Wicked Lovely Read Free Page A

the perimeter was a series of metalwork sculptures Seth had made over the past couple years. Between those sculptures—and in some cases twining around them—were flowering plants and shrubs. Despite the ravages of the lengthy winter months, the plants thrived under Seth's watchful care.
    Heartbeat calm now, Aislinn lifted her hand to knock.
    Before she could, the door swung open, and Seth stood in the doorway, grinning. The streetlights made him look a bit intimidating, illuminating the bars in his eyebrows and the ring in his lower lip. His blue-black hair fell over his face when he moved, like tiny arrows pointing to pronounced cheekbones. "Starting to think you were going to bail on me."
    "Didn't know you were expecting me," she said in what she hoped was a casual voice.
    He gets sexier every day.
    "Not expecting, but hoping. Always hoping." He rubbed his arms, mostly bare under the sleeves of a black T-shirt. He wasn't bulky, but his arms—and the rest of him— had obvious definition. He lifted one eyebrow and asked, "You going to come in or stand there?"
    "Anybody else in the house?"
    "Just me and Boomer."
    His teakettle whistled, and he went back inside, calling out as he went, "Picked up a sub earlier. Want half?"
    "Just tea."
    Aislinn already felt better; being around him made her feel more confident. Seth was the epitome of calm. When his parents had left on some mission thing and given him everything they owned, he didn't go on a binge. Aside from buying the train cars and converting them into a trailer of sorts, he'd kept it pretty normal—hung out, partied some. He talked about college, art school, but he wasn't in any rush.
    She stepped around the piles of books on the floor: Chaucer and Nietzsche sat beside The Prose Edda; the Kama Sutra tilted against A World History of Architecture and a Clare Dunkle novel. Seth read everything.
    "Just move Boomer. He's sluggish tonight." He gestured toward the boa napping on one of the ergonomic chairs in the front of the train—his common room. One green and one bright orange, the chairs curved backward like the letter C. They had no arms, so you could sit with your legs up if you wanted. Beside each of them were plain wood tables with books and papers stacked on them.
    Carefully she scooped up the coiled boa and moved him from the chair onto the sofa on the other side of the narrow room.
    Seth came over with two china saucers. A matching cup with blue flowers sat on each of them, two-thirds full of tea. "
High
Mountain
oolong. Just came in this morning."
    She took one—sloshing a bit over the edge—and tasted. "Good."
    He sat down across from her, holding his cup in one hand, the saucer in the other, and managing to look strangely dignified—despite his black nail polish. "So, anyone out at the Crow's Nest?"
    "Glenn stopped me. Your speakers came in."
    "Good you didn't go inside. They got raided last night." He scowled briefly. "Glenn didn't tell you?"
    "No, but he knew I wasn't staying." She tucked her feet up, pleased when Seth's scowl faded. "So who'd they get?"
    She sipped her tea and settled in for the latest rumors. Half the time she could just curl up and listen while he talked to the people who filled his house most nights. Then she could pretend—for a short time, at least—that the world was as it seemed to be, no more, no less. Seth gave her that: a private space to believe in the illusion of normalcy.
    It wasn't why she'd started visiting him when they met a couple years ago; that was purely a result of learning he lived in a house of steel walls. It was, however, one of the reasons she'd recently started having the wildly stupid thoughts about him, thoughts about giving in to his flirting, but Seth didn't date. He had a reputation as a great one-night stand, but she wasn't interested in that. Well, she was interested, but not if it meant losing either his friendship or access to his steel-walled haven.
    "You okay?"
    She'd been staring. Again. "Sure.