Smokeless Fire by Samantha Young Page A

watch?” she asked nonchalantly, heading over to her collection.
    He seemed to let go a sigh of relief behind her, the couch groaning as he thumped himself down into it. “Action.”
    “ Universal Soldier ?”
    “Sounds good.”
    Taking the classic Jean-Claude Van Damme movie her dad loved out of its case, Ari tried not to smile, the stone that had been in her stomach all day completely dissipating. Forcing herself to remain casual, she flopped down on the couch next to him and handed him the remote. 
    They watched the movie in perfect silence, the heat of Charlie next to her so unbelievably relaxing Ari had to fight not to curl into him and fall asleep.
    At the end, as the credits rolled up, Charlie muted the television and stood up. He looked down at her, his dark eyes enigmatic and so deep Ari could feel herself falling into them as they locked onto her own. “Ari?”
    “Yeah?” she whispered, not wanting him to leave.
    “If you don’t want to go to college, then don’t go. It’s a lot of money and you should know what you want to do with your life first. Talk to your dad, OK. Make him understand.”
    She nodded slowly, her heart hammering as she listened to his footsteps fade, the door opening and shutting behind him with a click that told her he’d put the lock on.
    Before, when she’d thought Charlie wasn’t Charlie anymore, the pain had been hard and deep.
    Somehow, it was worse knowing Charlie was still in there behind this iron cast wall no one could get through. Today was just one of those lucky days when he slid back a little window to talk to her. But when her front door closed, she knew that window had closed with it.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    ~4~
    Solace is Looking For You, Stop Hiding
     
    It was divine providence that’s what it was, Ari thought, looking down at the cell in her hands. Charlie’s cell. Clearly it had slipped from his pocket while he was watching the movie last night all so Ari would have an excuse to see him today. She clutched it tightly in her hand, tempted to scroll through the numbers and see how many girls his contact list had accumulated over the last two years. But that would be wrong. She shook her head. She wasn’t that far gone yet. Smiling, Ari dropped the cell into her bag and set off outside, texting Rachel again to let her know she didn’t need a ride to school. Her stomach growled from lack of breakfast and Ari grimaced. The sacrifices she was making for love.
    Feeling lighter than she had in some time (and all because she’d clocked more Charlie time this week than she’d had in the last two months), Ari turned up the volume on her iPhone, letting Metric sweep her through the suburban streets. Her neighborhood was quiet and neat. Very neat. The houses were pretty big but modest in appearance with lush lawns and white fences and lots of space between each one. The street curved around in a huge bend until it split off into two directions. To the left the town stretched out from the moderately well-off, to the rich, to the wealthy, to the even wealthier, and then to a couple of farms on the outskirts of town, like A.J.’s parents’ grain farm. As for the center of Sandford Ridge it was literally that. The center. Stores, two ‘malls’, small businesses, a large car manufacturer factory… the usual. And best of all The Smoothie Place on Main Street, Ari’s favorite place to chill out.
    Ari took the right towards Charlie’s house and the school. The Creaghs lived three blocks away in a noisier neighborhood that seemed much more real to Ari. She’d loved hanging out there. Unlike her street, where the only activity consisted of people jogging by quietly alone or with their dogs, Charlie’s street was abuzz with the sounds of children’s laughter and shouts as they played in one another’s yards. Lawnmowers growled, dogs barked, music blared from car radios. It was like