"I"m not stubborn. I just have no interest in getting in a car with some guy I don"t know."
"You know me. I"m the guy who"s always early." Luke pulled the bike and grabbed my arm to drag me under the canopy. "It won"t kill you to let someone do something nice for you. We toss this in the truck. I drive you home. You don"t die of pneumonia."
"What"s going on here?"
I fought the little smirk creasing my lips as Chris"s voice sounded from behind me. Finally my day was heading in the right direction.
"He was just-" I stopped dead at the sight of Chris, his arm slung over Cheryl"s shoulder, watching Luke and I tug the bike back and forth. They looked far too cozy. They looked comfortable. They looked together.
"I was just giving her a ride home." Luke pulled the bike from my numb fingers. "I have a truck we can throw this in."
Didn"t he say that already? And what was that buzzing in my ears?
Luke watched me with that wordless gaze again. "With the rain and all," he said after a long, quiet moment.
Why was everyone looking at me? I glanced at Cheryl, her eyes taking in my soaked T-shirt and battered Red Sox cap. Even after running captain"s tryouts for a couple hours she looked like every teen flick"s stereotype of a cheer captain. I wondered if their coach took that into consideration when choosing her.
"We can drive her." Chris stepped toward us, forcing Cheryl along with him.
Thank goodness Chris was finally taking charge.
"How"s she going to get her bike home, then?"
"You can take that for her, Parker." Chris smirked at him. Chris liked to win. A lot.
"If I"m taking the bike, I might as well take the girl, too."
Uh-oh.
"Chris." I had to give Cheryl credit for trying to keep the whine out of her voice. "If you let Parker drive," she waved a manicured hand in my general direction, "her home, we can go straight to China Dynasty."
I felt my head swivel toward Chris. He had said he"d talk to me later and now he was taking her out to eat?
"That makes sense," Luke jumped into their conversation. "You guys go to your little dinner date thing. I"ll take Stats Girl home."
Dear G.o.d, did no one know my name?
Cheryl squeezed Chris"s arm. I could see him calculating the cost of not making it to dinner at the right time with the right girl versus winning this fight with the guy trying to take his spot.
Hopefully, spending time with me was on that scale somewhere. Or, maybe it wasn"t. The whole tryout thing was having me second guess the motives of just about everyone involved in The Plan.
Okay, maybe not my own motives. I glanced at Chris hoping his right answer and my right answer were matchy-matchy.
"Alright. As long as she gets home, right?" Chris gave me a quick wink and turned to lead Cheryl out into the rain.
So, no matchy-matchy. I glanced between the pseudo-couple and reminded myself I"d signed up for this. Reminded myself that the rules of the game were clear. Reminded myself not to shove Cheryl into the puddle at the end of the walk even if she was looking to get more out of this fake-date-thing than I"d expected. Her Ashburk Tech boyfriend was an intangible, but Chris? Chris was the hottest guy in school. Chris was arm candy. And Cheryl wasn"t stupid.
Cheryl dug in her heels. "Why don"t you go get the car?"
She gave him a smile that seemed to say, That wasn"t really a question and I know you"re going to do it anyway, so hurry up.
"Oh, yeah."
He didn"t even look my way, just ducked his head and sprinted into the curtain of water. Luke hefted my bike and set the crossbar on his shoulder.
"Why don"t you wait here, too? I"ll be right back." He stepped from the protection of the canopy, his T-shirt instantly soaked through. His head swung around as I followed, trying my best to ignore the downpour. I"d tried small talk with guys earlier. I had no interest in testing small talk with cheerleaders... especially this one. I so didn"t need to get a reminder about pre-school-year-couples from Cheryl. Water seemed the safer bet.
"That"s okay. I"ll just make a run for it."
I caught the crooked grin he gave me before I lowered the bill of my cap. He beat me to the truck and lifted my bike into the back before opening the door for me. I jumped in and reached to close it, but he was still there, standing in the rain and pushing it shut.
Slamming the driver"s side door behind him, he looked as though he wanted to shake like a wet dog but settled for pushing his dark, drenched locks out of his eyes. He leaned across the stick shift and reached over my knees to drop the glove compartment open. Pushing aside papers, napkins, and a folded map, he grabbed a key on a red and silver macrame chain and started the engine with a heavy sounding roar.
Thud-thud. The double windshield wipers crossed, barely missing one another on the downward swoop, shoving the water off the gla.s.s. Thud-thud.
"So, do you live over there?" he asked. "Where you were running?"
"Head toward the old wooden bridge."
The rain beat down steadily, forcing him to drive almost as slowly as I would have biked anyway.
"I"m going to try this one more time," he said, reaching to test the defroster. "Hi. I"m Luke."
The truck slowed as he glanced my way.
Rolling my eyes, since I was pretty sure he couldn"t see them, I answered. "Amy."
"Amy?" He dragged my name out in one of those annoying fill-in-the-blank ways.
"Amy Whalen."
"Amy Whalen. It"s good to meet you." He c.o.c.ked his head, lowering it in a way that had his hair dropping toward his eyes again. "Makes sense. I asked a couple guys and they came up with either Beth or Amiline. Is Amy a nickname?"
Beth? Amiline? Seriously?
I"d been at Ridge View since fifth grade, and that was the best they could come up with. I must have been more invisible than I thought if they"d missed my name being called in cla.s.ses for oh... six years.
"Nope. I"m just plain Amy."
The old truck bounced as we crossed over the slightly older wooden bridge.
"Take this next right."
Luke slowed and studied the turnoff. "Here?"
I nodded before realizing he couldn"t look at me. "Yeah. But I can walk if you"d like."
Luke laughed as he pulled the truck onto the dirt road half hidden by heavy, overlapping oak branches. He patted the worn looking dashboard, giving it a loving rub before bringing his hand back to the wheel. "Edith"s seen worse."
The dirt lane widened as we came to the circular drive in front of my house.
"You live here?" he asked, his eyes taking in the cottage and fading garden with its gazebo and handcrafted chairs.
I was used to people making fun of the house, but for some reason it really bothered me coming from him. The idea that one of the Seers of Invisible Things could look at Stonehaven Cottage and not see its beauty really galled me.
"Yeah. I live here." I gripped the oversized door handle to push my way into the weather when his hand caught me around my bicep.
"I wasn"t laughing. I like it. It looks like one of my mom"s gingerbread houses. It"s homey." He glanced from the house to me and back again.
Somehow he"d ended up on my side of the bench looking down at me. I know I shouldn"t have been noticing, but he had the most amazing green eyes I"d ever seen. They were pale with a dark, forest-green ring around them and bright flecks of gold catching the rain-hidden sun.
"I like it," he said again, his voice lower, honest.
"Oh. Thanks." I tried not to say it, but it came out in a rush. "My mom picked the cottage before she died."
I have no idea what made me spill that, but there was no way he was hearing the rest. No way, I was telling him about watching my mom waste away and then my dad drift away.
My gaze dropped to his large hand, the fingers so long they wrapped all the way around my arm and overlapped his thumb.
He let go, easing away from me as though unsure that"s what he was supposed to do. "Sorry."
Sorry? For my mom? For me? For crossing lines I hadn"t known were there until he tried to ease over them?
The water banged on the roof, enclosing the cabin around us, making it seem smaller-more intimate. I"m not sure why I didn"t hop out as soon as he let go of my arm. I guess I needed to let him finish his rambling, or something.
Luke studied the cottage. "There aren"t any lights on."
There were never any lights on.
"My dad works late." Late or constantly. I pushed the door open, blushing under his scrutiny and welcoming the cool water dripping in. "Thanks for the ride."
I shoved at the heavy door, listening to it squeak as Luke jumped out the other side. Lowering his head, he hauled my bike from the truck bed.
"Where does this go?"
I tried to take it from him before he got wetter than soaked.
"Don"t worry about it," I said. The cold, wet metal under my hand stayed where it was.
Luke started toward the house, the bike securely in his custody. There was that stubborn streak again. Truly amazing how clear one aspect of a person could become in twenty-four hours. I pointed toward the cottage-shaped shed beyond the garden and watched him run the bike down the slate pathway to store it.
I"d worked the damp-swollen front door open by the time he got back and stepped under the overhang.
"Thanks. Again. For the ride and all." I stood in the doorway, holding the screen so it wasn"t between us. His hand rose to the spot just above mine, bracing the door open when I would have let it fall shut. That annoying half-smile teased around his lips again, drawing them up on the right.
"So, I guess I"ll see you tomorrow." I hoped he"d get the hint. I mean, even with the little overhang, he had to still be getting wet.
Luke nodded as he backed down the stairs. "Sure. Tomorrow. Tryouts. See ya then, Stats Girl.
I let the screen fall shut as he drove away, the oversized tires kicking up mud as he went. Before the roar of his truck faded, the rain stopped.
It figured.
Chapter 5.
Morning washed through the kitchen window in a pale, yellow-orange light. The kind of glow that made me happy to throw on my running shoes and eat up some trail. If I"d ever had a morning where I needed to drown out the words in my head with the pounding of my feet, it was this one.
Tryouts, Chris, New Guy. Words, words, words.
And of course, waiting for me on the kitchen counter, one of the weekly notes from my dad.
Groceries tomorrow. Make a list what you need ~ Dad.
Every once in a while it included a note about something he had to do for work. As if I"d notice him home less-I"m not actually sure he could be home much less.
The deep, heavy revving of a motor shredded the quiet, catching me off guard and off balance. My foot snagged on the edge of the kitchen sink where I"d propped it to stretch out my tired legs. Regaining some semblance of grace, I forced myself not to rush. I could make Chris wait an extra, oh, three seconds after how he ditched me after tryouts last night.
I hadn"t expected him. I was still smarting from the blow-off yesterday, and he hadn"t texted to say he"d be by this morning.
Padding to the front hall, I yanked the elastic from my wrist and pulled my hair into a loose ponytail-half-bun thing. For a heartbeat before I opened the door, I wished I were a makeup girl and had myself looking all cute and frilly. Gagging a little at my own silliness, I took a deep breath and let it out only to catch it back when I opened the door.
"Sweet tea?" Luke Parker stood on my steps holding a travel cup. "You didn"t strike me as a coffee drinker. My mom"s from South Carolina. We grew up drinking this stuff like water."
I held both hands up to stop the tea dissertation onslaught-not to mention the stubborn streak I knew would keep him on my porch until I tasted it. The condensation wet my hand as I raised the cup and sipped the pushed-on-me-in-an-overbearing-act-of-kindness beverage. Sweet. Cold.
"Mmm good." I nodded when he smiled. "What are you doing here?"
"Tryouts."
I did the raised-eyebrows-head-shake thing that typically said "huh."
"Tryouts are held at the school," I pointed out.
Luke pushed a clump of shower-damp hair from his eyes. "I know. I figured you"d need a ride."
"No thanks. I need to get a run in."
"Nah. Maybe I"ll let you run tonight." He was already walking toward the truck. "Hurry up. I don"t want to end up doing late-laps."
If I"d learned anything about Luke Parker in the two days I"d known him, it was that once he started something, you might as well get on board or get out of the way. And honestly, no matter how much I needed that mind-cleansing run, there was no way I was going to explain that to him.
I stuffed a Nalgene and hat in my backpack and shut the door behind me. As I skipped down the stairs, Luke pushed off from where he"d been leaning against the truck, foot propped behind him on the old fender. He circled around the back and opened the door for me.