Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“No.” She stands upright, scowling. “I mean this trail is out of bounds. You’re trespassing.”
I can’t help but give her another lingering once-over. “You sure you’re not the one in the wrong place? Isn’t this an all-boys school?”
“My dad works here. Who the hell are you?” The girl could light fires with those eyes. Burn down small towns with her glare.
“Not very friendly, are we?” I can’t help but mock.
“Not usually, no. Answer me.”
Oh man, I have a serious thing for angry chicks. I don’t know what it is about a girl with a chip on her shoulder who looks at me like she wants to kick my teeth in, but it makes my dick twitch.
“My name’s RJ,” I answer dutifully. “I’m new.”
“No shit.” She cocks her head, impatient. “What decaying suburban sidewalk did they scrape you off of?”
Fuck, sweetheart. Say less.
When I see her eye my joint, I hold it out to her. “Want a hit?”
She works her jaw, that intense gaze sizing me up. Then she snatches it from my hand to take in a couple deep drags, proceeding to blow the smoke in my face as if I’m not already turned on.
“Do I get your name?” I ask her, fighting a grin. I’m really digging this attitude she’s throwing at me.
“No.” She hands the joint back.
I suddenly hear Lawson in my head. If you run, it’ll only make me chase you.
“Well, shit. What do I write when I’m carving our names in a tree?”
“Wow.” She barks out a laugh. “Do you know you said that out loud? ’Cause that was embarrassing.”
“Nah. It’s pretty hard to insult me,” I tell her.
“I’d try if I cared.”
Everything about her tells me to fuck off, but she’s still here. And I’m not sure what it says about me that I kind of like the abuse. I’d let this chick walk on my face with a pair of combat boots. The hostility just makes me imagine loud, hair-pulling sex.
“We could grab some dinner and you could give it your best shot,” I offer.
“Sorry. I don’t go out with randos I meet in the woods.”
“You run into a lot of those out here? Because I could walk you home. You know, for protection.”
She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “I can take care of myself.”
“Then walk me home.”
The slightest tug of a smile curves her lips and disappears just as quickly. Oh yeah, she definitely likes me.
“Watch out for the raccoons,” she warns as she starts to walk away. “Some idiot spent a semester dosing them with LSD and now they’re like deranged little science experiments with opposable thumbs and no regard for human life.”
She’s probably kidding. I think.
“Same time tomorrow?” I call after her. “I’ll supply the refreshments.”
She doesn’t bother to look back. “Have a nice life, rookie. Good luck in Boys Town.”
She’s out of sight in seconds as I realize she’s left me in near total darkness. It’s as if she yanked the sun out of the sky to spite me.
It’s fucking hot.
That girl’s the poisoned tip of a dart and I’m so into it I can’t wipe my smile off my face. I guess this place won’t be a total bummer, after all.
If I manage find my way back to civilization.
Chapter 7
Sloane
I don’t know what to make of the guy on the trail. Or why he looked at me like we’ve always known each other. Back home, I take a quick shower to wash off the sweat from my run. I’m brushing out my hair at my desk when Casey pokes her head in my room. She makes herself comfortable by plopping down on my bed to watch me with the gleam of a burning query dancing in her eyes.
“What?” I catch her stare in my mirror, instantly suspicious.
“Good run?”
“Fine. What’s with the smile?”
“You were gone a long time.” Her conspiratorial grin absorbs her face. “One might think you didn’t go for a run at all, but instead went to see, oh, I don’t know, maybe someone whose name starts with a D and ends with an uke?”
“One might be dead wrong,” I answer with a snort. “I told you, Duke and I are done.”
“Then what took you so long?”
“There was some random guy on the trail. I thought a townie had wandered onto campus so I stopped to interrogate him.”
“Ha!” she pounces. “So you were talking to a boy.”
“Wasn’t much of a conversation.”
It destroyed my whole run, in fact. Like a burst of buckshot right through my chill. My trail is my sanctuary, where I go to turn down the volume on my thoughts and escape whatever is piling up in my head. It’s my unreachable dimension. An escape hatch from my life. A perfectly preserved oasis of peace. And here’s some interloper, some tourist, helping himself to my forest of solitude? And then he’s got the nerve to flirt with me, and what, I’m supposed to find it charming? Fuck off, trespasser.