Crescendo

CHAPTER 2

FOR THE LAST ELEVEN SECONDS, I’D BEEN lying facedown, hugging my pillow over my head, trying to shut out Chuck Delaney’s traffic report from downtown Portland, which was coming through my alarm clock loud and clear. Likewise, I was trying to shut out the logical part of my brain, which shouted for me to get dressed, promising repercussions if I didn’t. But the pleasure-seeking part of my brain won out. It clung to my dream—or rather, the subject of my dream. He had wavy black hair and a killer smile. At this moment, he was sitting backward on his motorcycle and I was sitting facing forward, our knees touching. I curled my fingers into his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.

In my dream, Patch felt it when I kissed him. Not only on an emotional level, but a real, physical touch. In my dream, he became more human than angel. Angels can’t feel physical sensation—I knew this—but in my dream, I wanted Patch to feel the soft, silky pressure of our lips connecting. I wanted him to feel my fingers pushing through his hair. I needed him to feel the thrilling and undeniable magnetic field pulling every molecule in his body toward mine.

Just like I did.

Patch ran his finger under the silver chain at my neck, his touch sending a shiver of pleasure rippling through me. “I love you,” he murmured.

Bracing my fingertips on his hard stomach, I leaned in, stopping just short of a kiss. I love you more, I said, brushing his mouth as I spoke.

Only, the words didn’t come out. They stayed caught in my throat.

While Patch waited for me to respond, his smile faltered.

I love you, I tried again. Once again, the words stayed clamped inside.

Patch’s expression turned anxious. “I love you, Nora,” he repeated.

I nodded frantically, but he’d turned away. He swung off the motorcycle and left without looking back.

I love you! I yelled after him. I love you, I love you!

But it was as if quicksand had been poured down my throat; the harder I tried to wrestle the words out, the faster they were towed under.

Patch was slipping away in a crowd. Night had fallen down around us in a snap, and I could barely distinguish his black T-shirt from the hundreds of other dark shirts in the masses. I ran to catch up, but when I grabbed his arm, it was someone else who turned around. A girl. It was too dark to get a good read on her features, but I could tell she was beautiful.

“I love Patch,” she told me, smiling through shocking red lipstick. “And I’m not afraid to say it.”

“I did say it!” I argued. “Last night I told him!”

I pushed past her, eyes scanning the crowd until I caught a glimpse of Patch’s trademark blue ball cap. I shoved my way frantically over to him and reached out to catch his hand.

He turned back, but he’d changed into the same beautiful girl. “You’re too late,” she said. “I love Patch now.”

“Over to Angie with weather,” Chuck Delaney yapped cheerfully in my ear.

My eyes sprang open at the word “weather.” I lay in bed a moment, trying to shake off what was nothing more than a bad dream, and get my bearings. The weather was announced at twenty before the hour, and there was no possible way I was hearing the weather, unless …

Summer school! I’d overslept!

Kicking back the covers, I fled to the closet. Shoving my feet into the same jeans I’d discarded at the bottom of the closet last night, I stretched a white tee over my head and layered it with a lavender cardigan. I speed-dialed Patch but three rings later was sent to voice mail. “Call me!” I said, pausing a half second to wonder if he was avoiding me after last night’s big confession. I’d made up my mind to pretend it had never happened until it blew over and things returned to normal, but after this morning’s dream, I was beginning to doubt I’d let go of it that easily. Maybe Patch was having just as hard a time dropping it. Either way, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it right now. Even though I could have sworn he’d promised me a ride …

I pushed a headband into my hair in lieu of a hairstyle, snatched my backpack off the kitchen counter, and rushed out the door.

I paused in the driveway long enough to give a scream of exasperation at the eight-by-ten-foot slab of cement where my 1979 Fiat Spider used to sit. My mom had sold the Spider to pay off a three-months-delinquent electricity bill, and to stock our fridge with enough groceries to keep us fed through the end of the month. She’d even dismissed our housekeeper, Dorothea, a.k.a. my surrogate parent, to trim expenses. Sending a hateful thought in the direction of Circumstance, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and started jogging. Most people might consider the rural Maine farmhouse my mom and I live in quaint, but the truth is, there’s nothing quaint about the mile-long jog to the nearest neighbors. And unless quaint is synonymous with eighteenth-century drafty money pit situated in the eye of an atmospheric inversion that sucks in all the fog from here to the coast, I beg to differ.

At the corner of Hawthorne and Beech, I saw signs of life as cars zipped along on their morning commute. I used one hand to stick my thumb in the air and the other to unwrap a piece of breath-freshening, toothpaste-replacing gum.

A red Toyota 4Runner braked at the curb, and the passenger window lowered with an automated hum. Marcie Millar sat behind the wheel. “Car trouble?” she asked.

Car trouble as in no car. Not that I was about to admit it to Marcie.

“Need a ride?” she rephrased impatiently when I failed to answer.

I couldn’t believe out of all the cars passing down this stretch of road, Marcie’s had to be the one to stop. Did I want to ride with Marcie? No. Was I still worked up over what she’d said about my dad? Yes. Was I about to forgive her? Absolutely not. I would have gestured for her to keep driving, but there was one small snag. Rumor had it that the only thing Mr. Loucks liked more than the periodic table of the elements was handing out detention slips to tardy students.

“Thanks,” I accepted reluctantly. “I’m on my way to school.”

“Guess your fat friend couldn’t give you a ride?”

I froze with my hand on the door handle. Vee and I had long ago given up educating small-minded people that “fat” and “curvy” are not the same thing, but that didn’t mean we tolerated the ignorance. And I would have gladly called Vee for a ride, but she’d been invited to attend a training meeting for hopeful editors of the school’s eZine and was already at school.

“On second thought, I’ll walk.” I gave Marcie’s door a shove, locking it back in position.

Marcie tried on a confused face. “Are you offended I called her fat? Because it’s true. What is it with you? I feel like everything I say has to be censored. First your dad, now this. What happened to freedom of speech?”

For a split moment I thought it would be nice and convenient if I still had the Spider. Not only would I not be stranded without a ride, but I might get the pleasure of plowing Marcie over. The school parking lot was chaotic after school. Accidents happened.

Since I couldn’t bounce Marcie off my front fender, I did the next best thing. “If my dad owned the Toyota dealership, I think I’d be environmentally minded enough to ask for a hybrid.”

“Well, your dad doesn’t own the Toyota dealership.”

“That’s right. My dad’s dead.”

She raised one shoulder. “You said it, not me.”

“From now on, I think it’s better if we stay out of each other’s way.”

She examined her manicure. “Fine.”

“Good.”

“Just trying to be nice, and look where it got me,” she said under her breath.

“Nice? You called Vee fat.”

“I also offered you a ride.” She floored the gas, her tires spitting up road dust that wafted in my direction.

I hadn’t woken up this morning looking for another reason to hate Marcie Millar, but there you go.

Coldwater High had been erected in the late nineteenth century, and the construction was an eclectic mix of Gothic and Victorian that looked more cathedral than academic. The windows were narrow and arched, the glass leaded. The stone was multicolored, but mostly gray. In the summer, ivy crawled up the exterior and gave the school a certain New England charm. In the winter, the ivy resembled long skeletal fingers choking the building.

I was half speed-walking, half jogging down the hall to chemistry when my cell phone rang in my pocket.

“Mom?” I answered, not slowing my pace. “Can I call you ba—”

“You’ll never guess who I ran into last night! Lynn Parnell. You remember the Parnells. Scott’s mom.”

I peeked at the clock on my cell. I’d been fortunate enough to hitch a ride to school with a complete stranger—a woman on her way to kickboxing at the gym—but I was still cutting it short. Less than two minutes to the tardy bell. “Mom? School is about to start. Can I call you at lunch?”

“You and Scott were such good friends.”

She’d triggered a faint memory. “When we were five,” I said. “Didn’t he always wet his pants?”

“I had drinks with Lynn last night. She just finalized her divorce, and she and Scott are moving back to Coldwater.”

“That’s great. I’ll call you—”

“I invited them over for dinner tonight.”

As I passed the principal’s office, the minute hand on the clock above her door ticked to the next notch. From where I stood, it looked caught between 7:59 and eight sharp. I aimed a threatening look at it that said Don’t you dare ring early. “Tonight’s not good, Mom. Patch and I—”

“Don’t be silly!” Mom cut across me. “Scott is one of your oldest friends in the world. You knew him long before Patch.”

“Scott used to force me to eat roly-polies,” I said, my memory starting to come around.

“And you never forced him to play Barbies?”

“Totally different!”

“Tonight, seven o’clock,” Mom said in a voice that shut out all argument.

I hurried into chemistry with seconds to spare and slid onto a metal stool behind a black granite lab table on the front row. Seating was two to a table, and I had my fingers crossed that I’d get paired with someone whose understanding of science surpassed my own, which, given my standard, wasn’t hard to beat. I tended to be more of a romantic than a realist, and chose blind faith over cold logic. Which put science and me at odds right from the start.

Marcie Millar strolled into the room wearing heels, jeans, and a silk top from Banana Republic that I had on my back-to-school wish list. By Labor Day, the shirt would be on the clearance rack and in my price range. I was in the process of mentally wiping the shirt off the list when Marcie settled onto the stool beside me.

“What’s up with your hair?” she said. “Ran out of mousse? Patience?” A smile lifted one side of her mouth. “Or is it because you had to run four miles to get here on time?”

“What happened to staying out of each other’s way?” I gave a pointed look at her stool, then mine, communicating that twenty-four inches wasn’t staying out of the way.

“I need something from you.”

I exhaled silently, stabilizing my blood pressure. I should have known. “Here’s the thing, Marcie,” I said. “We both know this class is going to be insanely hard. Let me do you a favor and warn you that science is my worst subject. The only reason I’m doing summer school is because I heard chemistry is easier this term. You don’t want me as a partner. This won’t be an easy A.”

“Do I look like I’m sitting beside you for the health of my GPA?” she said with an impatient flip of her wrist. “I need you for something else. Last week I got a job.”

Marcie? A job?

She smirked, and I could only imagine she’d pulled my thoughts directly off my expression. “I file in the front office. One of my dad’s salesmen is married to the front office secretary. Never hurts to have connections. Not that you’d know anything about it.”

I’d known Marcie’s dad was influential in Coldwater. In fact, he was such a large booster club donor, he had a say in every coaching position at the high school, but this was ridiculous.

“Once in a while, a file falls open and I can’t help but see things,” Marcie said.

Yeah, right.

“For example, I know you’re still not over your dad’s death. You’ve been in counseling with the school psych. In fact, I know everything about everyone. Except Patch. Last week I noticed his file is empty. I want to know why. I want to know what he’s hiding.”

“Why do you care?”

“He was standing in my driveway last night, staring at my bedroom window.”

I blinked. “Patch was standing in your driveway?”

“Unless you know some other guy who drives a Jeep Commander, dresses in all black, and is superhot.”

I frowned. “Did he say anything?”

“He saw me watching from the window and left. Should I be thinking about a restraining order? Is this typical behavior for him? I know he’s off, but just how off are we talking?”

I ignored her, too absorbed with turning over this information. Patch? At Marcie’s? It had to have been after he left my place. After I said, “I love you,” and he bailed.

“No problem,” Marcie said, straightening up. “There are other ways to get information, like administration. I’m guessing they’d be all over an empty school file. I wasn’t going to say anything, but for my own safety …”

I wasn’t worried about Marcie going to administration. Patch could handle himself. I was worried about last night. Patch had left abruptly, claiming he had something he needed to do, but I was having a hard time believing that something was hanging out in Marcie’s driveway. It was a lot easier to accept that he’d left because of what I’d said.

“Or the police,” Marcie added, tapping her fingertip to her lip. “An empty school file almost sounds illegal. How did Patch get into school? You look upset, Nora. Am I onto something?” A smile of surprised pleasure dawned on her face. “I am, aren’t I? There’s more to the story.”

I settled cool eyes on her. “For someone who’s made it clear that her life is superior to every other student’s at this school, you sure make it a habit of pursuing every facet of our boring, worthless lives.”

Marcie’s smile vanished. “I wouldn’t have to if you all would stay out of my way.”

“Your way? This isn’t your school.”

“Don’t talk to me that way,” Marcie said with a disbelieving, almost involuntary tic of her head. “In fact, don’t talk to me at all.”

I flipped my palms up. “No problem.”

“And while you’re at it, move.”

I glanced down at my stool, thinking surely she couldn’t mean— “I was here first.”

Mimicking me, Marcie flipped her palms up. “Not my problem.”

“I’m not moving.”

“I’m not sitting by you.”

“I’m happy to hear it.”

“Move,” Marcie commanded.

“No.”

The bell cut across us, and when the shrill sound of it died, both Marcie and I seemed to have realized the room had grown quiet. We glanced around, and it hit me with a souring to my stomach that every other seat in the room was taken.

Mr. Loucks positioned himself in the aisle to my right, waving a sheet of paper.

“I’m holding a blank seating chart,” he said. “Each of the rectangles corresponds to a desk in the room. Write your name in the appropriate rectangle and pass it on.” He slapped the chart down in front of me. “Hope you like your partners,” he told us. “You’ve got eight weeks with them.”

At noon, when class ended, I caught a ride with Vee to Enzo’s Bistro, our favorite place to grab iced mochas or steamed milk, depending on the season. I felt the sun bake my face as we crossed the parking lot, and that’s when I saw it. A white convertible Volkswagen Cabriolet with a sale sign taped in the window: $1,000 OBO.

“You’re drooling,” Vee said, using her finger to tip my chin closed.

“You don’t happen to have a thousand dollars I can borrow?”

“I don’t have five you can borrow. My piggy bank is officially anorexic.”

I gave a sigh of longing in the direction of the Cabriolet. “I need money. I need a job.” I shut my eyes, envisioning myself behind the wheel of the Cabriolet, the top down, the wind swishing my curly hair. With the Cabriolet, I’d never have to bum a ride again. I’d be free to go where I wanted, when I pleased.

“Yeah, but getting a job means you actually have to work. I mean, are you sure you want to blow the entire summer laboring away at minimum wage? You might, I don’t know, break a sweat or something.”

I dug through my backpack for a scrap of paper and scribbled down the number listed on the sign. Maybe I could talk the owner down a couple hundred. In the meantime, I added browsing the classifieds for part-time employment to my afternoon to-do list. A job meant time away from Patch, but it also meant private transportation. Much as I loved Patch, he always seemed to be busy … doing something. Which made him unreliable when it came to rides.

Inside Enzo’s, Vee and I placed orders for iced mochas and spicy pecan salads, and plopped down with our food at a table. Over the past several weeks, Enzo’s had undergone extensive remodeling to bring it up to speed with the twenty-first century, and Coldwater now had its very first Internet lounge. Given the fact that my home computer was six years old, I was actually excited about this.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for vacation,” Vee said, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Eight more weeks of Spanish. That’s more days than I want to think about. What we need is a distraction. We need something that will take our minds off this endless stretch of quality education spread out before us. We need to go shopping. Portland, here we come. Macy’s is having a big sale. I need shoes, I need dresses, and I need a new fragrance.”

“You just bought new clothes. Two hundred dollars’ worth. Your mom is going to hemorrhage when she gets her MasterCard statement.”

“Yeah, but I need a boyfriend. And to get a boyfriend, you have to look good. Doesn’t hurt to smell good too.”

I bit a diced pear off my fork. “Have anybody in mind?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Just promise me it’s not Scott Parnell.”

“Scott who?”

I smiled. “See? Now I’m happy.”

“I don’t know about any Scott Parnells, but the guy I’ve got my eye on happens to be hot. Off-the-charts hot. Hotter-than-Patch hot.” She paused. “Well, maybe not that hot. Nobody’s that hot. Seriously, the rest of my day is a wash. Portland or bust, I say.”

I opened my mouth, but Vee was faster.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “I know that look. You’re going to tell me you already have plans.”

“Rewind to Scott Parnell. He used to live here when we were five.”

Vee looked like she was searching her long-term memory.

“He wet his pants a lot,” I offered helpfully.

Vee’s eyes lit up. “Scotty the Potty?”

“He’s moving back to Coldwater. My mom invited him over for dinner tonight.”

“I see where this is going,” Vee said, nodding sagely. “This is what’s called the ‘meet cute.’ This is when the lives of two potential romantic partners intersect. Remember when Desi accidentally walked into the men’s room and caught Ernesto at the urinal?”

I stopped with my fork halfway between my plate and my mouth. “What?”

“On Corazón, the Spanish soap. No? Never mind. Your mom wants to hook you and Scotty the Potty up. Pronto.”

“No, she doesn’t. She knows I’m with Patch.”

“Just because she knows, doesn’t mean she’s happy about it. Your mom is going to spend a lot of time and energy turning this equation from Nora plus Patch equals love, to Nora plus Scotty the Potty equals love. And what about this? Maybe Scotty the Potty turned into Scotty the Hottie. Have you thought about that?”

I hadn’t, and I wasn’t going to either. I had Patch, and I was perfectly happy to keep it that way.

“Can we talk about something slightly more urgent?” I asked, thinking it was time to change the subject before our current one gave Vee even more wild ideas. “Like the fact that my new chemistry partner is Marcie Millar?”

“The ho.”

“Apparently she’s filing for the front office, and she looked in Patch’s file.”

“Is it still empty?”

“It looks that way, since she wants me to tell her everything I know about him.” Including why he was hanging out in her driveway last night, gazing at her bedroom window. I’d once heard a rumor that Marcie propped a tennis racket in her window when she was open to payment for certain “services,” but I wasn’t going to think about that. Weren’t rumors 90 percent fiction, anyway?

Vee leaned in closer. “What do you know?”

Our conversation lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. I didn’t believe in secrets between best friends. But there are secrets … and there are hard truths. Scary truths. Unimaginable truths. Having a boyfriend who’s a fallen-turned-guardian angel fits into all of the above.

“You’re keeping something from me,” said Vee.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

Thick silence.

“I told Patch I loved him.”

Vee covered her mouth, but I couldn’t tell if she was stifling a gasp or laughter. Which only made me feel more insecure. Was it that funny? Had I done something even stupider than I already thought?

“What did he say?” Vee asked.

I merely looked at her.

“That bad?” she asked.

I cleared my voice. “Tell me about this guy you’re after. I mean, is this a lust-from-afar thing, or have you actually talked to him?”

Vee took the hint. “Talked to him? I had hot dogs at Skippy’s with him yesterday for lunch. It was one of those blind date things, and it turned out better than expected. Much better. FYI, you’d know all this stuff if you returned my calls instead of making out with your boyfriend nonstop.”

“Vee, I’m your only friend, and it wasn’t me who hooked you up.”

“I know. Your boyfriend did.”

I choked on a Gorgonzola cheese ball. “Patch set you up on a blind date?”

“Yeah, so?” Vee said, her tone edging toward defensive.

I smiled. “I thought you didn’t trust Patch.”

“I don’t.”

“But?”

“I tried calling you to vet my date first, but to repeat, you never return my calls anymore.”

“Mission accomplished. I feel like the worst friend ever.” I gave her a conspirator’s smile. “Now tell me the rest.”

Vee’s resistant tone dropped away, and she mirrored my smile. “His name is Rixon, and he’s Irish. His brogue or whatever it’s called kills me. Sexy to the max. He’s a little on the skinny side considering I’m big-boned, but I’m planning on losing twenty pounds this summer, so everything should even out by August.”

“Rixon? No way! I love Rixon!” As a standard rule, I didn’t trust fallen angels, but Rixon was an exception. Like Patch, his moral boundaries were drawn in the gray area between black and white. He wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t all bad, either.

I grinned, pointing my fork at Vee. “I can’t believe you went out with him. I mean, he’s Patch’s best friend. You hate Patch.”

Vee gave me her black-cat look, her hair practically bristling. “Best friends doesn’t mean anything. Look at you and me. We’re nothing alike.”

“This is great. The four of us can hang out all summer.”

“Uh-uh. No way. I’m not hanging out with that whack-job boyfriend of yours. I don’t care what you told me, I still think he had something to do with Jules’s mysterious death in the gym.”

A dark cloud fell on the conversation. There had been only three people in the gym the night Jules died, and I was one of them. I’d never told Vee everything that happened, just enough to get her to stop pressing, and for her own safety, I planned on keeping it that way.

Vee and I spent the day driving around, picking up employment applications from local fast-food joints, and it was nearly six thirty when I got home. I dropped my keys on the sideboard and checked the answering machine for messages. There was one from my mom. She was at Michaud’s Market picking up garlic bread, deli lasagna, and cheap wine, and swore on her grave she would beat the Parnells to the house.

I deleted the message and climbed upstairs to my bedroom. Since I’d missed my morning shower, and my hair had frizzed to maximum height during the day, I figured I’d change into clean clothes by way of damage control. Every single memory I had of Scott Parnell was unpleasant, but company was company. I had my cardigan halfway unbuttoned when there was a rap at the front door.

I found Patch on the other side of it, hands in his pockets.

Normally I would have greeted him by bounding straight into his arms. Today I held back. Last night I’d said I loved him, and he’d bolted and allegedly headed straight for Marcie’s house. My mood fell somewhere between injured pride, anger, and insecurity. I hoped my reserved silence sent him a message that something was off, and would be until he made a move to correct it, either by apology or explanation.

“Hey,” I said, assuming casualness. “You forgot to call last night. Where did you end up going?”

“Around. You going to invite me in?”

I didn’t. “I’m glad to hear Marcie’s house is just, you know, around.”

A momentary flick of surprise in his eyes confirmed what I didn’t want to believe: Marcie had been telling the truth.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” I said in a slightly more hostile tone. “Want to tell me what you were doing at her place last night?”

“You sound jealous, Angel.” There might have been a note of teasing behind it, but unlike usual, there was nothing affectionate or playful about it.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be jealous if you didn’t give me a reason to be,” I shot back. “What were you doing at her house?”

“Taking care of business.”

I swept my eyebrows up. “I didn’t realize you and Marcie had business.”

“We do, but it’s just that. Business.”

“Care to elaborate?” There was a heavy dose of allegation crammed between my actual words.

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Should I be?”

Patch was usually expert at hiding his emotions, but the line of his mouth tightened. “No.”

“If being at her house last night was so innocent, why are you having such a hard time explaining what you were doing there?”

“I’m not having a hard time,” he said, each word carefully measured. “I’m not telling you, because what I was doing at Marcie’s has nothing to do with us.”

How could he think this didn’t have anything to do with us? Marcie was the one person who took every opportunity to attack and belittle me. Over the past eleven years, she’d teased me, spread horrible rumors about me, and humiliated me publicly. How could he think this wasn’t personal? How could he think I’d just accept this, no questions asked? Above all, couldn’t he see I was terrified that Marcie would use him to hurt me? If she suspected he was even remotely interested, she’d do everything in her power to steal him for herself. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing Patch, but it would kill me if I lost him to her.

Overwhelmed by that sudden fear, I said, “Don’t come back until you’re ready to tell me what you were doing at her place.”

Patch impatiently pushed his way inside and closed the door behind him. “I didn’t come here to argue. I wanted to let you know Marcie ran into some trouble this afternoon.”

Marcie again? Did he think he hadn’t dug a deep enough hole already? I tried to stay calm long enough to hear him out, but I wanted to yell across him. “Oh?” I said coolly.

“She was caught in the crossfire when a group of fallen angels tried to force a Nephil to swear fealty inside the men’s room at Bo’s Arcade. The Nephil wasn’t sixteen, so they couldn’t force him, but they had fun trying. They cut him up pretty bad, and broke a few ribs. Enter Marcie. She’d had too much to drink and walked into the wrong restroom. The fallen angel standing guard pulled a knife on her. She’s at the hospital, but they’ll release her soon. Flesh wound.”

My pulse jumped, and I knew I was upset that Marcie had been knifed, but that was the last thing I wanted to reveal to Patch. I crossed my arms stiffly. “Gee, is the Nephil okay?” I vaguely remembered Patch explaining, some time ago, that fallen angels can’t force Nephilim to swear fealty until they’re sixteen. Likewise, he couldn’t sacrifice me to get a human body of his own until I turned sixteen. Sixteen was a darkly magical, even crucial age in the world of angels and Nephilim.

Patch gave me a look that held the tiniest glare of disgust. “Marcie may have been drunk, but chances are she remembers what she saw. Obviously you know fallen angels and Nephilim try to stay under the radar, and someone like Marcie, with a big mouth, can threaten their secrecy. The last thing they want is for her to announce to the world what she saw. Our world operates a lot more smoothly when humans are ignorant of it. I know the fallen angels involved.” His jaw tensed. “They’ll do whatever it takes to keep Marcie quiet.”

I felt a shiver of fear for Marcie but flushed it away. Since when did Patch care one way or the other what happened to Marcie? Since when was he more worried about her than me? “I’m trying to feel bad,” I said, “but it sounds like you’re concerned enough for the both of us.” I jerked on the doorknob and held the door wide. “Maybe you should go check on Marcie, see if her flesh wound is healing properly.”

Patch pried my hand loose and shut the door with his foot. “Bigger things than you, me, and Marcie are going on.” He hesitated, as if he had more to say, but closed his mouth at the last moment.

“You, me, and Marcie? Since when did you start putting the three of us in the same sentence? Since when does she mean anything to you?” I snapped.

He cupped a hand over the back of his neck, looking very much like he knew he should choose his words carefully before answering.

“Just tell me what you’re thinking!” I blurted. “Spit it out! It’s bad enough that I have no idea what you’re feeling, let alone what you’re thinking!”

Patch looked around, as if he was wondering whether I was talking to someone else. “Spit it out?” he said, his tone darkly incredulous. Maybe even annoyed. “What does it look like I’m trying to do? If you’d calm down, I could. Right now you’re going to turn hysterical, regardless of what I say.”

I felt my eyes narrow. “I have a right to be angry. You won’t tell me what you were doing at Marcie’s last night.”

Patch threw his hands up. Here we go again, the gesture said.

“Two months ago,” I began, trying to inject pride into my voice to hide the quaver in it, “Vee, my mom—everyone—warned me that you were the kind of guy who sees girls as conquests. They said I was just another notch on your belt, another stupid girl you’d seduce for your own satisfaction. They said the moment I fell in love with you was the moment you’d leave.” I swallowed hard. “I need to know they weren’t right.”

Even though I didn’t want to recall it, the memory of last night resurfaced with perfect clarity. I remembered the whole humiliating scene in vivid detail. I’d said I loved him, and he’d left me hanging. There were a hundred different ways to analyze his silence, none of them good.

Patch wagged his head in disbelief. “You want me to tell you they’re wrong? Because I get the feeling you aren’t going to believe me, no matter what I say.” He glared at me.

“Are you as committed to this relationship as I am?” I couldn’t not ask it. Not after watching everything come tumbling down since last night. I suddenly realized I had no idea how Patch really felt about me. I thought I meant everything to him, but what if I’d only seen what I wanted? What if I’d grossly exaggerated his feelings? I held his eyes, not about to make this easy on him, not about to give him a second chance to skirt the issue. I needed to know. “Do you love me?”

I can’t answer that, he said, startling me by speaking to my thoughts. It was a gift all angels possessed, but I didn’t understand why he was choosing now to use it. “I’ll stop by tomorrow. Sleep well,” he added curtly, heading for the door.

“When we kiss, are you faking it?”

He stopped short. Another disbelieving shake of his head. “Faking it?”

“When I touch you, do you feel anything? How far does your desire go? Do you feel anything close to what I feel for you?”

Patch watched me in silence. “Nora—,” he began.

“I want a straight answer.”

After a moment, he said, “Emotionally, yes.”

“But physically no, right? How am I supposed to be in a relationship, when I have no idea how much it even means to you? Am I experiencing things on a whole different level? Because that’s what it feels like. And I hate it,” I added. “I don’t want you to kiss me because you have to. I don’t want you to pretend it means something, when it’s really just an act.”

“Just an act? Are you listening to yourself?” He tipped his head back against the wall and gave another, darker laugh. He cut me a sideways glance. “Are you done with the accusations?”

“You think this is funny?” I said, hit by a fresh wave of anger.

“Just the opposite.” Before I could say more, he turned toward the door. “Call me when you’re ready to talk rationally.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re crazy. You’re impossible.”

“I’m crazy?”

He tipped my chin up and planted a quick, rough kiss on my mouth. “And I must be crazy for putting up with it.”

I pulled free and rubbed my chin resentfully. “You gave up becoming human for me, and this is what I get? A boyfriend who hangs out at Marcie’s, but won’t tell me why. A boyfriend who walks out at the first hint of a fight. Try this on for size: You’re a—jerk!”

Jerk? he spoke to my thoughts, his voice cold and cutting. I’m trying to follow the rules. I’m not supposed to fall in love with you. We both know this isn’t about Marcie. This is about how I feel about you. I have to hold back. I’m walking a dangerous line. Falling in love is what got me in trouble in the first place. I can’t be with you the way I want.

“Why did you give up becoming human for me if you knew you couldn’t be with me?” I asked, my voice wobbling slightly, sweat prickling the palms of my hands. “What did you even expect from a relationship with me? What’s the point of”—my voice caught and I swallowed without meaning to—“us?”

What had I expected from a relationship with Patch? At some point, I must have thought about where our relationship was headed, and what would happen. Of course I had. But I’d been so frightened by what I saw coming that I’d pretended the inevitable away. I’d pretended a relationship with Patch could work, because deep inside, any time with Patch had seemed better than nothing at all.

Angel.

I looked up when Patch spoke my name in my thoughts.

Being close to you on any level is better than nothing. I’m not going to lose you. He paused, and for the first time since I’d know him, I saw a flicker of worry in his eyes. But I already fell once. If I give the archangels cause to think I’m even remotely in love with you, they’ll send me to hell. Forever.

The news hit me like a blow to the stomach. “What?”

I’m a guardian angel, or at least so I’ve been told, but the archangels don’t trust me. I have no privileges, no privacy. Two of them cornered me last night for a talk, and I walked away with the feeling that they want me to slip up again. For whatever reason, they’re choosing now to crack down on me. They’re looking for any excuse to get rid of me. I’m on probation, and if I screw this up, my story doesn’t have a happy ending.

I stared at him, thinking he had to be exaggerating, thinking it couldn’t possibly be that bad, but one look at his face told me he’d never been more serious.

“What happens now?” I wondered out loud.

Instead of answering, Patch sighed with frustration. The truth of the matter was, this was going to end badly. No matter how much we backpedaled, stalled, or looked the other way, one day all too soon, our lives would be ripped apart. What would happen when I graduated and went off to college? What would happen when I followed my dream job to the other side of the country? What would happen when it came time for me to marry or have kids? I wasn’t doing anyone a favor by falling in love with Patch more every day. Did I really want to stay on this road longer, knowing it was only going to end with devastation?

For one fleeting moment, I thought I had the answer—I’d give up my dreams. It was as simple as that. I shut my eyes and let go of my dreams like they were balloons on long, thin ribbons. I didn’t need those dreams. I couldn’t even be sure they’d come true. And even if they did, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone and tortured by the knowledge that everything I’d done meant nothing without Patch.

And then it hit me in a terrible way that neither of us could give up everything. My life would continue marching into the future, and I didn’t have the power to stop it. Patch would stay an angel forever; he would continue the path he’d been on since he fell.

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” I asked.

“I’m working on it.”

In other words, he had nothing. We were trapped on both sides—the archangels applying pressure from one direction, and two futures headed in vastly different directions from the other.

“I want out,” I said quietly. I knew I wasn’t being fair—I was protecting myself. What other option did I have? I couldn’t give Patch a chance to talk me out of it. I had to do what was best for both of us. I couldn’t stand here, hanging on, when the very thing I held disappeared more with each passing day. I couldn’t show how much I cared when it was only going to make things impossibly hard in the end. Most of all, I didn’t want to be the reason Patch lost everything he’d worked for. If the archangels were looking for an excuse to banish him forever, I was only making it easy.

Patch stared at me like he couldn’t tell if I was serious. “That’s it? You want out? You got your turn to explain yourself, which I don’t buy, by the way, but now that it’s my turn, I’m supposed to just swallow your decision and walk out?”

I hugged my elbows and turned away. “You can’t force me to stay in a relationship I don’t want.”

“Can we talk about this?”

“If you want to talk, tell me what you were doing at Marcie’s last night.” But Patch was right. This wasn’t about Marcie. This was because I was scared and upset with the deal that fate and circumstance had cut both of us.

I turned back to see Patch drag his hands down his face. He gave a short, unamused laugh.

“If I’d been at Rixon’s last night, you’d wonder what was going on!” I flung back.

“No,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “I trust you.”

Afraid I’d lose my resolve if I didn’t act immediately, I smacked the heels of my hands against his chest, knocking him back a step. “Go,” I said, tears making my voice rough. “I have other things I want to do with my life. Things that don’t involve you. I have college and future jobs. I’m not going to throw it all away on something that was never meant to be.”

Patch flinched. “Is this what you really want?”

“When I kiss my boyfriend, I want to know he feels it!”

As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I didn’t want to hurt him—I just wanted to get this moment over with as quickly as possible before I unraveled and broke down sobbing. But I’d gone too far. I saw him stiffen. We stood face-to-face, both of us breathing hard.

Then he strode out, yanking the door shut behind him.

Once the door was closed, I collapsed against it. Tears burned at the back of my eyes, but not a single drop fell. I had too much frustration and anger clashing around inside me to feel much of anything else, but I suspected in a way that caused a sob to catch in my throat, that five minutes from now, when everything else had dropped away and I realized the full impact of what I’d done, I’d feel my heart breaking.