HIS SCENT IS A MOON LIT LIE

Chapter Six

Elara’s POV

Gabriel Cross had been a family friend for as long as I could remember. He was my mother’s friend first, and her colleague from work. They always went on trips together, and even though I still didn’t understand the specifications of her job, I was just so glad she had someone to lean on there.

And Dad was too.

Because his voice boomed through the space as we pushed into the living room, Gabriel still by my side, a smile stretched on his face.

“Gabriel!” Dad pushed through from the stairs. “We weren’t expecting you today.” I could see the confusion in his eyes, the one he never let anyone see through. But I’d always had a way of reading him.

“Oh,” Gabriel’s head jerked back in mild surprise, but he recovered from it quickly, crossing the space to shake hands with my dad. “I thought Vivienne…your wife….”

“She must have forgotten,” I chirped quickly, not wanting this to escalate into something unnecessarily huge. “You know how Mom hates this in the first place.”

Gabriel and Dad turned tog look at me, with the same expression in their eyes. Gabriel spoke first, a certain twinkle in his eyes. “When did you get so grown?” he muttered, a certain tinge of humor in his tone.

But underneath that was laced with something. Something I couldn’t decipher. I smiled warmly at him, just as Dad walked over to me and ruffled my hair.

“Why don’t you go up to your room? Let’s give Gabriel and your mother some space to discuss. You can come down for dinner.”

As if on cue, Mom sauntered in from the kitchen, a dishcloth in one hand and a sheen of sweat on her forehead. The light in her eyes glowed when her feet came to a halt. But that was the thing.

Like the rest of us, she was surprised Gabriel was there, too. Her lips parted and fell shut in rapid succession. “Gabriel.” It was both a call and a question. The smile on her lips threatened to slip.

It was on that edge where it felt like it could disappear into oblivion, but it never did. And that was one thing about my mother. She was always in control of everything.

Sometimes, I wondered if our household would have been this way, so secure and in order, if she weren’t this way. Dad was the exact opposite, but his warmth seeped through the cracks in the walls.

“I’m going to check up on Maya and Ethan,” I said in a high-pitched tone, making my way up the stairs, away from the odd conversation that was about to start. “I just need to grab a sweater.”

“Honey,” my mother called, causing me to halt in the middle of the stairs. I looked back at her, my hair falling across one side of my face. I needed to be upstairs, but for a different reason. I knew he would be there.

For some reason, I could feel it pulsing through my veins.

“You and your brother should go see your grandfather over the weekend,” she murmured, just as Dad walked over to her, placing a hand on the small of her back. She eased into him immediately, like a moth to a flame.

That was what I wanted for myself. That ease of being irrevocably in love with someone.

Before the summer break, I was so hung up on Alexander, even though he never saw me that way. I hoped…No. I prayed that things would be different for the next year in school. That he would look at me with newfound interest when I had maybe learned to use makeup.

But since that night, he was the last person I’d thought of.

“Yeah,” Dad added, nodding. “He misses you.”

“He called?”

Mom nodded. “Last night. Now that I think of it, he sounded…. I don’t know….lonely?”

My grandfather lived up in the woods by himself, away from the heart of civilization. He’d always liked it that way, the freedom to be away from people, living as he pleased. But we went up there as often as we could.

It was my favorite place in the world, and I remembered pleading with my parents for us to move up there. Of course, they never obliged me.

I’m glad they didn’t.

“I’ll tell Lorien,” I muttered, turning around and walking up the stairs, but not fast enough to catch the look in Gabriel’s eyes. He regarded me intently, like he was seeing me for the first time. A chill ran through my spine, but I shook it away.

I was just spooked by the whole thing that had been happening. Gabriel Cross had been a constant in our lives. Nothing was different.

With my door finally closed behind me, my feet shuffled to the window, to the one place I found myself edging towards too often these days.

My blinds were still open, giving me a perfect view into his room. But he wasn’t there.

Angling my head, I plopped into the seat I’d moved there when he left this morning. It was still so strange to imagine that he was right there with me. Some part of me was ready to assume it was a part of my imagination.

But it had felt too real to be just that. His hand on my cheeks, the scent of the beach permeating every inch of my room, his voice in my head…

I saw him then, but not in his room.

He was standing at the door, his arms crossed around his frame, and the skin on his forehead squeezed with something that bore a similarity to a laid-back anger.

His scent teased my nostrils, and I brought my bottom lip between my teeth, remembering the scent from the other day while I was sunbathing.

The day he moved in.

He was the one.

“Jordan…” I whispered without moving my lips.

His head snapped up at once.

But at the same time, the person standing in front of him looked up too, and I could have sworn I saw those eyes glow.