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Love in Ruins

Page 55

by Maggie Deryn

“That’s it! It’s a recipe!” She took my arm, dragging me toward the house. “Maybe it’s in the kitchen.”

We found the kitchen, or one of the kitchens, an enormous space, crowded with cooks already preparing the dinner. The chef was not pleased to see us and shooed us off.

“Yeah, doesn’t make sense that they’d have us snooping around the food preparation area,” I said, getting into the competition now. “Maybe the dining room?”

But we were chased from there as well. Walking down the hallway, Indy stopped and pointed to a painting showing women and men dressed in togas, lounging on a table, wineglasses in the air. A gold plaque beneath the image read: “Scene from Aristophanes’s Ecclesiazusae.”

I pushed the frame to the side, and sure enough, another clue was stuck to the wall. We tore through the next few clues—one of which was heavy on math, so I could finally show off a little—and in this way made our way around the entire estate. Victory was within our sights when we got to penultimate clue. It was another riddle, this time in Latin and had something to do with Greek mythology.

“A web that binds,” Indy repeated. “Ariadne!”

“The labyrinth!” We darted through the garden, racing past Sabrina and Pete. They looked like they wanted to join us, but I cut Sabrina off at the pass. “Find your own clues.”

I was relieved to get away from everyone and get lost in the labyrinth. It felt like old times being with Indy on a mission. If only I’d brought a snack.

“What was your favorite snack that I used to pack for you when you went digging for arrowheads?” I asked Indy, because I was hungry and couldn’t stop thinking about all the weird little things I used to do for her.

She stumbled over a rock and I caught her. She held on to my bicep, which I couldn’t help but flex. “What are you talking about? Snack?”

“Apparently, fake fiancé Levi is quite the cook and was always fixing you something to take on your expeditions.” I winked at her. “Except, I really did do that. So I was wondering what you liked best?”

“Oh god, it’s so embarrassing to have everything you’ve said to someone be thrown back in your face.” She laughed and blushed at the same time. “I don’t know—it’s not like I catalogued them.” She sighed, pressing her hand against the dense foliage of the maze wall. “No, that’s not true. I most definitely wrote down everything you did for me in my journal. But I burned those not long after . . .”

“After I left?”

“I was so angry,” she admitted and I stumbled, knocked in the gut again by how much I’d hurt her. “I imagined someone finding them and was horrified. I mean, I was so silly back then. It’s not who I am now.”

“Isn’t it?” That admission stung. She was the one constant that I clung to, the one person who knew who knew who I really was. “You haven’t changed that much.”

“Wow, thanks. So I’m still an awkward tomboy with dirt-stained knees?”

“Dirt-stained knees for sure. You were never an awkward tomboy though.”

“What was I then?” I shrugged thinking back to all the versions of her I’d known—the same person in a medley of variations—vegetarian Indy, tortured poet Indy who listened to emo ’80s and ’90s bands and covered her bedroom walls with Pre-Raphaelite posters, ancient Greek Indy. “You were just you.”

“Just Indy,” she mimicked.

“Yeah.” I reached out to tousle her hair like I used to when we were kids, hit again by a pang of affection and nostalgia big as a tsunami. But I didn’t tousle her hair. My fingers lingered on the soft strands like they had that night then ran along her delicate jawbone. “I knew everything about you then.”

She shook her head and swallowed; tears swam in her eyes. “No, you didn’t. There were plenty of things I never shared with you. Unavowable secrets.”

I took a deep breath. “Such as?”

“That night, at the dance, when I asked you to kiss me, I really thought you’d say yes,” she whispered.

I hesitated; once it was out there, I couldn’t take it back. She deserved to know the truth. “I did want to kiss you then. And I’d wanted to do it before.”

“Really?” Her voice was childlike and hopeful, and I wished I could go back in time and change everything. Never hurt her. My eyes lingered on her parted lips. They were so plump, a captivating shade of rosy pink. I wondered what else on her body was the same rosy pink. My thumb grazed over her bottom lip, and she shivered like she had last night.

“So who was the first to kiss these lips?” I wondered aloud.

She snorted. “Derek Moorehouse.”

Derek Moorehouse? That weaselly son of a bitch! He’d dared go after Diana after he’d stood her up? If I could go back in time, I’d pull him off her. I’d take her back to the high school parking lot, and when she asked me again to kiss her, I wouldn’t have blown my chance to show her how it was done.

“Should have been me,” I growled and crashed my lips to hers.

This kiss was nothing like the first. There was no tentative pecking. No awkward angles. It was all-consuming. Her lips were sweet and I sipped at them, taking first her bottom lip then the top between mine. She moaned as I coaxed them open, reverently, savoring the hint of lemonade on her breath. When the tip of her tongue touched mine it felt like a question. I pressed mine to hers in answer. Yes, it said. Yes, I want this. Yes, I need you. Yes, yes, yes.