Page 10 of The Other Side of Green

While Caitlin and Raven pulled their bags from the car, I looked at Lyra as she watched the water.

The sun rippled across it, unusual for it to be so still this late in the afternoon, nearly all the local kids came here to cool off.

And I say kids... which probably means Luca and I should give it up and go do what grown-ups were meant to do.

Turning, I looked at Luca as he pulled a crate of beer from the trunk. Yeah, we could do grown up another day.

I stepped to Lyra’s side, lowering a little so I could talk directly into her ear. “I didn’t know when you looked so sad earlier, it was because you’d had a lover’s tiff.”

She rolled her eyes. “I told you to stay away from me.”

Oooh, she never normally stayed mad at me this long. “What’ve I done?” I asked.

She let out a small exhalation and shook her head, pressing her lips together before sighing again. “Nothing.”

“Well, clearly I have.”

Luca and the girls started to walk over. I wanted them just to disappear, to leave me and Lyra so we could actually talk for once without having to whisper in her room in the dead of night.

She turned and I did double take at the expression of sheer defeat across her face. Automatically, I stepped back, and her lips turned just slightly at the corners.

“See. We do this thing. Secrets, lies… and it’s all for what?”

Her gaze flashed to Luca.

“Lyra, you know…”

“Yeah, I know. But then last week you kissed me, and it sure didn’t seem to me like it was the worst thing you’d ever done.”

Two bright-pink spots burned on her cheeks.

I flattened my lips into a line.

“And then today, people are talking about you and Raven.”

“Lyra.”

“No, Jack.” She forced my name like it was a dirty word. “You say you can’t be with me because I’m too young, because it’s wrong.”

Taking a gamble, I grasped her arm, hoping my body would block the view from Luca’s perspective. “It is wrong.”

“Yeah well, Raven Smoake is only fifteen and apparently you don’t have a problem putting your fingers on her. Or rather in her.”

“Lyra, for God’s sake.”

“No, Jack. Stop playing games with me.”

“What do you want me to do?” I hissed. “Tell Luca I want to bang his baby sister?”

Wide eyes met mine. “It doesn’t have to be like that now.”

“Damn right it won’t. You’re fourteen. We aren’t having this conversation again.”

“Stay away from me, Jack.”

Lyra’s anger rippled under my skin.

“Fine. I can do that. I’ll stay away from you and then you’ll miss me so bad you’ll be desperate to even get a hint of my lips on yours,” I hissed into her ear.