Make Me Lose Control

After a day like today, the knowledge weighed heavy as she slipped out of the house and into the lake-scented darkness. Though Shay usually insisted on having help with the dinner dishes, tonight she’d shooed London from the kitchen. Due to pity, probably.

Not every teenager had a dead mother.

Not every teenager had a father who’d arrived years too late.

Hunching her shoulders, she tried shrugging off thoughts of Elsa as she headed toward the water. In their first week at Blue Arrow Lake, Shay had assigned her to read The Great Gatsby. In Daisy Buchanan, London had seen her mother. Beautiful, careless, childish. Elsa had been effusive some days and distant others. She’d followed boyfriends to foreign cities for weeks at a time, leaving London behind with their housekeeper, Opal, who was near a million years old and hailed from Boise, Idaho.

When Opal had needed to return to the States to take care of her sick sister, Elsa had been forced to cut short her latest trip. Between Budapest and their flat in Kensington, a train accident had taken her life.

And brought Jason Jennings into London’s.

She hunched her shoulders once more as she followed the shoreline, leaving behind their dock and the bobbing powerboat that Shay sometimes piloted. The only sound was the water lapping gently against the silty sand. It was midweek, and most of the houses along the lake were dark except for security lights. There wasn’t another person in sight.

Still, London had a more private destination in mind.

Three estates away, a dilapidated boathouse sat beside an equally run-down dock. Brand-new structures were located fifty feet from them, and on a morning walk, Shay had speculated that the old ones would be cleared away soon.

Before that happened, London wanted to spend more time inside the damp-smelling walls of the small, square building. Though her tutor likely wouldn’t approve, London had been hanging there for an hour or so almost every day. The padlock was broken and there were signs that she wasn’t the only visitor to the place.

It was those signs that fascinated her most.

The evidence of other teenagers, she was sure of it.

With a push of her hand, London swung open the door and peered into the dark interior. Before, she’d only visited during the day. In the gloom she could barely make out the usual litter: empty cans of Red Bull, Snickers candy wrappers, cigarette butts, a few moldy copies of GamerNews and People magazine. Seating choices consisted of various mismatched cushions that leaked stuffing and had been tossed onto the ragged indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Merely being around the debris of American kids made her feel closer to them. It was as if breathing in air they’d also shared could gain her entry into their world.

Suddenly, a flashlight flicked on.

On a breathless squeak, London jolted back, nearly falling. Regaining her balance, she saw the yellow circle of light jump along the walls as the figure wielding the instrument clambered to its feet.

His feet.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” a male voice said. Then the beam shifted, illuminating a face.

Everything inside London went still: her heart, her breath, the coursing of the blood beneath her skin. She knew that face. That tall, lean body. It was a boy she’d seen around town, always with a pack of other kids, always in a casual pose, comfortable with himself.

Who wouldn’t be comfortable with his tanned skin and his shock of dirty blond hair and with those very white teeth that seemed to be glowing like neon even in the darkness?

London swallowed. “I’m not scared,” she said.

She saw his head tilt, like a curious animal trying to figure out something new. “You have an accent.”

Not hardly! At least, she didn’t want to have one. The British kids she’d run into once in a blue moon said she didn’t sound like them. When she’d gone to school—and it was true that Elsa had not always been consistent on getting her to class—she’d attended an all-girl American school with American teachers.

Since she was twelve, she’d exclusively watched American television, determined to become what she considered the epitome of confidence and cool—the typical American teen.

“Cat got your tongue, England?” the boy asked.

“It’s London,” she was forced to admit. “It’s my name...and also where I’ve been living.” Since coming to Blue Arrow she’d been trying out different city names—US city names—to replace her own, as if selecting a new one would obliterate her otherness. But the minute Shay had started to explain that to her father today, it had seemed foolish. Babyish. Like believing in Santa or expecting visits from the Tooth Fairy.

Elsa had cleared up those misconceptions right away, despite Opal’s protests.

“Huh,” the handsome guy said now. “London...I like it.”

Emboldened by the compliment—giddy!—she voiced a question of her own. “And you are...?”

“Colton. Colton Halliday.”

Colton Halliday. London repeated the name in her head. It sounded like the name of a cowboy or a Wild West gunslinger. Very American and maybe even a tiny bit dangerous.

Though she didn’t feel afraid around him, she’d been truthful about that. Just warm and excited and like she was poised to begin the life she’d been waiting for. Until this moment, she’d been the victim of everyone else’s whims—her mother taking her to Europe, her father sending her to Blue Arrow Lake, Shay insisting on Gatsby and Shakespeare and that boring history book about Western civilization.

Colton slid down the wall so he was seated again. He set the flashlight beside him so its beam washed up the dingy wall and cast half his face in light, half in shadow. “What are you doing out here?”

She took one small step inside. “I live back that way.” She made a vague gesture. “You?”

“Promise you won’t tell?” he asked, though he didn’t sound too worried either way.

“Sure.”

“We local kids, you know, full-timers on the mountain, we have a few places, hideouts I’d guess you’d call them, where we go to chill. This is one of them.”

Hideouts. London nodded, pretending a teen-only retreat wasn’t completely beyond her previous sheltered—okay, freak—existence. “Just you tonight?”

“I had to get away from the parental units for a little while. They can be a pain in the ass, right?”

“Right.” London dug her toe into the worn carpeting. “My mother’s dead.” Her hand clapped over her mouth. What was wrong with her?

“God.” He twitched, then was silent a moment. “God, I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s okay. I...” Miserably embarrassed, she stepped back again.

“Don’t go,” Colton said. “I shouldn’t have...”

His discomfort only made her feel worse. “It’s okay.”

“Come back in, I don’t bite. You probably need a little downtime, too.”

Dueling desires warred within her. To go, to stay, to allow him to bite her. Goose bumps burst in hot prickles all over her skin at the thought. Biting! She’d never even been kissed. Yeah, at fifteen, she was unkissed.

Total freak.

“So, you go to school down the hill or something?”

Down the hill encompassed every place that wasn’t the surrounding mountains. London had learned that from Shay. “No,” she said, coming inside so she could make her own slide along the wall. They were propped on opposite sides of the small structure, London situated closest to the still-open door. “I’m sort of being homeschooled at the moment. I have a live-in tutor.”

Colton released a low whistle as he drew up his knees and draped his wrists over them. In the low illumination from the flashlight, she stared at his hands. They were long-fingered and bony-looking. Not like a skeleton, just...bony like a boy’s hands. Like a boy’s hands should be.