A Beautiful Dark

move and for a little while we were neck and neck, anticipating each other’s strategy, moving and then counter-moving. Neither of us could pull ahead. I knew the game would end in stalemate.
    “You’ll never win this,” I bluffed.
    “I’ll go down trying,” he replied.
    I looked up and caught his eyes. They flashed for a second before darting back down to the board.
    “Nice move,” he said.
    “It’s not my first time playing.”
    I don’t know what it was. Maybe the fact that I was sitting there in my tank top and jeans across from an angel with black hair and incredible eyes or the overwhelming heat in the room, but I realized I was flirting with Asher. And then I realized something else.
    For the first time in a year and a half, I thought I might actually be falling for someone.
    And it had to stop. As if I needed my life to be any more complicated.
    I stood up. “I’m tired,” I said. “I slept like crap this weekend, thanks to you.”
    Asher stood up slowly, too.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Listen, I’m sorry about that. And about today, the fighting. It all got out of hand. I . . . this mission is . . . hard, the hardest, and. . . ” He paused, running his hands through his hair. “It’s been stressful for all of us.”
    “Gosh, has it been stressful for you, too? I’m so sorry. Maybe try spending half a minute in my shoes. In case you haven’t noticed, I have no idea what I’m doing!” My temper flared.
    “Skye, come on, I’m sorry.”
    We stood there staring at each other. After several seconds, I could make out a tapping noise growing louder and more impatient. I looked down and realized it was Asher’s foot.
    “Stop it,” I said. “What’s with you tonight? You’re being weird.”
    “Nothing,” he said. “I mean no, I’m not.” I challenged him with a hard stare. The light from my lamp cast a soft glow on his face, and I felt so much for him right then that it hurt. It would never work between us. He was a player, like Jordan. He’d try to use me. He wasn’t even human. But in the heat and the dim light of my room, it was nice to just feel something. Asher took a step toward me and stopped.
    “Look, I’m not going to kiss you, okay?” he said, beginning to pace. “So you can stop trying to get me to.”
    “What are you talking about?” I panicked. Maybe he could tell after all.
    “You—you’re doing that, that thing . With the tank top. And the checkers. And inviting me up here—”
    “Ex cuse me? You’re the one who wanted to play checkers.” I tried to regain my control.
    “—well, forget it. I’m not doing it.”
    “Good!” I shouted, my face red. “Who says I want you to?”
    “Oh, you want me to, you definitely want me to.”
    “I so do not!” I yelled. “Especially not when you’re driving me crazy !”
    He paused. And looked at me.
    “You don’t?” he asked. “I am?”
    Then all of a sudden he’d taken two giant steps toward me, and before I knew it, had taken my face into his hands and the rest of me into the darkness of his wings, and he was kissing me and I was kissing him and we were kissing each other in my little bedroom, in my little house, in my little town, while the mountains soared into the sky.
    I could sense the earth rumbling quietly beneath us. Something was moving, but all I knew right then was that it wasn’t dangerous.
    For now, there was only Asher.

Chapter 25

    A fter he left, the house was silent. I was too excited to sleep, even though fatigue pulled at my body like gravity—threatening to topple me at any second. I wandered around absently, ducking into empty rooms, peeking out the windows at the full moon. I felt like if I stood still for more than a second, I would drown in its light.
    My cell phone rang, nearly giving me a heart attack. I looked at the number and was flooded with relief. How had Aunt Jo known that I needed her?
    “Hey,” I said as I curled up in a chair.
    “Hey, yourself. I just wanted to check in since I had cell reception tonight. You doing okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine.”
    “I’m sorry I have to spend so much time away lately.”
    “I’m a big girl,” I said.
    “I guess it’s good for us,” she mused. “Gives us a preview of what to expect when you go off to college.”
    “Yeah.” If I went off to college. I was having so much trouble lately concentrating on my schoolwork, and I still had that stupid paper I needed to do for Ms. Manning.
    “I’ll be with this group