet decided what to do with. Deacon had not seen that particular expression in a very long time. Years actually.
He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
He had come up here this morning to deliver an invitation and spend twenty minutes winding Niko up before class. Standard operating procedure. He had not expected to witness his older brother pressed against a doorframe kissing Carly McPherson like she was leaving for a year rather than a twenty minute walk across campus.
He had also not expected the look on Niko's face when she walked away.
He thought about it.
Niko did not look like that.
Niko looked bored and amused and occasionally dangerous. He looked like someone standing slightly outside of whatever room he was in. Had looked like that as long as Deacon could remember. Since long before he left the house on the hill. Since before everything that made him leave.
He did not look like that.
Deacon pushed off the wall.
"So." He said lightly. "Coffee?"
Niko finally turned toward him.
His expression had closed back up. The wall was up. Everything tucked away and accounted for.
Deacon looked at him for a moment.
"Get dressed." He said. "I'll wait downstairs."
He turned and walked toward the stairs and did not say the thing he was actually thinking which was that for the first time in a very long time his brother had looked like someone who had something worth losing.
He kept that to himself.
For now.