When Stars Burn

Chapter Thirteen: When Worlds Collide

You did go into this wanting something, Star. Let yourself have it before you sabotage it.

So I shook off the alarms in my head, kept my hand in his and kept walking with him to the café.

After lunch, he dropped me off at Uni-Save on his bike for my late afternoon shift. He grabbed me just as I'd turned away to go in and pulled me in for a long kiss—out in public. He grinned at what was probably my dazed expression and winked at me before shooing me into the store.

Despite all that display though, we didn't tell people. At least I didn't. And none of his friends dropped by during the week that followed. We didn't spend too much time together in school because our breaks between classes didn't match and when I wasn't working, he would be at practice. A couple times, he cornered me for lunch but we went out to eat somewhere outside campus. It seemed as if we were staying on the down-low which I appreciated because the last thing I wanted was a barrage of questions from people I didn't even know.

The last time I was 'dating' someone, if you could term it that, it was with a gang leader. No one asked me questions then that I wouldn't like. But a part of me wondered if despite Julian's initial eagerness, he was somehow hiding me from the world.

I've been a dirty secret one time too many already and the thought grated a little, no matter how much I preferred the lack of attention.

One evening, while we were sitting next to each other on the sand at a quiet stretch of the beach where we drove out to after grabbing dinner, I asked him straight up.

"Do you want to keep us a secret?" I blurted out because there was no delicate way to say it.

He looked at me in mild confusion. "No. Why do you say that?"

I shrugged. "We seem to be avoiding your friends. And we don't hang out much in school. We're always just at the townhouse or out somewhere away from campus. I was just wondering exactly what we signed up for."

Julian gave me a pained smile. "I'm not hiding you, Star. I'm just giving you time to adjust to this—to us. I don't want to send you running because you're overwhelmed."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say because I didn't expect that. "What makes you think I'll be overwhelmed?"

Julian looked sheepish for a second. "Don't be offended but I got the impression that you didn't really do relationships."

I feigned indignation and playfully punched him in the arm. "You don't either, kettle!"

He laughed and looped his arms around my waist, drawing me closer until I was practically on his lap. "True but I'm not as afraid of this as you are."

He brushed away a lock of hair that fell over my eye and cupped the side of my face. "If you think you're going to be just fine then by all means, let's stop protecting you from the world."

My heart skipped a beat.

Protect me from the world. Well, I don't think anyone's ever said that about me before.

"You don't know me well enough yet but I should tell you—I don't need to be protected from the world," I said, sliding a hand up around his neck. "I know how bad it gets and I've survived it. I'm not fragile."

Julian smiled. "Just because you walk around with a spiked cage doesn't mean a greater force can't break you."

"It can't if it can't catch you," I quipped smugly. "But in all honesty, I can handle this. It's a choice I made. I always live by my choices."

Julian shook his head. "You're way too intense for your age but I'm not going to argue with you. If you can handle it, then maybe you won't mind coming to Tyler's party this weekend with me. The team will be there but there'll be a bunch of our friends and other people too."