Chapter Three:

The bell above the frosted door jingles six times when Pete and I enter the café.

Voices are at a medium volume, giving way to the obnoxious song that is Jingle Bells sung by a choir of electronic dogs.

Pete follows close behind me as we weave around the tall, round tables fit for two. Each has an assortment of candles burning, and with each step we get a scent of pine or cinnamon or spiced vanilla.

Christmas lights in the shape of icicles drip from the ceiling like a circus tent, and we claim the table in the middle.

"So, what are you using for your audition?" Pete asks when he gets back from ordering his drink, breaking my hard gaze at the stone between my fingers.

It's glistening under the hanging lights, opalescent in sheen and color.

"I'm not," I say, turning over the necklace in my palms, occasionally brushing along the silver vectors. Still, whenever my skin connects with the stone, something strong ripples through me. I can't say exactly what it is, but it feels strange. It feels good.

"What do you mean you're not auditioning? You haven't shut up about this play since it was announced in September."

"I'm just not, okay? Drop it."

Pete winces and resorts to silence while clogging his decaffeinated coffee full of artificial sugar.

"Where do you think your mom got this?"

He scans over the stone in my hands with a quick flick of lashes, and then shrugs, "I don't know. She has lots of junk, hence the junk sale we were slaving over."

"Slaving, huh?" I didn't know that consisted of comfortably sitting and accepting money for an hour.

"Well, whatever your mom says, I'm keeping this necklace," I've already clasped it around my neck by the time I finish the sentence.

An electric wave hits my chest when the cold stone touches my skin. The sensation is like a faint tingle, a warmth, and it feels incredible.

"What's with the face? You look creepy," Pete breaks in. He then takes a sip of coffee and immediately scrunches his nose, "Shoot, I forgot the cinnamon. I'll be right back."

Pete's gone in a second and I take this opportunity to do some intense ogling over the stone. I want to know everything about it. What it's called, what it's made of, and where it came from.

How could something so beautiful, be so easily discarded?

The bell jangles above the door once more and a breeze of winter licks my spine.

The brunette woman across the way waves her hand at the door and for some reason—call it natural curiosity—I follow the trail that her gaze leaves.

Wide eyes, sharper and colder than the ice I skate on, meet mine and instantly, we freeze.

He remains in the doorframe, hand gripping the metal bar across the glass pane. His only gesture that changes in the minute we stare are his dark eyebrows, hardening into slanted lines that shadow his lids.

He looks older, than the boys my age, rougher almost. It's written in his straining jaw, his unkept hair. It's even in the way he is standing now, with the sort of discomforting intensity that usually screams bad news.

"Hey, shut the door, man," says the kid on his laptop, the one subject to the freezing air blowing into the shop.

The man's face twists into something resembling irritation, and then his body shifts forward when the door smacks shut.

I don't realize I'm holding my breath until I catch a crisp scent of snow as he passes by my table.

I keep my eyes on him as he slides into the chair across from the woman in the back, the one who shares the same look of confusion I know I have.

"So, I've been thinking," Pete says, barricading my visual path to corner booth. "Obviously, your dad found out about the play, so what if we get Mr. Moreno to sign off on a tutoring slip? You know he'll do it just so you can participate."

"Right. What teacher would help a student lie and disobey their parents?"

"An awesome one." Pete gives me a cheery, cinnamon-coated smile, and despite the grotesqueness of the image, I have to focus on him to keep the couple in my periphal vision.

They're still chatting quietly. Arguing, rather. His lips move as rapidly as her eyes as they dart between us. The second we make eye contact, her sight rips from mine, only to nod at him before stirring her drink.

The brunette leans inward and says something quick. Immediately, the boy shifts backward and slams each fist into a leather pocket.

His head cocks to the side and he stares at the artwork of an octopus for a moment. His entire body language has changed from angry and aggressive to a strange sort of sadness. He looks melancholic...defeated.

"I think it'll work. Your dad will never know."

There's something in the pit of my stomach that's telling me to stop watching him, to leave the café.

"Shell?"

The boy's eyes snap to mine, far darker than before, and my stomach lodges into my throat. The longer he keeps his eyes locked, the harder my blood starts pulsing.

"Shelland?"

Pete reaches toward me with his fingers drawn to snap, but his long thigh pulls up the edge of the table and tips his coffee right into my lap.

"Pete!" I yell, and a thousand eyes zoom in on mine.

"Man, I'm sorry! I didn't mean—" he says, "that was a complete accident!"

"Dammit, Pete!" I mutter, feeling the hot coffee saturate my thin tights.

"Hold on, I can get a towel."

"No, I'll do it," I snap.

It take three thick piles of napkins to suck up half the mess and the coffee already has my leggings sticking to my skin.

"Shelland, you know that was an accident, right?" Pete says. His eyes are drooping like a puppy, and though I'm still mad, I nod anyway.

"You're supposed to drink coffee, not wear it," mumbles the cashier as she plows past us with a full bucket and mop.

She slaps the wet mop underneath our table and with a single shared look, we burst into laughter.

"What a grouch," says Pete after sucking in vanilla air.

"Hey, I'd be mad too."

"You get mad if someone leaves a single crumb on a table!"

"Shut up! I do not," I say, tossing the brown wad of napkins into the trash bin. "Can we leave already? I'm not sitting in stained tights all day."

Pete snorts and pull the keys out of his puffy jacket, leading the way out of the cafe. As we pass our table, I let myself sneak a glance toward the back of the building, and I'm strangely disappointed that the only remnant of the boy and the brunette is a single white cup left steaming.

The second I drop off Pete, his mom shoves a cardboard box into his arms and barks a thousand different syllables about missing the rest of the garage sale. She goes off on a tangent about responsibility, and she doesn't look, or even blink, when I honk goodbye.

Her lack of acknowledgment is a sweet assurance that she's yet to learn of my sticky fingers. Hell, that jewelry box hadn't been opened in years. I'd venture to say it's been a decade, if not longer.

Pete's mom hasn't always been so uptight.

When Mom and I first moved out of my Dad's, across town, she was the first person at Mom's side. She was up all night with her, plotting fake revenge and helping her drink her sorrows away.

But, that was before the "big blow-up", as Pete calls it. A blow up, that no one but the two of them know the truth about.I've always been afraid to ask, but ever since that summer, Mrs. Kemp has avoided my family as if we were the next red death.

Which, in retrospect, we sort of are.

My phone's buzzing by the time I'm a mile from my home. "My Mom knows," is the first sentence out of Pete's mouth.

Three simple words couldn't be simultaneously more terrifying and irritating.

"Knows what?"

"That I took money from the cash tin."

"Dammit, Pete!" I breathe, "I was about to go ballistic."

"Over what?" his snort echoes through the speaker, "that stupid necklace? What is your deal with that thing?"

"So, what," I say, flipping on my left indicator to my road.

I can practically hear Pete shaking his head through the phoneline, "Careful, Shell. Any further attachment to jewerly, and I'm trekking you up to a volcano. I will not let your hair move from your head to your feet, kapeesh?"

"Whatever, forget it."

"So, let me know when I can sneak over tonight. I want to go over Drama club."

"Pete, I already told you to drop it! I can't audition," I snap a little too harshly. As much as I want that part, I promised Dad I'd still to skating. "There's always next year."

"Yeah, until you move that to the following year, and then the next. Soon you'll be fifty will no acting chops."

"Pete, seriously, I don't need a lecture from you too. Just come over at six. Mom has a double shift tonight, so she's out around then."

"Cool beans," says Pete.

I reply with, "what the hell?"

Parked in my driveway is a sleek, black Audi with tinted windows and shining rims.

"Shell? What's going on?"

I hear the repetition of my name through the speaker, but I'm too concerned by the foreign vehicle in my driveway.

"I think my mom has a new boyfriend," I half mumble.

It's not until I skim across the path to the porch that my body starts to nervously shiver.

Standing beneath the awning of our double-wide, is a long-haired, broad shouldered boy. The very same man that chilled my breath with his icy glare.

I hear my heart pumping louder than Pete's voice in my ear. A thousand questions tie up my tongue, and all I can do is park along the curb.

His eyes are glued to the car, but I do my best to grab my skates without sparking a suspicion.

There's no way in hell that I'm approaching this guy unarmed.

"Pete, get here as fast as you can," I swallow hard, and then I hang up.