“Come on, Scarlett! Play along. Justonce. What I’m about to tell you has something to do with Brand—”
“Chocolate cake,” I interrupted her.
A mischievous smile lit up her blue eyes. “Mick Lewis,” she said, the name coming out slower than usual. For emphasis, I gathered.
I studied her for a moment, trying to draw a face from the name. No one came to mind. I shrugged.
“Mick Lewis,” she repeated the name, “is the little brother of Mitch Lewis. Mick is our age. In fact, he’s been with me all throughout school. He’s with us now. He sits next to you in English.”
She let that information hang there, not offering another clue, until I said, “And?”
“And,” she said, drawing the word out, “he’s been watching you.”
“That’s creepy.”
She laughed. “It would be, if Brando hadn’t told him to.”
“Why would Brando ask him to watch me?” The question came out calm enough, but inside, an eagerness to know more grew with each passing breath.
“I was curious about the whole thing last night. What Ben had told me made complete sense, you know? Mitch and Brando are older than us. They don’t hang out in the same crowds, even though everyone knows who they are, especially the girls around here. It seemed odd to me that they just showed up, and Brando, out of everyone else, talked to you, then left with you. I tried to get Mitch to tell me something that night, but he was tightlipped. He did mention Mick, though, and I’ve had my eye on Mick—”
“You have?”
She looked to the left and then to the right, then pretended to ask imaginary people if they believed the nerve of me.
“Of course I have! I just didn’t know he had an older brother. It all makes sense now. Now back to the point. Mick is always at the parties that I, sometimes we, go to. I’ve noticed him watching you a time or two. I thought heliked you,liked you. So I didn’t approach him. But now I know he was watching you because he was told to. Brando wanted him to keep an eye on you. He reports your activities back to him on a regular basis.”
I lifted a brow. “How do you know this, for sure?”
She puckered her lips. “Never underestimate the power of persuasive lips. Violet’s lips.”
I groaned. “You made out with him!”
“Under the bleachers, in the cold rain, while Metallica sang ‘Nothing Else Matters.’ A classic. He let hidden truths spill out afterward. He claimed the rain was like our tears—he’s a lot deeper than I thought he was. I had a great time.”
I smiled because she was so ridiculous sometimes. Still, my mind wandered to places it shouldn’t. Why would Brando be so interested in my life when he never approached me after Elliott had been killed? Furthermore, if he was so interested in myactivities, why didn’t he find out for himself?
“Why?” Violet’s forehead wrinkled.
“Why, what?” I know my face must have mirrored her questioning one.
“You just askedmewhy.”
“I did?”
She nodded, searching my face. “Who knows why Brando Fausti does what he does. He’s a man of supreme mystery, dark and brooding. He gives nothing he doesn’t want to. So that’s where things get a little hazy. Mick claims he really doesn’t know the reasons behind Brando’s orders. He assumes that after Elliott died, Brando wanted to replace that missing role in your life. Make sure you were doing okay, not getting into any trouble, not dating the wrong kind of guy. To be more specific—anyguy. That sort of thing. Up until recently, he had no reason to worry. It seems my recent dares have set him into motion.”
The hurt I had felt at his rejection that morning came back to me in the form of bile in my throat.
He thought of me as his little sister. Of course he did. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, the best friend of my older brother, a man he called brother himself, whom he loved and respected.
Then there was me, the stupid little girl who had fallen for him. The delicate little sister who needed his guiding hand, his protection from bullies who pushed unsuspecting girls to the ground at bonfire parties.
In that moment, any delusion that he had felt what I had—still did—flatlined.
Brando Fausti had given me a jacket, not his attention. He had given me a few moments in the snow, not his love.
Though he had let me go a week ago without the promise of tomorrow, I still held close the words he had used during the wee hours of the night to describe our first meeting in the snow—far from poetic, not even softly spoken, but the conviction behind his story had made me believe. In…what we could be. The promise of more. The budding of something special despite the ice it had been encased in.
