Silence - eARC by Mercedes Lackey, Cody Martin Page B

on me. It’s been a doozy of a night.

Chapter Six
    As Staci unlocked the door to the house, she felt…eyes on the back of her neck. But when she turned a full circle, peering into the shadows, all she saw was another of those creepy lawn gnomes across the street. Shivering, she hastily got herself and her bike inside.
    Mom was predictably nowhere in sight, though there was an empty bottle of vodka and another of orange juice in the trash, along with the zombie-pizza box. She kind of wished now she actually had gotten a doggie bag from Sean’s party, crass as that was. The food had been really nice.
    She left the bike in the living room. Given everything that had been happening, she didn’t want to take a chance on losing her ride, and it was pretty obvious Mom wasn’t going to care if she kept her bike in the house. She could probably have kept a horse in the house and Mom wouldn’t care as long as it didn’t break into the fridge and drink her booze.
    When she got into bed, she had trouble falling asleep. She kept thinking about Sean… Is he just being nice? Is it just that I’m the first new girl in town for a while? Is this a whole trophy thing or something? Back at her old school, if a girl was good enough to rank on the “hot” scale there was always this jockeying to see who could nail her first. Depending on how she played that, well, there were a lot of possible outcomes. Back home, she knew she was pretty, but nothing like as gorgeous as some of the other girls. But here…
    I guess I could be hot on a Silence scale.
    Then there was Sean himself. He was…well, perfect. Charming, cuter than hell, and rich; he didn’t seem to lord it over people, either. He looked equally comfortable talking to any of the cliques, and always had a smile ready. She could’ve gotten lost in his eyes forever, and she wouldn’t have cared. And for some reason, he was interested in her.
    With this and other thoughts running around in her head, she tossed restlessly, and only fell asleep after what seemed like hours.
    * * *
    By the next day all of that speculation seemed utterly ridiculous. As she fixed herself some cold cereal and milk, and looked around the shabby kitchen with its ancient appliances, cracked and peeling paint, and stained wallpaper, she swallowed down a lump of disappointment along with some orange juice. Because, really, what could someone like Sean Blackthorne have possibly seen in someone like her? She wasn’t a “lawyer’s daughter” anymore, or at least, not in ways that would count to the Blackthornes. She was the daughter of a cheap waitress that worked at a dive bar down near the docks. She hadn’t even been wearing her cute New York clothing; it had been what she’d gotten from the thrift store. Even if he had been marginally interested in her, once he checked on her background (and she knew from the way things worked back home that people like the Blackthornes always checked; pedigrees mattered to the upper crust) he’d know everything about her, and know she was never going to be “the right people.”
    I bet the only reason he brought me up there last night was so his friends could scope me out, and once I was gone, they had something to make fun of, she thought bitterly. I bet if I call the number he gave me, it’ll be Dial-a-Prayer or Time-and-Temperature. Or something worse. Like, maybe one of his friends so they can record me making a fool of myself.
    So when she wheeled down to the bookstore, she was in a pretty dismal state of mind.
    Tim seemed to pick up that she was depressed; he told her the first cup was on the house, and pointed her at some magazines he’d just gotten in. She managed to get up enough politeness to thank him, but buried herself in a huge cup of latte rather than reading.
    Maybe when the others get here, that silly anime game they are going to start will get my mind off things. Because now, all she could think about was to go over and over and over the things