Chapter Nine The Break-In

CHAPTER NINE THE brEAK-IN

My attempts at avoiding Nic Priestly and his brothers were short-lived.

By the time I arrived home from my dinner shift a couple of days later, the heavens had opened up, giving way to one of the worst summer storms I could remember.

I slumped against my front door as a roll of thunder groaned behind the clouds, raising the hairs on the back of my neck and heralding a fresh onslaught of rain. After rummaging through my handbag for the hundredth time, I conceded defeat. I had forgotten my keys, and since my mother was in the city at a client’s dress fitting, I was locked out indefinitely. The battery in my phone had died, so I didn’t know when she would be back, and I wasn’t about to melt into my stoop waiting for her.

I picked myself up and, trying not to notice how the rain was welding me into my jeans, I hurtled back down the street, hopping over puddles as I ran. If I travelled at just below the speed of light, taking the fastest route, I would make the diner, which was nine blocks away, just as Ursula and the new waitress, Alison, were locking up for the night. Then I could slip inside, find my keys and be out in time to swim back home again.

As I ran, the sky flashed and rumbled, rattling my nerves. It hadn’t rained this badly since the night my father went to jail, and I was reminded, with an unpleasant twist in my stomach, of how frightening that storm really was. Ever since that night, the sound of thunder terrified me – it had become a sign of something sinister, something unwelcome. And now, not long after our delivery man was discovered drowned in his own bathtub, here I was, completely alone and trapped in one of the heaviest downfalls Cedar Hill had ever seen.

By the time I finally turned into the diner parking lot, my feet were swimming in shoefuls of water and my nose was completely numb. Inside the diner, all the lights were off. The whole restaurant was just a low concrete square cowering against the night sky.

I was too late.

I sprinted across the lot, hoping to find shelter beneath the awning at the diner’s entrance. I could wait out the worst of the storm, then make my way to Millie’s house.

If I had been able to open my eyes as normal, and if the storm wasn’t whipping my hair around my face in wet lashes, I would have seen the figure outside the entrance before I was charging into it.

‘Hey! Watch it!’

I stumbled backwards so that I was half in, half out of the shelter, but not before I’d seen that the stranger was pressed up against the door, his hands against the glass, like he was peering through. He turned and pulled his hood down.

‘Nic?’

‘Sophie?’

‘What are you doing here?’ we both asked at the same time.

‘I left my keys inside, and I’m locked out of my house.’

Nic nodded thoughtfully. I waited for his answer. After a long moment, he responded quietly, ‘I wanted to see you.’

Another flash of lightning ignited the sky, and I saw his face fully. It was solemn, and oddly vulnerable. It was strange to think he had that side to him; I had thought of him as flawless, and confident to his core.

And dangerous , I reminded myself with a start. Focus, Sophie .

On instinct, I backed away from him and stood stock-still in the deluge.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ I said, glad of the steadiness in my voice. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to hang out.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, his voice suddenly guarded.

‘I know you lied to me.’ The memory crashed into me, and I reached into my bag. I pulled the knife out. It was closed but I could feel my fingers shake as they clutched the cold metal handle. I didn’t think he would snatch it from me, but a part of me wasn’t convinced – how could I know for sure? I edged backwards and tightened my grip on it, trying to ignore the rain soaking through my top.

Nic stepped closer. I could see his eyes drift to my hand but he didn’t move to take the knife. Cautiously, I edged it higher so that it hovered between us. ‘Do you recognize this?’

He watched me with calculated stillness. There was nothing but the sound of his uneven breaths and the distant roll of thunder, as my hand shook.

‘Well?’ I asked.

The silence endured. His breathing evened out, but his expression remained unchanged, resolute. When he finally answered me, it seemed to take all of his energy. He pressed his lips together and pushed the words out, pronouncing them slowly, like his tongue was betraying him. ‘It’s mine.’

‘I found it in the grass after you left.’ It was an unnecessary detail – he had probably come back for it after I left – but I felt compelled to remind him that I had been right and he had been wrong to try and convince me otherwise. He knew I knew it was his, and the less information he offered me, the more suspicious I became.

I lowered my hand and took a step towards him, pushing myself into his personal space beneath the awning, so that the wall between us would shatter.

His shoulders tensed.

‘Why do you carry a knife with you?’

He stalled, pulling his fingers through his hair and grabbing at it in clumps so that it stuck out over his ears. When he dropped his hand it was with a sigh of resignation.

‘The switchblade was a gift from my uncle,’ he began slowly, as though he were reading from a script. ‘He can be a bit… eccentric.’

I turned the knife over in my hand, tracing my thumb over the falcon crest and the inscription below it. ‘That’s one word for it.’

‘In my family, when we turn sixteen, my uncle gives us a switchblade inscribed with our name and our birth date,’ he went on, sounding surer of himself. ‘It’s something his father, my grandfather, used to do, and so he does it for us. It’s just a family tradition.’

‘It strikes me as a little unsafe.’ I didn’t try to keep the judgement out of my voice.

Nic shrugged, and in a quiet voice he conceded, ‘Yes, you could say that about Felice.’

‘Feh- leechay ,’ I repeated, dwelling on the leech part. It suited a knife giver. ‘I got earrings for my sixteenth birthday. No weapons, though.’

Nic dragged his thumb along his bottom lip, and I found myself fixating on the way he nipped at it with his teeth.

I shook the thought from my head, and stepped away from him again.

Focus.

‘I saw you pull this out during your fight with Alex,’ I said. ‘Were you going to—?’ My voice wavered. ‘What were you going to do with it?’

‘Nothing,’ he said with so much conviction I almost felt compelled to believe him. ‘I would never use it on anyone, especially not your friend’s brother. But I thought if he saw it he would back off and leave my brother alone. He had already knocked Gino out, but he kept coming back for more. He was so competitive, so angry that we had won, and so convinced that we had cheated. I just wanted to get rid of him before the rest of my brothers got involved.’

‘So you were going to threaten him with a knife ?’ I asked, disbelief dripping from my voice.

‘No, not like that. I just, I don’t know. I was trying to diffuse it…’ He trailed off.

I had to fight the urge to take his chin between my forefinger and thumb to hold his gaze still enough that he’d level with me. Was this the truth or a well-versed lie?

‘Why do you even carry it around?’

‘It’s hard to explain,’ he replied, his expression suddenly sheepish. ‘I guess I carry it so I can feel protected, and so I can look out for my brothers if I have to. Ever since my father died, it’s been hard for all of us. It changed us. It changed me. I don’t know this place or the people in it, and I’m so used to having the blade with me for a sense of security that it’s like second nature to keep it in my pocket. I don’t really feel safe without it.’ He swallowed hard, burying the emotion that was causing his voice to falter. ‘I know it’s a strange way to cope with something like that, but it helps me.’

The knife suddenly felt heavy in my hand. ‘I didn’t know that.’

Nic shrugged. Another flash of lightning lit up his face, and I could see it was bleak with the memory. He slumped backwards against the door, his stance defeated. Whatever game of truth we had been playing, I had won, and I felt queasy because of it. ‘It is what it is,’ he mumbled.

I had to look away from him. I had felt those feelings of grief and sadness, wallowed in them, even, and for what? A father who deserved to be where he was, and who would come back to me eventually. I knew there were things about Nic that might make him bad for me, but there were things about his life that he couldn’t change, and that didn’t make him a bad person either. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘No, I’m sorry.’ He straightened up abruptly, as though someone above him was pulling him by strings, and the vulnerability drained from his posture. ‘I was an idiot to pull that knife out, but I wouldn’t have hurt Alex with it, I promise. I would never do that. Please let Millie know that too.’

‘I didn’t mention the knife to Millie,’ I said, my stomach twisting with guilt. It was a telling revelation.

‘Oh,’ he said quietly.

‘Alex didn’t see it, and I didn’t want to make the whole thing worse. Besides, he texted me afterwards saying he was sorry things got so heated, so I thought we could all just chalk it up to an isolated incident that got out of hand and maybe you could both just move past it.’ I spoke quickly, mashing the words together. Suddenly my cheeks felt like they were on fire. I didn’t tell Millie everything. Did that make me a bad friend? Or just an idiot? Because despite knowing I shouldn’t care about Nic, I did, and even though I was trying to avoid him, I had been hoping to see him – to give him the chance to explain.

‘Thank you,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you and I’m sorry I lied to you about it. I thought it would be easier, but I knew afterwards it was the wrong thing to do. I wanted to come and talk to you about it.’

‘So that’s why you’re here?’ I asked, wondering about the timing of his late-night visit.

Nic smiled, revealing a wedge of white teeth in the dark. ‘You got me.’

I stashed the knife back in my bag and moved to peer through the diner door as he had done, not because I thought there was anyone inside, but because I was suddenly feeling shy and I didn’t know what else to do.

‘Can you get in?’ he asked.

My wet hair swung around me like strings as I shook my head. ‘Everyone else has gone home.’

‘Maybe I could do something.’

‘Could you teleport me into my house?’

He took an uneven breath, and coyly asked, ‘Do you want me to try?’

‘To teleport me?’

‘No.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I can try to open the door if you want.’

‘What? How?’

‘Do I have your permission to try?’

I raised my hands in the air. ‘By all means.’

‘Do you mind standing back a little?’

‘Are you really going to do this?’

He set his jaw. ‘Yes.’

I might have agreed to anything he asked right then because, in the rain, he looked incredible. His wavy brown hair was wet and pushed away from his face, revealing the full effect of his chiselled cheekbones. I shuffled backwards.

Nic turned his back to me and pulled something that resembled a fountain pen from his back pocket.

‘What’s that?’

‘Another gift you’d disapprove of,’ he said simply, before moving closer to the door and obscuring it from my view.

For a minute or so all I could see were slight movements in his arm as he went to work on the door – first the upper lock, which yielded with a light click, and then the heavier one lower down, which took longer. Finally, he pulled the handle down and the door swung open in front of us, jingling the bell above it.

My mouth fell open. ‘You just broke into the diner.’

‘You gave me permission.’ He stashed whatever he had been using into his pocket and stepped back so I could enter first. ‘After you.’

I stared at him as I shuffled inside to punch in the alarm code before it went off. ‘Do you make a habit of that?’

‘No,’ he said, following me closely. ‘My brothers and I used to find tools that we could use to break into one another’s rooms when we were younger. It was never anything more serious than bedroom warfare. It was just dumb luck that an old screw-driver could open that door tonight. The locks really aren’t what they should be.’

I flicked a switch so that a line of recessed lights sprang to life, illuminating a pathway to the other end of the diner.

‘And you just happen to carry that with you because…?’

‘I was trying to get into the old barn at my uncle’s house tonight so we could use it as a storage unit.’

Nic trailed behind me, his attention wandering around the diner like it was the most fascinating place he had ever seen. ‘My mother ordered a truckload of antiques for the new house, but she doesn’t want us moving them inside the place until she comes back from overseas in a few weeks. She wants to finish the painting first. So right now we’re trying to find a place to stash them.’

I slipped behind the counter and started looking for my keys. ‘So your mother’s entrusting her sons to handle her expensive furniture in her absence?’

Nic slid in beside me, his arm brushing against mine as we searched side by side. ‘Pretty much.’

‘I’m not sure I’m completely convinced by that, but it does seem more likely than my other theories.’

‘What kind of theories?’

I tapped my chin. ‘How about that you’re a notorious jewel thief?’

Nic angled his head to one side and smiled. The tension seeped from his shoulders. ‘That actually sounds kind of cool.’

‘Or what if you rob little old ladies when they’re asleep in their beds?’

‘Not cool.’

I stopped searching for a moment and looked at him – his inky-brown eyes, the curve of his upper lip, the way his hair curled beneath his ears. There was something nebulous about him, something dark and uncertain. It ignited a kind of uneasiness in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I thought of my uncle’s warning to me, and not for the first time felt the weight of it on my mind. ‘The trouble is,’ I said, my voice catching in my throat, ‘I don’t know what you are.’

Nic held my gaze steady. ‘Maybe that’s half the fun of it.’

Too flustered to respond, I resumed the search for my keys, and Nic broke into a low laugh. I’m sure he didn’t mean it to be seductive, but the sound of it coupled with our proximity was having that effect on me.

‘So your mom went overseas and left all her sons alone in her new house?’ I asked in a bid to distract myself. ‘She sounds very trusting.’

‘She’s not,’ said Nic, laughing again. ‘It’s just that her love for Venetian furniture outweighs the distrust she has in her five sons.’

Five sons! So I hadn’t imagined Priestly Boy Number Five and I definitely wasn’t seeing ghosts that night.

‘We try to be respectful of her wishes when she’s away,’ Nic added as an afterthought. ‘Though sometimes we make a mess, and of course we end up fighting, too, as brothers do.’

‘I don’t have any siblings, so I guess I wouldn’t know a lot about the whole rivalry thing.’

Nic nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s too bad. My brothers are my best friends.’

‘Even Luca?’ I couldn’t help myself.

Nic’s smile was empathetic. ‘ Even Luca .’

‘That’s… surprising.’

‘He’s not so bad.’

I bit my tongue.

‘There’s nothing more important than the bonds of family,’ he went on. ‘When my grandfather was alive he would always say, “La famiglia prima di tutto.” It’s written on his mausoleum.’

Rich much? I bit my tongue again. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Family before everything.’

‘Cool,’ I said, somewhat ineptly. ‘When my mom’s dad died, he had “All dressed up with nowhere to go” written on his gravestone.’

Nic’s confused expression was unsurprisingly endearing.

‘He was an atheist,’ I added by way of explanation.

‘Oh.’ His bewilderment morphed into a wry smile. ‘A funny atheist.’

‘He died the way he lived – making jokes that pissed off my grandmother.’

I bent down and started rifling through the cabinets behind the counter – there were folded aprons, grimy old sweaters, and somebody’s pair of track pants. Probably mine.

Nic continued to rummage through the papers along the countertop. ‘Would your manager mind you being in here?’

‘My keys aren’t up there,’ I said, opening another cupboard and fishing around inside – nothing but dust balls and broken pens. ‘They’re probably in one of these cubbyholes.’

I looked up at Nic. He had picked up a menu and was studying it.

‘Would he mind?’ he asked again.

‘No.’ I tried a different nook and felt the tips of my fingers brush against something jagged and metal. ‘I’ll lock up after us. He won’t even know we were here.’

I could hear sheets of paper rustling around as Nic leafed through them, pausing at some before stashing them away again.

‘Where is he anyway?’

I shifted my shoulder so I could reach further inside the narrow nook. ‘Who?’

‘Your manager.’

‘His friend died, so he went to visit the family. I don’t know where he is now.’ I paused as my uncle’s disapproving face meandered into my mind, all red and puffy. With a pang I realized I missed him. I hoped he would call me soon.

I closed my hands around the keys, feeling their familiar edges with a flicker of triumph.

Nic had stopped shuffling. ‘So he just didn’t come back?’

I pulled them out – one brass diner key, another silver one for the smaller lock, my purple house key, and a glitzy Eiffel Tower key ring from Millie. I sprang to my feet and dangled the keys triumphantly in front of me.

‘Got ’em!’ I dropped them into my bag.

Nic’s smile pulled more to one side, pushing against his right cheekbone. We stood a foot apart, no longer distracted by the search, and with nowhere else to look but at each other. Suddenly our surroundings felt a lot more intimate. Standing alone and sopping wet in the diner, my awareness of him spiked, and I was conscious of every exhalation being louder than it should be.

‘Do you want me to give you a ride home?’ he asked. ‘It’s still coming down pretty hard out there. I don’t want you to melt into a puddle.’

‘Are you implying I’m a witch?’

Nic feigned a horrified expression. ‘Absolutely not. I am ever the gentleman.’

‘Except for when you’re knocking over girls outside your house and breaking into diners in the middle of the night,’ I pointed out. I thought about adding a switchblade comment but stopped myself, thinking of his father and everything he had just confided in me.

He nodded solemnly. ‘Yes. Except for then.’

I hesitated. ‘A ride home would be great.’

I followed him back to the other end of the diner, focusing on the lighter streaks of chestnut in his dark hair.

As Nic glided towards the door, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, he surveyed the diner again. ‘This place is so retro.’

‘It’s an acquired taste.’

‘Like my mother,’ he surmised with a soft chuckle. ‘In fact, sometimes I think I’m still acquiring.’

‘I feel that way about certain people too.’ I smiled, thinking of Jack and deliberately not thinking of his warning. He could be difficult and unpredictable, but once he was in your life, he was there for good, like a mole that makes up part of who you are.

‘But I bet no one feels that way about you, Sophie.’

Oh, only about a thousand people in Cedar Hill. ‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Would I?’ Nic turned back to me, hovering across the threshold.

‘We should go,’ I murmured, forcing myself to focus on all the questionable things about this boy, and not the way he was making me lose my breath just by looking at me.

If Nic was disappointed, he didn’t show it. Instead, he unzipped his hoodie.

‘Here,’ he said, holding it out to me. ‘We’ll have to run to the car.’ He kept his arm outstretched, leaving him in just a black T-shirt and dark jeans. His jaw tightened, and I felt as if he were daring me to refuse the gesture. ‘Please.’

‘Well, if you insist.’

I took the sweatshirt and shrugged it on. It was at least four sizes too big. When I zipped it up and shook out the sleeves so that they fell over my hands, the severity in Nic’s expression faded. I fought the urge to twirl around so that the hoodie would fan out like a cape. Don’t be weird.

Nic was smirking at me.

‘What?’ I placed my hands – which were no longer visible – on my waist. ‘Have you never seen a drowned rat wearing an oversized hoodie before?’

‘None like you,’ he laughed.

‘Well, you need to get out more.’

‘Clearly.’

I shut off the lights, punched in the alarm code and locked up behind us, following him out into the torrential downpour.

No wonder I hadn’t seen Nic’s SUV earlier – it was parked all the way across the lot, where even the streetlights didn’t shine. We sprinted towards it, wobbling under the force of wind that threw buckets of rain across our faces. When we reached the car, I tumbled in, pushing against the storm to shut the door. I fell back against the cool leather seat, wrapping my arms around me while Nic started the engine. Without the added warmth of his hoodie, his teeth were chattering.

I spent the car ride directing him to my house and running my fingers through my hair so it wouldn’t frizz out too much in the humidity. I was just melting into the easy conversation between us, and the welcome feeling of dryness, when he pulled up outside my house.

‘Thanks for the ride.’ I tried not to sound too crestfallen that our time together had ended. I pushed the car door open and it flung outwards under the force of the wind.

‘Sophie.’ Nic tilted towards me and gripped my leg, holding the lower half of my body in the warmth of the car. ‘Wait.’

My heart flipped, and I worried he could hear how loudly it was suddenly beating. I tried not to breathe too quickly, or to stare at his hand on my knee. I looked at him and found him studying my arms, my waist, my – his hoodie.

‘Oh.’ I shook my hair out, scolding myself. ‘Your hoodie.’

I began to unzip it.

‘No, it’s not that,’ he replied quickly, keeping his hand on my knee. ‘You can give it back to me some other time.’

I dropped my hands into my lap and waited, my breath bound up in the base of my throat. I could see he was steeling himself for something else. My brain began to flash with a thousand possibilities and suddenly my heart was ricocheting off my ribcage like it was trying to punch through it.

He inhaled sharply, his expression suddenly uncertain. ‘The switchblade,’ he said quietly. ‘Can I have it back?’

My face fell, and something inside me – it felt a lot like hope – shrivelled up and died. I reached into my bag and pulled out the knife, dropping it into his outstretched hand in one hurried movement. ‘Of course. I forgot.’

His fist closed around it and a flicker of relief passed over his features, relaxing them. ‘Thank you.’

‘I guess it’s for the best. You know, me walking around with a knife isn’t exactly a good idea. I’d probably fall on it or something.’ The words tumbled out in unbidden, high-pitched sentences, trying to distract from the awkwardness I was feeling. ‘I can definitely think of less embarrassing ways to die.’ Could you be any more inappropriate? I winced right after I said it and then hopped out of the car before I could put my other foot in my mouth. ‘Thanks again for everything.’

‘Sophie?’ Nic leant across the passenger seat, his expression serious. ‘Will you do something for me?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t be thinking of ways to die.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Good.’

He pulled back with a small, controlled smile, and I shut the door.

I stood in the rain, watching the car until it disappeared around the end of the street. Then I thought about the boy with the bruised hand and the inscribed switchblade who had just broken into my father’s diner, and found myself wondering why the hell I was feeling so sad to see him go.