Somebody Else's Sky (Something in the Way #2)(37)

"Tiffany, help me clean up?"

"Why can't Lake?" Tiffany whined, but took her plates into the kitchen. Since she'd left everyone else's, I got up as well.

"Sir," Manning said, "would it be all right if I went over to the wall and smoked?"

As much as I loved the smell of cigarettes for taking me back to Manning, hearing that he still smoked gave me a pang of disappointment. I'd hoped, even though the guards had taken the bracelet I'd made Manning, that he'd quit like he'd promised before he'd gone away.

Dad pushed his chair back and got up. "Just keep it away from the house."

I picked up my plate and glanced at Manning from under my lashes. I might've expected him to be distracted by the mental warfare happening at the table, but he looked right back at me. It was our first moment alone. I went around the table to him, and his head tilted back. He didn't look angry-just curious.

I piled his dish on top of mine. "Hi," I said.

"Was the steak your idea?" he asked.

It wasn't the question I'd expected. There was so much to say. I smiled. "Yes."

He nodded once. Before I could say anything else, and there was a lot on the tip of my tongue, he shifted to get cigarettes from his back pocket and stood. His presence was suddenly so huge and hovering that I fumbled the dishes, dropping a couple forks.

He stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, picked up the silverware, and gestured for me to go. "After you."

We were closer than we'd been since the morning he was taken away-since that night in the truck. Remembering his hand inching up my shorts, my face warmed. I ducked my head and went around him, into the kitchen. Tiffany and Mom were arguing in hushed tones, but stopped when we walked in.

Manning stopped in the doorway and held up his cigarette. "I'm just going to . . ."

"Sure," Tiffany said. "I'll call you when dessert's ready."

He disappeared into the dark.

"But dad's being awful," Tiffany whined to Mom when they were alone again. "He's going to scare Manning away."

"It's just because he cares about you. He doesn't want you getting mixed up with trouble."

"Manning isn't trouble. I swear. I'm probably a worse influence on him than he is on me."

"Trust me, I believe that," Mom said.

I put the dishes in the sink, snuck by unnoticed, and slipped back outside. I spotted Manning's cigarette first, a pinprick of orange light near the bushes, and then him with his back to the wall. Crossing my arms into myself, I went to him, the grass damp on my bare feet.



       
         
       
        

"Shouldn't be out here without shoes," he said when I was close. "You might cut your foot."

"On what?"

"Who knows."

In that way, he was still my Manning. Overprotective, always thinking the worst. I breathed a little easier knowing he hadn't changed too much. "You're smoking again."

"I never stopped."

"You said you'd try."

He didn't answer, but he didn't have to. I knew what he'd say. A lot had changed since that morning we'd stood outside of Reflection and I'd asked him to be better. "I still have your bracelet," I said. "If you want it."

It was mostly dark in our corner of the backyard except for the glare of the moon and the lights from the patio. Just enough to see him. Manning's beautiful, angular face was even better than I remembered but undoubtedly harder. When he narrowed his eyes toward the house, little wrinkles formed at the corners like he was thinking. Or maybe he was just looking. For Tiffany.

"Are you really going to live with her?" I asked when the silence became too much.

He took a long, long drag, then turned his head over his shoulder and blew smoke out. He coughed a little, then squatted to put out his cigarette in the dirt. He was going to walk away. Almost a-year-and-a-half he'd been kept from me, and he was just going to walk away when we finally had a moment alone?

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He shook his head up at me. "I don't want you to worry about me."

"I can't help it."

"You have so much ahead of you. Focus on that."

"You don't. And it's my fault."

He stood quickly and flicked the butt over the back wall, into the yard of the house he'd helped build. He stepped a little closer, looking down at me. "You did what I asked. You did good."

"I want to do more. Tell me how to fix this. Can I go to the cops once I turn eighteen? Will they erase the charge if I give them your alibi?"

He hesitated, then raised my chin with his knuckle. "I don't want to hear another word about it, Lake. You're not going to the cops. You're not going to ruin your life by trying to help me."