Bad Intentions: Chapter 14

I woke with a dream still lodged firmly in my head, blinking into the early morning sunlight to try to get reality to filter through my overheated brain.

Crap. Another dream about Cayden. After our encounter last night, I could hardly blame my subconscious for being a little feverish. In the dream, I’d been running through the house in the dark, looking over my shoulder. There was no one else home, I’d been sure of it. I’d run and hidden behind the trunk in the attic, the very same one I used to hide behind as a child. Waiting there, my heart pounding, I’d felt alive like never before. I knew who was hunting me, and I knew that if he caught me, he’d do terrible, unspeakable things to me. I’d worn a white dress (clearly my subconscious wasn’t very creative when it came to symbols of purity). I knew that Cayden would mark it with his dirty hands, and as I trembled there, behind the trunk, in my heart of hearts, I wanted him to catch me.

I wanted him to take what he wanted.

I wanted to stop being the good girl for one fucking second, and just be his.

I pushed the thought of the dream out of my head. I needed to work out a new journal situation, as I refused to write down my innermost fantasies anywhere he could read this time, but I still needed a place to offload my troubling dreams.

I turned over in bed, grabbing my phone before the alarm went off again. The date smacked me in the face.

It was my birthday. I was officially eighteen. Yay me. Like all the birthdays before it, it felt anticlimactic.

A commotion came from outside. The sound of a truck door slamming and the low purr of a motorcycle. I heaved myself reluctantly out of bed to go and look down at the driveway. A motorcycle sat there, just unloaded from a flatbed. Cayden stood next to it, while my mom was in deep conversation with the driver of the flatbed. Was it Cayden’s? The very thought of the guy on a motorcycle was enough to send me heading to the shower. I’d fled from the bathroom last night before getting clean and spent all night feeling sticky and horrible. I had to shower before school, and most importantly, I needed to calm the hell down. I was eighteen. I was surely too old to give in to the storm of teenage hormones and lust after the resident bad boy.

Maybe if I told myself that enough times, I’d start to believe it.

At lunch, Eve and I sat in the far corner of the cafeteria and kept our heads down. She wasn’t really one for hiding from the Ice Gods, seeing as her brother was one, but she would do whatever I needed to do to feel comfortable. Eve was a one-in-a-million friend.

“So, he rides a motorcycle, too? That’s hot.”

“Okay, Paris Hilton circa 2004. It’s normal. At least it means I don’t have to ride with him to school anymore.”

“Well, unless he offers you a ride on his bike. Now that would be hot.”

“And dangerous. I don’t trust that guy walking past me in the hall, never mind being in control of the bike I’m on. Anyway, let’s talk about something else.” I picked at my food. I wasn’t really hungry.

Cayden had been busy with his bike and early practice this morning, while my mom had made me pancakes for a birthday breakfast. She’d talked on and on about HHU and how I’d still be able to live at home next year when I went to college locally. I’d stuffed my face with the pancakes to avoid answering.

“Something like birthdays!” Eve was immediately distracted. She grinned at me. “Tell me what you want to do, and I’ll make it happen.”

“Ugh, I don’t know. Nothing?”

“Not an option. You only turn eighteen once. We have to do something fun.”

“I don’t know. I don’t care about birthdays, you know that.”

“Still, for me…please?”

“Okay, let’s get takeout and movies and stay at your house this weekend,” I suggested. Any night out of my house and away from the suffocating, confusing presence of Cayden West was a bonus.

Eve wrinkled her nose. “That’s a normal Friday night. It needs to be something different. You know Beckett is having a party after the game tomorrow. Apparently, it’s Cayden’s birthday, too. You should probably know that, since you’re siblings now and everything.” Eve snorted with glee when I elbowed her.

“Tomorrow is really his birthday? My mom did say we were close together.” I chewed my nail, trying to imagine the party. I shook my head. “No, if there’s anything I don’t want to do on my birthday, it’s hanging around the Ice Gods and their minions. How about two-for-one movie night at the Apollo?” The local movie theater in town was one of those little art house places that never seemed to make any money but somehow stayed open. Eve sighed. “Great, popcorn and a movie on an eighteenth birthday. It might as well be your eighth birthday, I’m pretty sure we did the same thing.”

“Don’t be a grump,” I cajoled her. I knew my lack of social graces wase a continual sore spot between me and Eve. She liked to be center of attention, and I didn’t. Most birthday things were absolute torture.

“Let’s go to the party…come on.”

“No. It’s my birthday, and I’ll stay home if I want to.”

“You’re the worst,” Eve muttered and slid her phone out of her pocket. Her gasp pulled my attention to her.

“What now?”

She turned a megawatt smile on me and then tilted her screen. “Looks like you don’t have a choice.”

It was an online invitation, fancy as hell and definitely not created by anyone at school. An invitation to Beckett’s party. It seemed Eve had finally managed to get herself a real-life invite. What caught my notice, however, was my name scrolling right beside Cayden’s.

What the hell?

“Let me see that.” I snatched her phone and stared down at the invitation. How extra was Beckett that he’d sent out invites to his parties, and moreover, whose idea had it been to include me?

“Is this your doing?” I asked Eve.

She shook her head, her eyes wide. “No! Like Beckett would ever do anything I asked him to.”

“Asher?” Sure, I didn’t know Eve’s brother that well, but he had a twisted sense of humor sometimes.

“Nope. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember when your birthday is.”

Right, it had to be someone who knew when my birthday was. That only left one person I could think of. Cayden West. Last night’s encounter in the bathroom returned to me, making me feel all hot all over. I’d been avoiding him successfully all day. The game was tomorrow, and he was constantly at practice. Why would he try to force me to go to Beckett’s party? To embarrass me? To play more of his fucked up games?

“So, you’re definitely going now, right?” Eve’s grin stretched across her face like the Cheshire cat’s.

“Absolutely not. Like I’m going to let Cayden West order me around. I’m getting movie tickets. Come or don’t. I understand if you want to go to the party.”

“It’s your birthday! Of course I’m not going to leave you on your own,” Eve pouted. She sighed. “I guess we’ll just go to the movies.”

Her eyes widened and flickered over my shoulder, and it was the only warning I had that we were no longer alone.

“When is this movie night?” Cayden’s deep voice brushed against my nerves, and I jumped.

Eve stared at me a long moment, waiting to see if I’d answer. When I didn’t, she pasted on a bright smile and angled her face up. I kept my eyes trained on my lunch tray. I felt awkward as hell around Cayden, considering the last time I’d had his eyes on me, I’d been coming.

“For Lily’s birthday. It’s today, just so you know. Hi, Selena,” Eve tacked on, probably so I’d understand that Cayden wasn’t alone behind me.

“I know.”

A paper bag was placed on the table beside me, the kind that stationery stores used. A rectangular shape was visible through the paper. A present? A bubble of hysterical laughter threatened to burst out. This guy really was insane.

“Happy birthday,” Cayden continued.

“Oh my God, you got her a gift? That’s so nice, Cade. My birthday is in a month, just so you know,” Selena purred.

I made no move to touch the present.

Eve looked awkward, shredding her sugar packet between her black polished fingernails.

“Aren’t you going to open it, Bug? Haven’t you ever gotten a present before? That’s the polite thing to do,” Selena snapped, clearly getting tired of standing around behind us.

“She can open it when she wants to. Are you girls coming to the game?” Cayden interjected, sounding annoyed by Selena’s brittle tone.

Eve nodded. “Of course. My brother’s playing, and Coach likes Lily and her mom to be there for all the home games, at least.”

“And the party after? I see Beckett actually invited you this time, Eve. How kind of him.”

I closed my hand around my plastic knife at Selena’s subtle dig.

“Yeah, so kind. What a guy,” Eve muttered through gritted teeth. “Despite the honor of getting a real invitation, we’re not coming. We’re going to the movies.”

Selena snorted. “Figures.”

“The movies after the big game? I don’t think so,” Cayden said. His voice faded somewhat as he turned his head. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” His irritation was directed at Selena.

I stood, the entire thing suddenly too much. I was acting too flustered around Cayden, and Eve was watching me too closely. Not just Eve—I felt like the entire cafeteria was staring.

“Let’s go,” I murmured to my best friend.

Before I could move, however, Cayden’s huge body pressed against mine, trapping me between him and the table.

He moved my hair from my ear slowly, tucking it back. “If you think you can avoid me, forget it. You’re coming to the party.”

“No, I’m not, and you can’t make me.”

He chuckled. “You really don’t want to go head-to-head with me on this. You’ll lose.”

“Why do you care if I’m there? What are you going to do to me?” My eyes blazed into his when I finally risked a glance upward.

He was right there. He tilted his head to the side, considering his answer.

Then a cruel, faintly devious grin drifted over his full mouth. He leaned in and spoke in my ear. “Nothing that you don’t secretly want. Stop running away. It only makes me want to chase you.”

His face pressed against my cheek for a second, his skin hot. He smelled so good, a scent that was uniquely Cayden.

“Lily?” Eve’s voice doused us with a cold splash of reality.

The noise from the cafeteria filtered back in, and I stumbled back to find that we were, once again, the center of attention.

“Let’s go,” I repeated my earlier words to Eve and grabbed her hand, shouldering my bag and hurrying away.

Eve mumbled some apology to Cayden and snatched the gift he’d given me off the table as we went.

I didn’t stop or let go of her hand until we were several halls away from the cafeteria.

“What the hell was going on in there? If something happened with him, you’d tell me, right?”

“Of course.” I felt guilty as soon as I said it. How could I tell Eve what’d happened between us without confessing the depraved little dreams I’d journaled about? What would my best friend think of me if she knew that I had such dark and shameful fantasies?

“Here, you left this on the table,” she said and passed me the gift. “I wonder what it is.”

“I know what it is,” I muttered as I ripped open the paper. The new journal was beautifully illustrated and had a smooth, embossed cover. Botanical sketches covered it, greens and golds, and on a few of the leaves, little red ladybugs sat. I cracked it open and noticed a scrawl of dark ink on the front page.

“What a random present. Is it a journal?” Eve wondered.

I shook my head before I spoke. “No.” I clutched the book tightly, my fingernails sinking into the leather. “It’s a threat.”