Chapter 1
I’m going to crawl out of my skin. I glance over the sea of people in the pews around me, the face of each resident of my small, insignificant town so familiar they’re like visual white noise. And the priest is droning on as usual in his monotone voice.
“You see, each day the Lord provides us with fresh powder. It is up to each of us to carve our own way down the mountain of life. Whether we choose a path through the twisting woods, or the security and predictability of the groomed trails—”
No.
Not a skiing parable. I just can’t.
I start to rise, ready to quietly excuse myself, when I feel familiar, pincerlike fingers wrap around my arm.
My abuela hisses at me from beneath her black lace veil. “Miguela, where are you going?”
“I . . . just need some air,” I whisper back.
Why can’t I lie and say something more persuasive? Like, I need to go to the bathroom, or it’s that time of the month, or I’m about to have a psychotic episode? My friend Barry finds it amusing that I am incapable of lying, particularly when my grandmother is giving me the searing look of death.
“I’ll be right back, Abuela. Te lo prometo.”
The Spanish does it. She releases me, and I scurry off as the adults on either side of the aisle flash disapproving looks my way.
When I get to the lobby, I step to the left, just out of view, and take a deep breath. The November day is unseasonably warm, so all the doors are open. I can see the last of the autumn leaves clinging to the bare branches of the small tree out front as if they’re afraid to let go.
Relief floods my body in a wave. It’s not that I don’t have faith. It’s just sometimes in our church and community, it feels like everyone is staring at me with all this . . . expectation; it feels oppressive. I pull my book from the backpack I stashed under the wooden bench and settle into the corner. Just a few pages, maybe a chapter or two; then I’ll go back and sit next to my grandmother like a good girl.
I open the book and smile at my bookmark: my acceptance letter from UCLA. My grandmother is dead set on me going to Saint Michael’s College here in Vermont, so I applied to my dream school in secret. I’ll tell her about it soon, but for now I know it’s safe tucked in my horror novel since there’s no way in hell she’d look in there.
My phone buzzes with a message. The group text among me and my crew of three friends is so active we gave it its own name: “The Host.”
Rage: Where’d you run off to?
Barry: Who cares? Run, Mica! Run away!
I smile, and type Shhh! I’m reading.
Rage: But you missed the second half of the parable!
Me: It’s ok, I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t ski.
I run my hands over the book’s pristine cover, feeling the glossy, embossed skull at the center, the black and red metallic ink glistening in the sunlight. Dante Vulgate. When a new book of his comes out, it’s like Christmas, no matter the month. I open the pages to my bookmark, the new spine crackling like logs in a fireplace, and start where I left off at breakfast. I’m just getting into it, losing myself in the story, when a shadow moves into the doorway and blocks my light.
Someone is looking at me: I feel it on the top of my scalp, hot like the midsummer sun. I run my fingers through my hair as if I can brush the feeling away like a cobweb. I raise my head to see where it’s coming from, and maybe give the light blocker a dirty look.
Standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the morning light behind, and lit golden by the gentle glow from the church, is a guy peering in from the threshold.
Christ on a whole wheat cracker, who the hell is that?
He’s around my age, with a wave of jet-black hair framing his pale face, and eyelashes so dark they look like pirate guyliner. And he’s wearing a suit! No one in Vermont wears a suit, like, ever. It makes him look sophisticated . . . worldly. Yeah, he’s definitely not from around here.
Oh God, I’m staring. I look down at the book in my lap. But it’s like a magnet is pulling my eyes up again, and I fight it as long as I can. When I can’t resist any longer and glance back, I find he’s staring at me.
Not just at me, into me.
And then the heat is not just on the top of my head; it’s starting from my chest and spreading outward. You know in movies
when the two lead characters’ eyes meet and time slows around them while some cheesy-ass ballad swells up? It’s like that, but instead of guitars there’s only the distant drone of the priest and Johnny Pearson’s perpetual snorting of snot from his usual spot in the back row. I’m having trouble remembering how to breathe, and my heart is slamming on the inside of my ribs—
Something grabs my upper arm, and I flinch.
“Miguela, what are you doing? Come back into the church this instant,” my grandmother whispers in forceful Spanish beside me, pulling me to my feet with her bony fingers.
“God, Abuela, you scared me.”
“We talked about you throwing the Lord’s name around like it has no meaning.” She notices the book in my hands. “¡Fo! I should have known. They should burn all that man’s books. Now put it away and come inside.” Then she peers toward the outside door. “And what were you looking at?”
The guy!
I look up, but he’s gone. The huge doorway framing the picturesque Vermont morning in all its emptiness.
Damn.
After Mass, the congregation gathers on the grass in front of the church. My grandmother is talking to the neighbors about casseroles, the unusually warm weather, and other mind-numbingly dull things, when someone grabs me around the neck.
I’m about to flip whoever it is—can’t deny my martial arts training—when I see Raguel’s face grinning at me over my shoulder, a wavy tumble of orange hair covering one of his blue eyes. He goes by Rage, which is ironic since he’s the most diplomatic, friendly person I know.
“You’re lucky I didn’t flip you right here on the church lawn,” I say calmly.
He puts his arm around my shoulders and winks. “Yeah, but we both know you wouldn’t, even though you could.”
“Gee, thanks, Sensei. Where’s Barry?”
As if in answer, an off-key electronic version of—is that “Red Solo Cup”?—echoes down the street. Everyone turns as the largest, most ridiculous truck I’ve ever seen pulls up right in front of the church lawn. It’s pearl white with mirror-shiny aluminum trim, and tires that look taller than I am. It has a flashing red light on top and way more racks on the roof than any one person would ever need. As we’re gaping at it, the tinted driver’s-side window rolls down and I see Barry’s face, lit up with pride.
“That boy, he is always so subtle,” I hear my grandmother say as she looks out over my shoulder.
“Yeah, Barry sure likes to make an entrance,” Rage says, smiling.
He and I walk to the truck.
“Barry!” I yell over the loud revving engine. “What’s with the rig?”
He smiles. “Like her? She’s new! I call her Pegasus.” He pats the dashboard as if it were a dog.
I laugh. “Didn’t picture you as the mythical creature type.”
“Who doesn’t like winged horses? Besides, I’m friends with you, aren’t I?” He gives me a wink.
I have to say, the scale of Barry in the new truck is just right. He grew up on the farm and looks it. Forearms like tree trunks and a tan that ends where his T-shirt sleeves do, but with a smile like a five-year-old boy who just stole your last cookie. Rage looks lean and stylish in his Sunday best, but Barry? With his rolled-up sleeves and wrinkled tie, he looks . . . miscast dressed for church. I point behind the seats to Barry’s mobile armory. “I see the gun rack has grown too. You expecting trouble after Mass?”
“No, but it is hunting season, missy! C’mon, Rage, the heathen’s already got us a table.”
I roll my eyes. “You know Zee hates when you call her that.”
“Well, do you see her here on Sundays suffering through that Mass with the rest of us?”
Rage climbs into the passenger seat and looks back at me. “You coming with? McCarthy’s? Red-white-and-blue pancakes?”
I kind of salivate at the thought. “I can’t. I have to work.”
My grandmother with her super-sharp old-lady hearing comes striding over to the truck. “You’re not working on the Lord’s Day again, are you, Miguela?”
Isn’t it enough that I dress in these ridiculously girly clothes and sit in that airless church for an hour every week? Besides, what does she know about working? The woman volunteers all over town, but the humiliation of slaving for minimum wage? She knows nothing about it. I love my grandmother, but there’s only so much I can bear. “Yes, Abuela. They need me.”
She looks at me through narrowed eyes. “Even the Lord rested on the seventh day, m’ija.”
Well then, he shouldn’t have given Sarah the stomach flu. Good thing I didn’t say that out loud, because that would bring a shit storm that no umbrella could save me from. “Sarah’s sick, and I have to cover for her.”
“Oh. Well, then that is the Christian thing to do.” At that, she brushes the hair out of my face with brusque fingers.
Abuela approves of something I’m doing? That’s like seeing a unicorn gallop down Main Street. Thankfully, she walks away and back to her gaggle of grown-ups.
“Did you start your paper on the Reformation?” Rage asks, leaning out the truck window.
I glare at him. “Wow. Not yet, Dad. Besides, it’s still the weekend. Don’t remind me about school.”
Rage smiles that one-sided grin of his. “Oh, right, you don’t really need to keep your grades up. Some of us didn’t get early admission into our dream school!” His tone is kind of snippy. Rage has been weird around me since I got the acceptance letter from UCLA.
“Shh!” I hiss, and look back at my grandmother to make sure she—or anyone else, for that matter—didn’t hear. In a small town, secrets rarely stay secret.
Then Rage reaches out the window and yanks the book from my backpack like we’re still six. “Maybe you’d have it done if you didn’t spend all your time reading this dark-ass shit,” he says as he fans through the pages of the Vulgate novel.
I can already see the dust jacket curling and creasing in his hands. I yank it back and punch him on the arm, hard.
Barry leans over and asks, “You coming to the fair tonight, M?”
“No, I’m afraid my social calendar is too full.”
Barry snorts. “Sure, it is. We’ll pick you up at seven.”
“In this monster? No way. If I go, I’ll ride with Zee.” I’m not going to go, but if I say that outright, I’ll just get shit for it.
Barry shrugs, looking slightly hurt that I called his new truck a monster. “Suit yourself.”
I give Rage a fist bump, wave goodbye to my grandmother, and walk off in the direction of the bookstore. The day is sunny and warm, but I can also sense a slight chill waiting for nightfall. I love early November in Vermont. The hordes of leaf-peeping tourists have petered out, and it’s too early for skiers. Before I’ve gone a block, I’ve said hello to half a dozen people. Everyone knows everyone else in Stowe. If you hear a siren during the day, by six o’clock you know what the emergency was and where.
It’s busy at the bookstore when I arrive. There are lots of locals looking for reading material to hunker down with before the snow starts to fall. I’m grateful when the late-afternoon lull hits so I can straighten up the store. I like putting books back into their rightful places, all clean and neat. I prefer it to dealing with actual people. So why do I work in a store where my entire job is literally customer service? Two words: Staff. Discount.
I’m reorganizing the biography section: some entitled rich white dude from Connecticut wreaked havoc on it earlier while trying to find a book about another entitled rich white dude.
As I turn toward the next bookcase, I jump a bit to see someone standing in front of the fantasy-and-horror section. I could have sworn I was the only one in the store. Then I look closer.
Oh. My. God.
The hot guy from church!
He’s changed into dark jeans, crisp and fitted, and a light sweater that hugs his chest and shoulders. His hair is more tousled, like he runs his hand through it often, and he’s wearing Australian Blundstone boots.
I love guys in Blunnies.
I have to talk to him, but how? I’m not the smoothest rock in the river. Not to mention that I’ve had a grand total of three boyfriends, and I’d known them all my life, no introductions needed.
I pretend to see something that needs sorting in the history section right next to him, and though I keep looking at the shelves, I can feel the heat of his gaze again, almost immediately.
“Excuse me, do you work here?”
Oh shit. He’s speaking to me. My stomach starts to flutter. I turn around slowly, clutching a copy of Vermont: A Haunted History to my chest as if it were armor. “Yes?”
It comes out like a question, as if I’m asking him if I work here. But then I look at him and forget every stupid thing I’ve ever said.
His eyes are huge, and up close the brown seems to swirl as if just stirred. And his skin, it’s so perfect, it damn near glows. He is literally the best-looking human I’ve ever seen in real life, and in that moment, I have no idea what to do with my hands, how to stand, how to even breathe, so I just rock back and forth a bit. Suddenly a cold shiver of fear runs down my spine; then it slowly changes to warmth, like a dry branch that catches a flame.
“Do you guys have the latest Dante Vulgate novel, The Last Descent?”
The horror geek in me brightens. “I just started it! Vulgate’s my favorite author.”
He smiles. “I love everything he writes. But I’d have to say my favorite is The Mortal Comedy.”
“Mine too! I even sent him an email once telling him how much I related to the Maria character in that book. He never wrote back.” I shrug casually, though my fangirl heart was crushed at the time. “Do you follow the listserv?”
“I checked it out once or twice. Too many trolls on there for me.”
I nod. “True that.”
He’s still smiling at me. Why?
“So . . . do you have the book?”
“Oh! Right!” My face heats up. “Sorry, but we sold out the same day they came in. It’s on order, though.”
Truthfully, the one I was reading in church was the last copy, but damned if I’m going to tell him that. Don’t care how hot he is, I’ve been waiting for that book for a year, and I’m only a quarter of the way through. “Should be getting more in next week, if you’re still going to be in town?” Subtle, Mica, subtle.
“Damn. I was hoping to start it tonight. I only brought three books, and I’ve already finished them.”
I laugh. “I have to bring about six books for each week when I’m on vacation.”
He raises his hand. “Same here. My friends never understand why I don’t just read e-books and then I’d never run out.”
“Ugh! E-books are just—”
“Not the same,” we say in unison, and then smile at each other.
He keeps looking into my eyes, and my palms are sweating al
l over the book in my hands. I discreetly wipe it on my shirt and shelve it with a neat thunk. Then I just stare at the spine.
“Did I see you at the church this morning?” I blurt.
“Yes. And I saw you.” That smile. It’s just a small lift on either side of his full lips, but these dimples appear that make my heart beat faster.
“I haven’t seen you around.”
“I’m renting a house up on Cottage Club Road for a couple weeks. I’m here on vacation—”
“Oh . . .” I sound disappointed. Do I sound disappointed? God. I’m humiliating myself. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’ve seen that church in all the pictures of Stowe, and I just wondered what it looked like inside. My family isn’t exactly the churchgoing type.”
I laugh. “You’re lucky. I get dragged there by my abuela every Sunday.”
He cocks his head a bit to the side like a bird. A very handsome bird. “‘Abuela’?”
“Sorry, it’s Spanish for ‘grandmother’: I was born in Puerto Rico.”
“And you moved to Vermont? Bit of a change in climate, huh?”
“I know. I can’t figure out why my grandmother would want to leave the island to come to this freezing place.”
“Did you move here because of your parents?”
“No. My mom’s dead, and I didn’t know my father.” Well, it’s the truth, but there’s nothing like dragging down a gorgeous stranger with your sad orphan story. I really need to work on my flirting technique.
“I’m sorry.”
And he looks it. Sorry, I mean. His face softens, and his eyes look glassy. Then all I want to do is cheer him up. An idea pops into my head, and I walk across the store and behind the register. “You can borrow my copy of the book.” Not sure where that came from, but it works: he’s smiling again. I reach down beneath the counter where I’d tucked my backpack and hear him step up to the other side.
“Look, that’s really nice of you, but I can’t take your personal copy.”
He’s leaning over the worn wood counter, and as I straighten up, we’re face-to-face. Close. Like, noses-almost-touching close. I breathe deep and take in his warm smell of coffee, sandalwood, and something underneath . . . like the smell right after you light a match. I’ve always loved that smell.
“No, I want you to, really.” And I mean it, though I never loan out my books. Ever.
He looks down at the proffered hardcover and grins as he takes it from me. “Okay, then. But I’m only doing this because it means I get to see you again when I bring it back.”
What do you say to a comment like that? “Thanks”? “You betcha”? “Marry me”? Instead, I ask, “What’s your name?”
Sam.”
“Sam . . .” I repeat it like it’s a sacred word. “Nice to meet you, Sam.” Everything around us is out of focus; the sounds, the kids yelling as they walk by out front, the traffic, everything. It’s just me and Sam . . .
He keeps smiling. What’s he waiting for?
Oh! He wants my name. Duh. “I’m Mica.”
“Like the mineral?”
“No, it’s short for Michaela, or actually Miguela, in—”
“In Spanish.” He finishes with a nod. “Nice to meet you too, Mica.”
Then he shakes my hand, his skin surprisingly soft. He holds on for just a second longer than I expect, all the while looking in my eyes. After letting go, he turns around and walks toward the exit. I shiver, like he’s pulling that warm out-of-control feeling along after him.
I stare at his back as he glides out the front door and onto the street, my book tucked carefully under his arm.
Lord, how I envy that book.
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