The Butterfly Code Read online

  Gage rolls his eyes, his thick lashes catching light from an old-fashioned streetlamp. He takes his jacket, the one with North Coast Lobster stitched across the back, and wraps it around my shoulders. Given that he’s built like a Viking, it comes to my knees.

  “I don’t need it,” I say, and shake it off.

  “Your lips are blue.” He tries to wrap it around me again.

  “Look at you two, getting all cozy,” Ella says.

  “Ella,” Gage says in a warning voice.

  “What? It’s like when you guys were little.” She sighs. “So romantic.”

  “We were never romantic,” I say. To my dismay, I see a tiny hurt in Gage’s blue eyes. “We were friends. Best friends. Right?” I wait for his nod, which is a moment too long in coming.

  All I can think is, Don’t do this, please don’t do this, Gage. I can’t bear to think of losing you.

  Four gleeful childhood summers, he and I were two rambunctious peas in a pod, all skinned knees and dirty noses, with an even littler Ella tagging along behind. He’d been a boisterous, happy, carefree kid with bright hair and kind blue eyes, and he’d pulled me out of my shell. We spent long, lazy days and cool, dusky evenings in our tumbledown fort, collecting lightning bugs and marveling at them after the sun went down. We shared our fear of the diving rock and finally climbed to the dizzy top and jumped off together.

  Then Dad rented out the summerhouse, and we stopped coming to Deep Cove.

  “Best friends?” Ella says. “Yeah, best friends who carved their initials in a tree!”

  “We were seven,” I say. “And Gage only did it on a dare. Right?”

  He mumbles something I don’t catch.

  I know it’s been a long time. Still, I miss the easy way we were together. I miss my old Gage, before he turned brooding and serious and hard to reach. Before the incident that left his baby brother dead.

  Ella teeters a little, and I take her elbow.

  “Seriously,” she says, “that’s all I’ve heard. ‘Oh, I can’t wait for Aeris to get back’ and ‘Do you think Aeris will stay now that she’s graduated from Juilliard?’”

  I sense color rising in my cheeks. I let out a nervous laugh. “Well, I missed you guys, too!”

  “I think you two are adorable.” Ella speaks in a loud, conspiratorial whisper, no doubt spurred on by all those vodka-fueled cosmos. “Look at you, blushing!” She punches her brother’s broad shoulder. He doesn’t even move. It’s like he’s made of stone. “Come on, tell me you don’t want to marry this girl.”

  “Ella!” I cry.

  “What?”

  “I’m never getting married!” It bursts out of me with such force even I’m shocked.

  She, for once, seems to have no words.

  I feel panicked. Silly. They’re staring as if I’ve gone raging mad. I realize I actually shouted it.

  Ella takes a long drag of her cigarette and frowns. “Never?”

  Gage laughs. “I think we explored that topic. Let’s leave Aeris alone, okay?” He makes a final attempt with his jacket, trying to fasten it around me. “You must be freezing in that dress.”

  The heavy, too-warm fabric smells of the ocean and diesel oil.

  Suddenly I want to escape. Which is awful. These are dear friends, friends I’ve cared about since childhood.

  Footsteps sound on the pavement.

  I realize Hunter’s no longer sitting in his parked car. He’s crossing the street, headed straight for us. His jeans and T-shirt are loose, except where they pull against his muscles. He could pass for a Navy SEAL, or a special ops guy out of a movie.

  When he gets halfway across the street, Gage drapes an arm over my shoulders.

  “What, hey, Gage?” I say.

  He has the nerve to pull me closer. His arm grows tense as if expecting a confrontation. I’m so shocked I stand there, frozen.

  Hunter reaches the curb like he’s come specifically to say something. He steps onto the sidewalk, directly in front of me, so close an electrical current seems to grip the four of us. Gage bristles. The men are matched in size. But where Gage’s hair is blond like Ella’s, Hunter’s is black as Cerberus’s mane.

  In the car, Victoria leans across the driver’s seat and shouts, “Hurry up!”

  Hunter doesn’t respond. For one crazy moment, I think he’s going to step in and save me from this awkward moment. His eyes meet mine in a fast, frank assessment. They seem to read things about me that even I don’t know. After a moment, he turns from me, opens the club door, and disappears inside. I stare after him, confused. What was that about? And why on earth, after his earlier comment about the club, did he just go in?

  “Freak,” Gage mutters.

  “Looks like Mr. Big Shot is the designated threesome finder,” Ella snorts.

  “The what?” I say.

  Ella rolls her eyes. “You know. Going to find a second girl, for their little party?” She makes a lewd expression and shoots a glance at the car.

  “Are you serious? No.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  I feel a faint flicker of disbelief.

  “Come on,” Gage says. “Stub out that disgusting thing. I’m taking Aeris home.”

  I step away from him, remove his heavy jacket, and shove it into his hands.

  “Sorry. I need to go to the ladies’ room.”

  Ella glances at the club entrance and back at me. She quirks an eyebrow. “Seriously? What are you doing?”

  “She’s heading to bathroom,” Gage says. “Wait, aren’t you?”

  There’s nothing good about walking away from my friends to go after Hunter. Unless it’s to prove that my dad is right about him. That he’s a troublemaker and best ignored.

  I whirl around, hurry to the door, yank it open, and step into the glittering lights.

  I can’t stand it. I can’t stand the suffocating air, the press of sweaty bodies moving as one. The feel of them touching me, crushing me, their wet skin leaving a trail of foreign sweat on my own. I push through them anyway. I don’t know which is worse: the crowd or the wedge growing between Gage and me, a painful wedge spurred on by Ella’s well-meaning but misguided prods.

  I scan the bobbing heads, hoping to catch sight of Hunter.

  Is he truly as bad as everyone claims?

  And why had he stared so intently at me? Why did he leave his car and walk up to me? Why did he disappear into this place? I feel like I’m falling down some twisting hole, a hole I didn’t even realize existed twenty minutes ago. I should leave. Now.

  I should go home and—

  “Hello,” a low voice says.

  I spin and he’s there.

  In the nightclub haze, half his face is in shadow. He’s so close I can smell his clean, masculine scent, can feel his warmth.

  “Hello,” I manage. My heart is in my throat.

  “Having a good evening?” The smoky lenses of his glasses hide his eyes, reflecting my own wide ones.

  “Yes … I … I am. Thank you.”

  Someone bangs into me from behind. Hunter curses at him as I lurch forward, his arms catching me. Body sheltering me from the crowd, he turns me so that I’m against a high table. The heat of his powerful hands sends warmth shooting along my bare skin. I can feel each of his fingertips, the slightly rough texture, the strong tendons that are sensitive enough to not squeeze me too hard. His thumb moves gently along my collarbone, and I nearly close my eyes with pleasure.

  As if belatedly realizing what he’s doing, he quickly releases me. My skin continues to vibrate. I sense him searching my features—my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. But for what? To dispel his sense of recognition?

  Lights twist and splay through the fog, catching his jaw and the strong planes of his face. He looks strangely out of place among the thrashing, slumped-shouldered people gyrating behind him. Like a lion, wild and dangerous in a room of unsuspecting sheep.

  The pounding music throbs in time with my heart. An inexplicable connection seems to pulse betw
een us.

  But I’m here to prove Dad was right. That my friends are right. So that I can walk away without regrets.

  “Why did you come in here?” I blurt.

  He’s not put off by the forwardness of my question. Instead, he says, “I was hoping you could tell me that.”

  “Me?” Ella’s blunt words tumble through my mind, confirming it all. I step back a foot. “Right. Well, just so you know, I didn’t come in here to be part of some threesome—”

  “A threesome?” His brow wrinkles. He lets out a short, sharp laugh.

  “Yes, with you and your friend out in the—”

  “Stop right there.” Now it’s his turn to step back. Recoil, to be exact. “I am sorry if I gave you that impression.” His voice is cool and polite. Despite his distant tone, his broad shoulders drop a little.

  His reaction makes my stomach clench.

  He says, “Excuse me, I’ve made a mistake.” Then he bows—a formal bow—turns, and disappears through the crowd.

  But I’m the one who’s made the stupid mistake. I came in here to prove he’s the bad guy everyone’s making him out to be. Instead, I deserve that title. Rather than waiting to hear what he had to say, I marched in and blatantly insulted him.

  Nice going, Aeris. That worked out well.

  Who knows what he actually wanted to talk about?

  Part of me wants to blame it on those stupid cosmos I drank, but that would be a pathetic cop-out. This is my fault.

  “Wait!” I shout, and run after him, desperate to apologize.

  People jostle me. A guy tries to pull me onto the dance floor.

  “Let go!” I twist away, and he slurs something I don’t catch.

  When I stumble out onto the curb, Hunter’s car is gone. The air feels dead. It’s as if magic has been spinning around me, wrapping me in a cocoon, in a dreamy realm beyond this everyday world. Now it’s all come crashing down in mortifying pieces.

  What did Hunter mean when he said ‘I was hoping you could tell me that’?

  “You okay?” Gage asks, catching my elbow.

  Ella gives me a knowing look. It makes me want to groan and tell her everything. But I don’t, not with Gage here.

  “I’m good … fine,” I say. “Yep, perfect.”

  A fat drop of rain lands on my cheek.

  “Oh god,” Ella says, glancing skyward. “Here it comes. Run!”

  We race for the dirt lot behind the club. The three of us squeeze into the truck’s front seat. My legs are drenched as I pull them in and slam the passenger door while Gage turns the key. The engine knocks and then roars to life. Gasoline fumes seep into the heavy air. He wipes a hole in the foggy windshield and I do the same to the passenger side.

  Soon he’s gunning away from Main Street. The lights rapidly diminish. A lightning flash reflects in the high, round window of the weather-beaten stone church. The elementary school squats like a brick bunker, preparing for the worst. On the outskirts, wires swing wildly over the closed gas station, threatening to break loose.

  We rattle through the blackness, guided only by the glow of the winding dotted line.

  I watch the rain crash down in waves. It’s like the sky has opened up and plans to crush us with water.

  Lightning explodes to our left.

  “Holy crap!” Ella screeches, grabbing my arm.

  “Calm down,” Gage says.

  “Watch out!” she cries as a tree branch smashes onto the road in front of us, thrashing in the headlights.

  Gage careens around it. “Would you let me drive? You’ll get us killed!”

  Ella is white-knuckling my arm, and suddenly I feel sick. Sensations are flooding back to me, half-forgotten memories from long ago. The sound of crashing glass. The metallic scent of blood. I close my eyes, trying to push them down.

  “Stop the car,” I gasp.

  “Or at least slow down!” Ella says, furious.

  “Relax. We’re almost there.” Still, Gage slows.

  I start breathing deeply. Careful and steady. Five counts in, five counts out. Five counts in, five counts out. Clammy sweat breaks out over my face and neck. My slamming heart begins to decelerate. My mind cuts away from the stormy view and veers back to Hunter, to that moment we shared alone on the street, drifting together in the sounds of Mozart.

  That piece was a turning point for my heartsick, ten-year-old self. Had my violin teacher known it when she told me that some music scholars believed Mozart wrote that piece after his mother’s death? Could I not hear it in the music? she’d asked. The awful cry of the violin and the answering comfort of the viola? I listened, and I no longer felt alone in my mourning. Mozart had suffered misfortune, too.

  Did Hunter know the meaning of that piece? It’s ironic that two people sharing the sound of loss were drawn together as if in that moment we were found.

  “Here we are,” Gage says, pulling into Dad’s driveway.

  I realize I’ve swallowed my panic.

  “Good night,” Ella says as I give her a one-armed hug.

  “Thanks, be safe. Talk to you tomorrow,” I say, glad our awkward discourse seems temporarily forgotten. Then I jump into the rain and run up the gravel path. The groan of the giant oak tree guarding the yard blends with the gale. Rain, slanting sideways, slicks the front hall as I tear open the door. I struggle to close it and stand dripping on the mat.

  The hall light is on. Otherwise the house is quiet.

  Thunder booms. A faint rattle of dishes comes from the kitchen, the plates drumming inside the cupboard’s closed doors.

  Dad’s shaggy mutt, Sammy, gets up off the coffee-brown leather couch and pads over to me.

  “Hey, you,” I whisper.

  He leans against me, almost knocking me over. I scratch his ears. He’s so big I swear he’s part horse. Which is somehow fitting, given that Dad grew up on a horse ranch.

  I suspect Dad is waiting up. I picture him breathing a sigh of relief, and I grin. He won’t come out and actually check in with me—he’s way too gruff. Funny how a person can sense things like that. Or maybe I’m simply imagining it.

  I doubt it.

  My grin widens.

  Dad’s place might not be home to me, yet it’s good to be here. Away from the city in this place where I can wander along the shore, stare at the waves, and feel the cold water on my bare toes.

  If I could stay in Deep Cove, I would, in a heartbeat. But life doesn’t work like that. Not when the New York Philharmonic offers you the position of first violinist and expects you to start in the fall. It’s an honor.

  And I’ll face anything—including cramped subways and crowded streets—for as long as it takes to reach my dream. Someday I’ll have saved up enough to get by without an employer, to have my own home in the country, one with a horse out back and a music room where I can turn all my scraps of composition into something real. When I have that, I’ll allow myself to think about the rest: a man, maybe a family, but on my own terms. Even if it takes ten hard years to get there.

  Quietly, I bolt the door, glancing through the thick glass panel at the obscured road. It’s the only way to reach the research lab from town. Hunter must have driven by moments ago. Flown past in his steely black bird. Fat tires skimming the road, wicked lights piercing the darkness, engine growling like a beast. I wouldn’t be surprised if that car was bulletproof. So solid, he probably barely noticed the storm.

  No—he probably enjoyed it.

  He strikes me as someone who likes danger.

  Could Hunter truly be as bad as Dad makes him out to be? There was his laugh, a sound so unexpected and kind. I wonder what it would be like to have him laugh like that with me.

  I really blew it. Why did I say such a stupid thing?

  I give myself a mental kick.

  At the very least, I wish I’d been quick enough to apologize.

  It’s obvious Ella had been dead wrong. Hunter had made that perfectly clear. So had he only come to pick up his coworker? And then
he saw me and … Stop. Just stop. I’m not doing this. He’s completely not my type. Worse, he’s a distraction I can’t afford.

  Slipping into the guest bathroom, I switch on the light. I can still feel his intense gaze. The butterflies it sent churning through me return. We’d felt so oddly connected. And he’d seemed so curious. What did he see in me that made him stare?

  My wet shoulder-length hair is plastered to my neck and forehead. The white dress, drenched, clings to me like crushed dragonfly wings. Not exactly a pretty picture.

  Still, he’d looked at me like I was someone he wanted to know.

  Three

  I wake with my hand clamped over my mouth, as if I could stuff down something I said. Unease curls around me, like the twisting sheets that bind my bare legs. I untangle myself and sit up. It’s morning.

  The whine of a chain saw filters through the closed window in the guest room.

  I go to the blinds and peer out.

  That was one awful storm. The big, shady oak looks as if it were ravaged by a giant. Its leafy limbs, still pulsing with life, lie scattered across the lawn. My fingers tighten on the sill. It’s a horrible sight. Who knows how long that old guardian stood rooted on this property?

  Now it is gone.

  Dad’s over on the driveway—what’s visible of it under the chaos. He’s clearing a path, working steadily with his chain saw. Sawdust swirls skyward, disappearing in the blue.

  He makes life seem easy, simple, straightforward. Part of me wants to burrow down in his solid, comforting house and stay here forever.

  Another part of me, a part that flutters in my chest, wishes I could turn back the clock to last night and do things differently. Find out what Hunter wanted, why he’d come up to me in the club and said what he’d said.

  I thought you could tell me that.

  What had he meant? What had he wanted to talk to me about?

  It was like he’d wanted me to follow him into the Zenith Club. Like he’d been waiting for me inside. Like he’d had something important to ask.

  I watch Dad cut another fallen limb.

  Condensation drips down the cold window and onto my fingers.

  Yesterday Dad’s hostility toward the controversial research lab and Hunter didn’t matter.