I finish stretching and take off, turning off Mill and jogging the first block to warm up. Humidity lays over the town like a damp blanket, along with an occasional whiff of the paper mill that blows in on the hot breeze, but late afternoon sun slants through the trees, turning the leaf edges golden. I like this time of day, even the heat.
I let it wash over me, absorb me, and I let go. Sometimes I run to work out my fury, sometimes to escape, sometimes to think. Today, though, I run to move my body again after stagnating in the eggshell of my room for two weeks, to be free and shake off the lethargy, and leave behind the broken pieces of my home.
This is the kind of flying I do.
My shoes hit the pavement with satisfying impact, the ground solid and reassuring under my feet. It’s nice to know it’s always there for me, not shifting or disappearing on a whim. The earth is predictable and stable, there no matter what town I move to or what mood my stepdad is in. Needless to say, it’s something I can totally appreciate.
I lose myself in the rhythm, letting my feet take me where they will. I’m not worried about getting lost. I have a pretty good sense of direction, and since I’m in a new place, I take note of each street name when I pass. I see a girl in overalls skateboarding with a Walkman in her pocket, headphones over her ears, and I make a note to grab my music next time I run.
Before I know it, the sun has sunk behind the houses, and the cars speeding by have their lights on. Well, shit. I lost track of time. I turn and retrace my steps as fast as I can, fear increasing my pace but making me reckless. Just as I turn back onto Mill Street, I run smack into a guy. The impact sends me flying backward, literally bouncing off the wall of tight muscle. I slam down on the cracked sidewalk, the breath knocked out of me so thoroughly I can’t even cry out or cuss at the pain.
The guy towers over me as I lie on the sidewalk like an overturned turtle. From my vantage point, he looks like a giant, easily over six feet of solid muscle, wearing a pair of knee-length basketball shorts and running shoes. He’s shirtless, which means I have a full view of all that muscle straining under his smooth light brown skin, like it barely fits. Tattoos ring his arms, spread over his chest and shoulders, peek out from the top of his low-slung athletic shorts, and wrap around the front of his neck like a threatening hand.
He studies me with emotionless eyes, dark and fathomless. The asshole doesn’t even offer an apology or a hand to help me up.
I suck in a hideously ugly breath and scramble to my feet, brushing off my ass. “Watch where you’re going, jerk face,” I snap.
The barest spark of life flits through his eyes, which up close are a dark, deep, mossy green. The corners of his full, masculine lips twitch. Then he’s back to stony indifference, a muscle in his square jaw ticking.
“Watch how you speak to people inla olla, little girl,” he says, his voice a startlingly deep, annoyingly sexy growl with just a hint of an accent. His black hair is shorn on the sides but long enough on top to be a bit mussed by sweat and the wind. From the collision with his bare chest, I can tell he’s been running a while too.
Now that I’m standing, he’s not quite such a behemoth, though he still looms at least a foot taller than my five-foot-four frame. My instinct for self-preservation slightly outweighs my temper, and one look at this tattooed tower tells me I don’t want to mess with him. I give him a two-finger salute. “Noted,” I say. “Thanks for the heads up.”
He looks down at me like I’m a roach he’d like to stomp. The feeling is entirely mutual.
“Anytime, little girl,” he says, his voice dropping into a slow drawl as his gaze melts over me, taking me in from my messy ponytail to the loose strands sticking to the damp skin of my neck, my sweaty ringer tee, high-waisted shorts, and bare legs. Suddenly I do feel like a little girl, or at least an idiot who runs in jean shorts.
“Later, jerk face,” I say, turning and starting up the walkway to our house. I’m on the porch before I remember I was supposed to clean the pool. Shit. I wanted to slam the door in that guy’s face, but not as much as I want to avoid Lee’s wrath. I veer around the side of the house, following the wrap-around porch. When I spare a glance over my shoulder, the guy is still standing there, watching me with a frown. Double shit. I thought he’d be gone, continuing on with his run. Now he saw me look back at him, like I wanted to know if he was watching me walk away.
I dart around the house and take a minute to gather my wits and examine my elbows, which are scraped to hell from biting the dust so hard. At least I didn’t crack my skull open.
I sigh and head down the back steps to survey the job ahead. As I stand there listening to the drone of a weed eater next door, excitement starts to replace the dread at such a huge undertaking. So, it’ll take more than a quick skim with a net before I’m enjoying a California-blue teenage dream. So what? It’s not like I’ve never gotten my hands dirty or done hard work before. This time, I have something better than money waiting at the end. My stepdad just takes all my money anyway. He can’t take this. Hell, he probably won’t even use it much.
But I’ll use it.
I can barely contain myself as I close my eyes and imagine it, something I’ve never even hoped for, it was so far out of the realm of possibility. Apool. Only rich kids have pools in Ridgedale. My friends and I listened with envy while the popular girls talked about pool parties and laying out working on their tans. I never dreamedI’dhave something so posh.
“Hey,” calls a warm, masculine voice behind me.
I spin around, my eyes sweeping the yard before landing on a guy standing with his hands braced on either side of the gap in the fence, his head ducked under the crossbeam at the top.
Everything about him is sweet as honey. Eyes like warm, melted gold peer out at me from behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses set on a prominent nose above wide, full lips that are smiling at me in a way that makes funny things happen in my lower belly. His jaw is strong and square, his cheekbones sharp as saw blades, his skin beaded with little droplets of sweat that gleam in the twilight like he’s running with honey. A shock of messy, damp black hair completes the image of the guy who is too gorgeous for words.
My throat sticks as I try to swallow. Yep, words have deserted me. The guy is… Breathtaking.
The weed eater is no longer running, so he must have shut it off while I was lost in thought. The silence in the neighborhood seems to throb in the stifling evening air.
“You okay?” he asks, his smile widening at one corner only, so it goes all crooked.
My stomach careens sideways too.
“Hey,” I say, trying not to sound as nervous and jumpy as I feel suddenly. I don’t like being taken by surprise, especially not by guys who look like they belong in movies instead of a rundown neighborhood in Faulkner, Arkansas.
“Mind if I join you?” he asks, gesturing to the gap in the fence. “I figure introducing myself is the neighborly thing to do, but I like to ask before I come in a girl’s hole.”
If I wasn’t already sweating from the heat, I am now.
I’m also wondering what kind of jerk talks like that to a stranger.