Juliet Immortal

and paint. He spent the afternoon finishing up the set while I shadowed Gemma, and didn’t get all the paint off his hands. Specks of brown and white cover his gray T-shirt and freckle his knuckles and forearms.
    I fight the strange urge to reach out and scrape the dried drops away with my finger, the way I would if they were on my own skin.
    “This is still kind of crazy,” Ben says. “I know we’re underage, but it’s not like we’re going to take that much, right?”
    “I know. Her dad is just weird.”
    “Her dad is more than weird. He freaks me out.” Ben leans in to whisper the words close to my ear, making sure Gemma won’t hear, and giving me a minor heart attack in the process. I wish I weren’t so aware of his breath on my cheek, his lips so close they brush my hair when he talks. But I am. So aware that I have to fight to keep my breath slow and even. “And I don’t like the way Gemma acts around him. It’s like she’s a different person.”
    “Gemma has a few personalities, but you’ll learn to love them all.” I smile, but Ben doesn’t smile back. He just stares at me, a little too intently. I meet his gaze, unable to look away, unable to hide. “What’s wrong?” I whisper.
    “Nothing,” he whispers back. “It’s just … tight back here.” He looks away, up to where Gemma drives slowly down the winding road.
    “Well, we’ll be at the barn soon.”
    “I thought Gemma said we were going to a wine cellar?”
    “It’s not really a cellar. It’s a big barn where they keep all the wine barrels while they’re aging. They stack them on top of each other in rows. Gemma and I used to play hide-and-seek there when we were little.”
    “So you two have been friends since you were kids.”
    “Since we were in second grade.”
    “Best friends,” Ben says.
    “She’s my only friend.”
    “No, she’s not.”
    I stare down at my knees, confused. Looking into Ben’s eyes is … jarring, and makes me feel less like Ariel than I have all day. “I’m glad. I—”
    “Hey! You two!” Gemma reaches back from the front seat and pokes a finger into the blanket, making a dent in our makeshift tent. “We’re almost to the barn. When I say go, crawl out Ben’s side and follow me. I can turn the cameras off on the way in. They don’t record the entrance, just the barrels.”
    “Do they really have a problem with people sneaking in and stealing wine?” Ben asks.
    “I don’t think so,” I say. “No one except Gemma, anyway.”
    “That’s right. I am a menace to society
and
my own family,
muahaha
,” she says, earning a snort from Ben, who obviously assumes I know he and Gemma are in a counseling group together. I wonder if he knows that she told me why he was there, and what he’ll say when I finally have the chance to ask about the violence in his past.
    “You ever shoplifted the hooch before, Mermaid?” he asks, nudging me with his elbow, oblivious to the direction of my thoughts.
    “No, I’ve always been too nervous.” I shift my weight,trying to keep my right foot from going to sleep. “And I don’t drink very often.”
    “Me either,” Ben says. “It doesn’t do much for me.”
    “Will you two quit talking about how you don’t like to drink?” Gemma shuts off the car. “You’re killing the buzz I don’t even have yet. We’re here to steal expensive wine, damn it. Now get in there and enjoy yourselves before I have to beat the fun into you.”
    Ben smiles and throws off the blanket, his hair wild around his face. I follow him out, slamming the door shut behind me, turning just in time to catch Gemma smoothing his hair behind his ear. The rain still drizzles the way it has all day, but it doesn’t seem to bother them. They linger there together, Ben smiling at Gemma and Gemma smiling back, and for a moment, I see what they could be to each other—friends, lovers, the real deal.
    The sight should lift my spirits, give me hope. Instead, my gut twists as Gemma takes Ben’s hand and pulls him into the barn. An image of Ben and me in the dressing-room mirror—his arms around me, my hands fisted in his shirt—flashes on my mental screen, followed closely by a wave of something that feels a lot like envy.
    Shameful, forbidden, maybe even
deadly
envy, so strong I rock on my feet.
    What am I doing? How can I even
think
about feeling something like this? I can’t be jealous of Gemma. I can’t let myself keep thinking of Ben as … as …
    My skin