The Half-Class by Kayvion Lewis

Chapter Fourteen

Fingers snapped against my ear—again, and again, and again. I squirmed and willed my eyes to open.

I groaned. “What’s going on?”

A fuzzy figure hovered over me. I blinked, and it morphed into Auntie Jen. She clutched a shawl around her shoulders, the only thing covering her night shift. Her silver and gold hair fell in a mess behind her. “Someone’s here to see you.”

“What?” I mumbled. She wasn’t making any sense.

Kat growled and turned over next to me, snuggling the covers towards herself.

“There’s someone downstairs for you,” Auntie repeated.

“For me?”

“Do I look like I’m talking to Kat?”

I rubbed my eyes. Thin beams of sun slipped through our black curtains. It was daytime—as in sun was up, actual daylight hours. Nobody came to the barn during the day.

Kat hummed into her pillow. “Is it Luke?”

Oh, God. I really hoped it wasn’t Luke. It was too early to deal with his interrogation about last night.

“No,” Auntie said. “Some other boy. A light-class.”

I jumped up. Cass.

He said he was coming to see me tomorrow. I assumed he meant tomorrow night.

I threw back my covers. Kat whined as I climbed over her, catching my foot in the blanket and tumbling to the wood floor.

“What the hell is going on?” Auntie stepped back as I stumbled past her and flung open our wardrobe doors.

“Nothing. Nothing’s going on.” I rummaged through the dresses. No time to fill Auntie in. “Kat, get up.” I threw a random dress over her face. “Cass is here.”

She sat up. “Him? Now?”

“Who is Cass?” Auntie asked.

“No one,” I said. “No one at all. But can you tell him I’ll be down in a minute?” I turned back and batted my eyes at her. “Please?”

She looked between myself and Kat, who was now out of bed too, then rolled her eyes and took her leave, hopefully, to do as I asked.

Kat rushed to help me get dressed. I found a pale green dress stuffed against the side of the wardrobe. The deep green laces across the bodice were almost the same shade as Cass’s eyes.

I threw the dress on and straightened the laces across my bodice while Kat did her best to pull as many tangles as she could from my slept-on curls. My heart felt as tightly wound as the laces I was straightening. Today was the day I kissed him. I thought I’d have more time beforehand.

“I thought he wasn’t coming until tonight,” Kat said.

“So did I.”

Kat snatched a ribbon from the dozen dangling atop our wardrobe. Tiny strands of my hair pinched my scalp as she tied my hair back. “Calm down.”

“What do you mean calm down? I’m perfectly calm.” I swallowed.

Kat finished her bow, but I felt some curls resting over my bare shoulders. She must have only pulled back half of it.

“Sure you are,” she said. “But if you actually were feeling any nervousness about possibly receiving your first kiss very soon, I’d remind you that you shouldn’t feel so.” She pulled her hands back from my hair, and I immediately grabbed my boots from beside the bed. “It’s not like it’s real, right?”

I didn’t look at her. Just kept tugging the boots over my socked feet.

“It’s just for Gilow. It’s not real, Evie. So, it doesn’t matter,” she said.

It didn’t matter. Right.

I forced a smile. “Thank you, Kat.” I rushed towards the door Auntie left open. “Go back to sleep. We’ll talk later.”

With that, and with an inexplicable anxiousness, I shut our bedroom door and bounded down the steps.

“So now I’m going to move my rook?” I touched my fingers to the tower-shaped piece.

He nodded to tell me I had addressed it correctly.

I slid the piece across the board and knocked over his horse-shaped piece. “Over here so I can take your...bishop?”

“Knight,” he corrected.

“Right.” I swiped the piece up. I may not have called it the correct name, but at least I took it.

“That wouldn’t have been a bad move if it didn’t cost you your queen.” He reached over the board and slid the actual bishop into my queen. Without hesitation, he took it. “That’s checkmate.”

Another loss. Though it was only my second game, it still hurt. Even more so since I found myself actually invested in the game. It was the perfect distraction from my thrumming heart.

Stop thinking about a kiss, Evie.

“Volume thirteen of Taliver made this seem a lot easier to learn,” I said.

He smiled and began reassembling the board. Mimicking him, I reset my side as well. The taps and scrapes against the board echoed through the empty barn floor. We were all alone, save Kat and Jen way back in the apartment. Laying out over the fluffy rug before the dead fireplace, we might as well have been on an isolated beach far, far away.

“Did you learn to play because of Taliver?” I asked.

“No, actually.” His eyes stayed pinned to the board. “My mother had me playing since before I could remember.”

His shoulders quaked just mentioning her. I wanted to ask what happened to his mother but now wasn’t the time.

“Does your father play too?” It was the first subject-changing question I could think of.

“In a way, but with very different pieces.”

Pieces like Morra.

With all the players realigned, Cass twisted the board so that the white now belonged to me. “Do you play that kind of game too?” I asked.

“Not if I don’t have to.”

I moved my first pawn. “So, what does Cass have to do?”

“A lot...and also very little.”

He hesitated, then moved his knight out over his row of pawns. Cass’s vivid green eyes homed in on the board., seeing something else entirely in this game, and I hadn’t the slightest clue what.

What did I really know about Cass besides his choice in books? Only that he wasn’t at all what I expected.

Where was Prince Cassian? The son of the king who so seemed to detest my class so much. He was in there somewhere; I knew it. But wrapped up in the same person was a boy who read the Tales of Taliver and played chess too? The type of person who’d return to a brothel with no apparent intentions but to talk to me—who’d race me for a kiss then wouldn’t take it.

A boy who had to believe, at least in part, some of what his father was promoting.

“You confuse me, Cass,” I admitted.

His eyes gaze returned to mine. “How so?”

“I can’t describe it.” I couldn’t describe how my enemy could be such a perfect friend. “You just seem like two different people stuffed into one.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Call it intuition, but I feel like I don’t know all of you.”

His brow furrowed. “We all have different sides to ourselves.”

“Yes, but I think we all have a true self too. And I can’t tell which one is you.” I leaned over the board. “Who are you, Cass?”

He flitted his gaze between my eyes as if he could find the answer there. “What if I said I don’t know?” he murmured.

“I’ll rephrase. Who do you want to be?”

My question seemed to land like a blow. For a moment, I thought he might fall back.

He tried to hide the emotion with a smile and a chuckle. “Who do you want me to be, Evie?”

That was a good question. What did I want him to be? Which version of Prince Cassian would be easier to continue with—the friend that sat before me or the prince I should have hated? Which was more Cass?

“I want you to be you.”

Cass’s emerald eyes stared into me as if I’d just said the most weighted thing ever said, but it was only the simplest.

I barely had time to blink.

His lips pressed against mine with the softest, most delicate touch. I leaned into him on instinct and touched my hands to his chest, his warmth melting into my palms. My lashes fluttered against his skin as his hand curved around my neck and pulled me even closer. My breath caught. I tried to for air, but I only got more of his kiss. It was so sweet. So thick. Like honey flowing between us.

Finally, after a lifetime within the span of a breath, our lips separated. Cassian left his hand to gently caress the back of my neck, burning his touch into my skin and keeping me close to him. I didn’t want him to let go. I should have—I could tell myself to hate this moment later. But in it now, that was too impossible.

I waited for the heat to wash over my face—a sense of regret or guilt. Nothing did. What was wrong with me?

“You found your moment.” I barely felt the words escape my lips.

“I think so, lovely.”

Finally, the blush came. Lovely. The same thing Taliver called his true love. It couldn’t have been more fitting. I hated that I loved the sound of it so much.

I bit my lip and pulled back from him. He finally freed me from his embrace. “Now that we’re both even again, should we start a new game?”

“We should.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. It was kind of adorable. “Maybe I’ll let you win this time.”