Page 69 of Wild Thorns

"Are you following me?" I managed, dragging my eyes back to his face. "Or Marcus?"

I had been thinking about Jasper on the walk over here. I had been specifically, deliberately thinking about Jasper because I was trying to be a person with a functioning conscience.

That lasted until Callum turned around.

He didn't flinch. "No."

"Callum."

"I'm not following you." Something in his jaw tightened. "I'm... maintaining awareness of where you are."

"That's following me."

"It's different."

"How?"

"Following implies pursuit. I'm not pursuing. I'm—" he stopped. Tried again. "I'm making sure nothing else pursues."

I stared at him. He stared back, bare-chested and unapologetic. A bead of sweat traced a slow path down his sternum. I noticed it the way you notice a match striking in a dark room, suddenly, completely, against your better judgment.

This is disloyal, I thought. This is exactly what a disloyal person does.

The problem was that my body had not received the memo about loyalty.

"Stop," I said.

"I'm not going to stop."

"I didn't ask—"

"I know you didn't ask. I'm doing it, anyway." His voice was flat, certain. "He's in this town. He's watching you. I'm going to be watching back."

Something flickered in his expression, not quite an apology. "I'll be less visible. But I'm not going to stop."

He walked away before I could argue, disappearing around the side of the house, and I stood in the afternoon heat with my argument still half-formed, the sun on my face and a guilt that felt specific, complicated and not entirely about Marcus.

At the edge of the yard, something moved.

Low to the ground, shadow-colored, there and then not there. I blinked, and the treeline was just the treeline; green and still, cicadas loud in the heat. Whatever I'd seen, or thought I'd seen, was gone.

I stood there for a moment longer than was probably reasonable, looking at the spot where it had been.

From inside the house, the sound of Callum's voice, low, saying something to Eli that I couldn't make out. Then quiet. Then a door closed.

I went inside.

I told Jasper that evening, still frustrated.

He was on the porch when I came out, a glass of iced tea sweating in the heat, those dark curls damp at the temples. He looked up when I pushed through the door. Something in his expression settled, like he'd been waiting, not with impatience, but with the particular patience of someone who knows you'll come when you're ready.

That expression alone made the guilt spike so sharply I had to look away.

"That's Callum saying he likes you," Jasper said.

"That's not how that works."

"I know. He knows." Jasper shrugged. "It's the only way he has."