Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2)(12)

And leaving me to deal with deciding to go say hi to Matt, or sneak back out the back door. When I turn around to face the whole cafe, though, it seems the choice has been made for me. Matt is standing about a foot away from me, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Hi,” I half-whisper, surprised by his towering shadow. I look over his shoulder to spot where his dad is.

“He’s gone,” Matt answers my silent question. His voice is gruff and far away.

We stand in an awkward silence the two of us haven’t encountered with each other. At least not since Picturegate, Part One.

“So …” I start, gesturing toward an open table. “Wanna sit, or …”

Matt, who’s been staring at the floor for quite some time, blinks several times in a row, seemingly coming to. “Can we take a walk?”



I shrug. “I guess. Wait. Chaperones …”



Despite the chaos of the last few days, my earlier hyper focus on the rules of Carter University has remained seared in my brain. Members of the opposite sex can’t go off campus together unless they’re in a group of odd numbers, and/or accompanied by a chaperone.



“We don’t have a chaperone if we stay here, either—”



Matt is cut off by someone to my right.

“You’re Kennedy Sawyer, aren’t you? That pastor’s daughter?”

Whipping my head around, I find a girl I’ve seen here before, studying with her friends. I’ve gathered from their university-issued shirts and some conversations I’ve heard, that they go to UNC Asheville. It’s a liberal arts school with a very flexible curriculum.

Kind of the anti-CU.

“That’s me,” I answer honestly. No point in denying the obvious.

“That’s so cool. I see you here all the time. I didn’t know you were famous.” Her blonde hair is in a high ponytail and I envy the thick swath of purple eyeliner circling her brown eyes.

I chuckle. “I’m not. Roland is.”

She raises her eyebrows. “You are now. You’re all over Facebook.”

My shoulders sink with my exhale and I look at Matt. “Walk it is.” I turn toward the girl and offer a slight wave before following Matt out the door.





CHAPTER SIX





Gold on the Ceiling


Matt.




“That didn’t take long,” Kennedy mumbles as we exit Word and immediately cross the street.

“What, the girl?” I tilt my head toward the coffee shop. She nods and I shrug.

There is definitely some awkward tension between the two of us, and the crappy part is it isn’t even about her. I’m too angry to verbalize that, and I’m resting on my assumption that she doesn’t have a weak stomach in the self-esteem department and, therefore, isn’t internalizing my silence. I keep my head down and she follows my lead as we work our way through the retail district.

“Do you always walk with your head down?” she asks, almost cautiously.

As if on script, I reply, “It’s kind of a habit they drill into us in high school.”

Kennedy zips her denim coat as a cool breeze tears down the sidewalk. “They? Us?”

I wave my hand in the air. “Yeah, sorry. Us as in guys and they as in everyone in our whole life who wants to teach us to remain sexually pure.” My voice is tense with leftover venom from my conversation with my father

“Okaaay,” she draws out quietly. “Here,” she says louder. “Let’s turn up here. There’s a trail.”

I grin, lifting my head. “That’s where I was going.”

“Good.” She skips ahead of me, running across the street to the head of the trail.

I get the first good look at her I’ve had since leaving New Life this morning. She’s still in the same clothes, but something looks different. She’s smiling as she waits for me to catch up, but there’s kind of a grey look in her eyes that isn’t normally there. Her eye color is grey, I’m not blind, but it’s different. A grey emotion, maybe. Typically she’s on—eyes pointing in all directions at one time, focusing like a detective on a mission. Right now, though, her eyes are somewhere else.

Following her into the trailhead, I sit next to her on a long flat boulder. It’s amazing how only a few yards of thick trees can block out most of the noise of the shopping district that sits just on the other side. The only noises here are birds and people walking or running the several miles of trail that winds around the outskirts of Asheville, allowing for stops at CU and New Life along the way.

“Are you doing okay?” I finally manage a polite sentence.

“Are you okay?” She crosses her legs and leans back on her hands, facing me with a grin. The sadness is still evident in her eyes, but her smile is challenging it.

I shrug. “I don’t really want to talk about my dad right now, if that’s okay with you.”

Kennedy pulls her feet up onto the rock and her knees into her chest. “I don’t either.”

“Easier for me than you, I’d say.”

She chuckles. “My stepdad’s the one who sent that picture to Roland. The one when I was five.”

My eyes bulge. “What?”