Tay stared at the door as if it were about to attack. He couldn’t move.
There was a pounding again, and again, Taylor couldn’t move. He would have stayed frozen indefinitely had another noise not accompanied the knocks this time.
“Tay!” called a voice. “Tay! Open up, please! It’s . . . it’s me! It’s Missy!”
Finally, Taylor could move. He slowly made his way to the front door and unlocked it. Carefully, cautiously, he twisted the doorknob and swung the door open.
Missy stood on the front porch, short, dark hair plastered to her head, clothes drenched and clinging to her body. “Could I come in?” she asked over the sound of the rain.
“Yeah, yeah,” Taylor said quickly, allowing Missy into the house. “God, you’re soaked,” he said obviously. “You want some dry clothes?”
She managed to smile at him, and Taylor noted a brightness in her strange-neat green eyes. “You should probably start charging me,” she said with a small laugh.
Tay looked at her and gave a small smile. “Why’d you come back?” he asked.
She just looked at him for a moment before slipping her arms around him. Tay returned the embrace, not giving the slightest consideration to her wet clothing. Missy laid her head on his shoulder. “I had to come back,” she said softly, closing her eyes.
Just then, a voice from the corner of the room piped in. “Missy?”
Without opening her eyes, she called, “Hi, Zac.”
Slowly, Taylor broke away from Missy and, taking hold of her hand, led her toward the bedrooms. Ike walked out of Jessie, Avie, and Mack’s room just as Tay neared the guys’ bedroom.
Ike gave a small nod. “Hey, Missy.”
She nodded toward him as well. “Ike.”
“You were outside, I see,” he said.
She gave a quick glance to Tay before saying, “I had to come back.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You wouldn’t’ve happened to see anybody out there, would you?” he asked.
“Why?”
Isaac motioned toward Jessie, Avie, and Mack’s room with his head. “Some genius broke the window,” he said simply.
“Oh.”
Nobody spoke for a minute. Finally, Taylor pulled Missy toward the guys’ bedroom. “You should get changed,” he said. He rummaged through one of his dresser drawers before taking out a pair of jeans and a maroon shirt not unlike the black one Missy was already wearing.
“Thanks,” she told him quietly. Taylor nodded and left the room. When the bedroom door closed, she stripped the wet layer of clothes off her body and began slipping into the dry ones.
As Tracy pulled the dry shirt over her head, something on the bottom mattress of the bunk bed caught her eye. Curious, she stepped toward it. As she drew closer, she saw it to be a laptop computer. An image stretched across it’s screen.
Not being able to resist, she turned the laptop toward her. Her breath hitched when she saw what the image was. Green eyes. Strange-neat green eyes that she had always thought to be unique. Blond hair. Soft curve of the face.
Blond hair.
Tracy quickly skimmed over the caption. Well, here’s my picture. Enjoy! Yeah right, right? Love, Ally.
Ally.
