(REWRITING) The Skylar Experiment : Coveting

Chapter 45.2 - Red Flags

RILEY

I TRAMPLED through the entrance to announce myself, shaking stray flakes off the beanie. I expected to seize him looming around breakfast, but the kitchen was deserted. The meager decorations I'd struggled to plant around the living room were still up, the puzzle-piece garland still draped around the mantel. 

One sweep and I found Luc sprawled across the whole length of the sofa, gazing through the window wall. A single detail had been removed from my last 'practice' meeting, and it was the candles on the coffee table between us. They now sat on a bookshelf over the TV, extinct. 

A platter of what appeared like oatmeal cookies replaced the candles. 

Skies were pouring a vivid light blue on this winter morning. The kind to frolick in with the girls, if only we didn't have to work on yesterday's breaking and entering.

"Right on time," he commented. 

"You're the one who asked me to be here so early. I could barely explain to my dad what I'd be doing at your place at nine a.m."

That sparked a despicable twitch along his lips, and finally he tilted his head. Rather than answering, Luc swung his legs off the cushions and stretched tall.

"And what did you tell him?" He winked.

I started unzipping my coat, not without sending him a disgusted glare. "Invented some crap about a biology project for vacation. I said you were busy the rest of the day, and I could only head over before noon. That way, you'll have no choice but to let me leave."

"Clever," he replied, now displaying a full smirk. "How did you know I'd try to keep you?"

After the kittens he had last night, it didn't take a genius to predict he'd apply pressure for me to train until I dropped, which I categorically refused to do in the mood he put himself in. I'd rather practice on my own. He wasn't great for my focus, anyway.

Cookies sounded like a better motivator than a cranky mutant boy, though. Extending my fingers in the emptiness, I brought one over for a taste. Oatmeal with dried strawberry.

"I can feel it when someone has unlawful urges toward me." I broke the cookie off. "So, no thanks."

"That's... unfortunate." His eyes got hitched on the cookie and stared so intensely that my stomach flipped. My chewing slowed down. With that unsettling, shit-eating grin of his, he folded his arms and calmly began to round the table.

He stopped, chest-to-face, so near I could see the forearms flexing and struggled to remain planted there. "But you know you're just delaying the inevitable."

So dramatic... I was only dodging whatever evil idea was lurking through his brain until I'd resume with Tony. I swallowed my bite before something embarrassing happened, then narrowed my eyes upward. Yeah, his smile definitely looked evil.

I sidestepped. "Can we get on with it?"

He spun, drew past me for the monitor in the corner of the living room and fell into the single chair. The screen powered on with a picture of a shimmering pond, its skirts moist and blackened, and two wet hands had dug in. Over the water, they cupped a gelatinous lump that I knew to be frogspawn.

Pretty sure Luc didn't own a pair of flashy pink rain boots with wildflower print that poked at the margin of the shot.

I set off for the kitchen to get a—

"Not like that."

I pulled tight halfway between the kitchen and living room, jaw clenched. Maybe if I hurled a chair at his head, he'd stop bothering. Maybe not. I raised an arm toward the distant dining table, feeling that 'weight' on my temples and the screech of wooden legs against tiles.