The Chaos of Stars
Page 26

“No, I’ve always had a limp. It runs in my family.”
So he isn’t perfect. Physically, I mean. I don’t mean that. He’s not perfect at all.
I hate Tyler.
Ry tries to beat me to my side, but I manage to slide in before he can open the door. He gets in, and the truck engine turns over much too quietly. I wish it’d roar. I wish it’d growl so loud I wouldn’t be able to hear my own thoughts. I hate that I’m scared in a place I should feel safe. I hate that it’s spread to my work. I hate that I’m so self-centered that I think it somehow revolves around me.
I want to call my mom.
I won’t.
Ry drives confidently, eyes on the road, and I watch him shift gears to see how it’s done. I should probably learn how to drive. “You never did tell me what you like to do for fun,” he says.
“Interior design.” If he laughs, I will disembowel him. And I won’t even put his guts into ceremonial jars for embalmment—I’ll scatter them across the dirt. I’ll toss them into the garbage disposal.
“So you’re an artist.”
Oh. Well, that was unexpected. “I guess.”
“That’s really cool. I’d love to see your designs sometime.”
I’m caught off guard again. I don’t know how to respond, so I change the subject. “Where are we going?”
“My house. Tyler and Scott are there already.”
I try to tamp down my intrigue. People’s homes say so much about them, and even though it will really only say stuff about Ry’s parents, I’m still interested.
“How do you and Tyler and Scott know each other? Do you all go to the same school?”
“I actually met Tyler at Balboa Park last summer. We don’t go to the same school. But I like them. Neither of them cares that I have a tendency toward being antisocial, and Tyler never tries to flirt with me. Scott doesn’t, either.”
I roll my eyes. “So that’s your main requirement for friendship? They don’t hit on you? Is that like a regular problem in your life?”
He shrugs noncommittally. “Isn’t it in yours?”
I frown, thinking of all of the guys I interact with. I do get hit on a lot at the museum. I just don’t care because I’d as soon be left alone.
When I don’t answer, he smiles. “It’s hard to be friends with girls most of the time.”
Oh, shut up. He is not saying that he’s too good-looking to be friends with girls. But then again, yesterday at the beach, there were a high percentage of beach beauties sitting very close to us and/or sauntering repeatedly past. And he never looked up once. I snort. “You poor handsome thing. If only you were ugly, then girls wouldn’t have to throw themselves at you all the time. I could break your perfect nose for you, if it’d make your life easier.”
He raises his eyebrows as if he’s considering it, then shakes his head. “I think my mom would be upset,” he says finally, a genuine note of regret in his voice.
“Maybe next time, then.” What if he had really asked me to? I laugh. I can see it, me trying and failing to break his nose. I’m not actually a violent person, in spite of being raised on bedtime stories of war and conquest and murder. I was also raised on stories of sex, and I’m not interested in that, either.
We leave the main road and wind through neighborhoods that are familiar, though I don’t remember why. I can see glints of the ocean from here, and then we pull up into a driveway.
A driveway I already know.
Oh, floods. My mockery from yesterday echoes perfectly in my ears. Of course. Of course it’s his house we parked at when we went to the beach.
“Yours?” I ask, my voice coming out as a pathetic squeak.
He nods, a smile pulling apart his full lips. I fight back the shame burning in my face. Yes, my comments were rude. But Ry could have told me it was his house, instead of letting me look like a jerk.
We get out of the truck and climb the broad steps. Ry pushes one of the massive, carved white double doors open. It’s like we’ve stepped into a museum of Greek antiquities. The floor is polished marble, with black tiles scrolling a pattern around the borders of the entry.
A bust of a woman, the pure definition of beautiful, is on a pedestal front and center, and various other sculptures line the room. Almost laughably out of place is a single humongous framed photo of a chubby, cherubic little boy, face smeared with cake as he laughs at the camera.
“My parents take our heritage very seriously,” he says, his voice solemn but his eyes twinkling as he looks at me to judge my reaction.
“Really? I dunno, it’s kind of understated.”
He laughs appreciatively, and I’m relieved that at least he has a sense of humor about the whole thing.
“The tile work is amazing,” I say, wanting to make up for my earlier mockery, and because it’s true. This floor is gorgeous.
Tyler pokes her head out of a side hall. “There you are! You okay, Isadora? Your call seemed panicked.”
I wave my hand dismissively. “I’m fine.” There are no bogeymen. I need to get over this.
“Good! I’m glad you came. Come on,” she says. We follow her through a hallway with dark wood paneling and the same marble floor, but covered in a plush, ornate rug.
I approve of the TV room we go into as Tyler runs off to use the bathroom. Someone seems to have abandoned the formality of the rest of the house—framed movie posters dominate the walls, and the biggest television I’ve ever seen in my life takes up the entirety of one wall. A full bar lines the back of the room.