None of it made sense. He didn’t make sense. But for the life of me I wanted to make sense out of what was pulling me to him.
• • •
My feet pounded rhythmically against the concrete, and my breath came out in puffs of little clouds in front of me as I pushed to finish the last bit of my run the next morning. I’d barely slept last night as I went over every detail of every word that had passed Kier’s lips, and I was paying for it this morning. Even cutting half a mile off my normal distance, I felt like I had tried to run double what I normally did.
Three more blocks . . . three more blocks, I chanted to myself. Two more. Even the music blaring through my earbuds couldn’t pump me up enough to finish hard. I didn’t even know what song was playing as I tried not to collapse. Just then, my eyes caught the paper tucked under my windshield wipers, and I stopped running.
Looking around the empty street as I walked over to my car, I had one of those flashes. Like I was about to be in a bad horror movie, and people were screaming, “Don’t go over there! Run away!”
I rolled my eyes and ripped the paper away from the windshield. Unfolding it, I read the words twice, my heart pounding harder than it had been during my run.
We tried jumping it, still wouldn’t start. Went and got you a new battery, she’s running great now.
My lower legs had been a weird, stinging mix of cool and hot as the freezing air blew around me, and I knew my ears, nose, and cheeks had been bright red from the cold and my run—but now I didn’t feel the cold. I didn’t feel the shakiness from pushing myself even though I’d been too exhausted for my run this morning. My cheeks were now filled with heat as I just stood there staring at the paper, my breathing too fast as I thought about what he’d done for me.
Embarrassment and wonder coursed through my body and I slowly turned my head to look up at the house next to ours. People didn’t take care of me. Not anymore. Dean had been there for me when I broke and fell too far when it felt like my entire world was crashing down on me—but it’d been a lie. And this? This was different. This was . . . too much.
I walked up to their house on shaky legs, the note clenched tightly in my fist as I stood at the front door for a few seconds before knocking. When there was no answer, I knocked again, harder this time. Less than a minute later, Kier answered the door.
“You . . . ,” I whispered, and pointed behind me in the direction of my car.
“Indy?”
I ground my jaw when my eyes began to sting, and when no words could make it past the tightness in my throat, I launched myself at him—throwing my arms around his waist and burying my head in his chest. “Thank you,” I choked out.
He laughed awkwardly, and hesitantly wrapped one of his arms around my back. Pressing his closed fist under my chin, he leaned away from me and tilted my head back so he could look at me. “For what?”
Unwrapping the arm holding the note, I held my hand up between us. “My car. You fixed it. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that. Please tell me how much it cost. I’ll pay you back.”
Kier released me, and his lips tilted up in the corners. “As much as I love having a beautiful girl throw herself at me . . . I didn’t fix your car.”
I blinked quickly. “What?”
“I didn’t fix your car, Indy.” He shrugged. “That was Darryn and Misha. I saw them working on it when I came back from an early class this morning.”
My face fell, and I took a step back. Oh. My. God. I’d been so wrapped up in the enigma standing in front of me that I’d started making everything about him. “Oh my God,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry, I just—oh God.” I dropped my head to stare at the porch, my eyes wide with mortification.
“Indy, it’s fine. I’m glad your car’s running now.”
I nodded, not looking back up at him. “Uh, I’ll, uh . . . see you later.” Never. I never wanted him to see me again. The girl who didn’t even know he was in her class. The girl who launched herself at him for apparently no reason. The girl who couldn’t remember his name.
Turning, I jogged down the few steps and took off for our house. I slammed the door behind me, still running until I found Misha and her boyfriend at the table in the kitchen.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and stood, her expression worried.
“No—yes—I just, oh my God.” I pointed in the direction of the house next to ours and looked at Darryn. “I thought . . . I’m such an idiot,” I groaned, and sagged against the counter.
“Because none of that made sense,” Darryn said.
I laughed lamely and covered my face with my hands. “I know. I’m full of win this morning.” Looking back at them, I took a deep breath and hoped I could make them understand how grateful I was for what they had done. “Thank you both so much for fixing my car. Please tell me how much the battery cost and I’ll pay you back.”
They gave each other a look, and Darryn glanced at me before his eyes darted to the floor. “Uh, we—”
“Just think of it as a late birthday present,” Misha said, cutting him off before shooting Darryn a look.
“I can’t, that’s too much.”
“Well, you’re going to have to. Because I won’t be telling you how much it cost.”
“Misha,” I complained, but knew she wasn’t going to give on this. “If I wasn’t covered in sweat right now, I’d hug you both.” It hit me then that I’d just hugged Kier. Oh God, kill me now.
A small smile crossed her face. “No need, really.”
“Thank you guys, again.” Pushing away from the counter, I went upstairs to shower and try to forget how badly I’d just humiliated myself. I’d gotten halfway through my junior year without talking to Kier. It wouldn’t be that hard to go back to how it had been before yesterday.
And it hadn’t been hard. Well, it had, and it hadn’t. It’d been nine days since I thanked him for the battery he hadn’t even bought for me, but it’d been impossible to forget about the quiet guy next door. I looked for him during the party at their house a couple of days later, but before long I’d gotten lost in drinking games—not that I would have said anything if I had seen him. And even though I knew he was in the back left corner of the lecture hall in our class on Monday and Wednesday, I refused to look back there, even though everything in me was screaming to do so. I didn’t remember anything from those classes other than once they were over, I’d let out a relieved breath.
After looking for him for a few minutes at the neighbors’ party tonight, I’d given up. It was stupid to look for him. I’d never seen him at one of these parties anyway. For all I knew, he wasn’t even here tonight. He could be at work if he had a job; he could be out with his girlfriend—oh my God. He could have a girlfriend.
“He could have a girlfriend!” I said out loud, and the guy I was curled up against on the couch gave me a funny look.
“What?”
I threw my hands up in the air. “This whole time I’ve been— Where the fuck did this bread come from?”
The guy laughed loudly, and curled his arm around my waist. “Baby, you are wasted. You keep forgetting about it, but you’ve been holding it for an hour at least.”
I stared at the gold foil as I leaned away from his body. I didn’t like the way he called me “baby.” “Did you give this bread to me?”
“No, and you won’t let anyone touch it.” He pulled me back toward him, his mouth going to my ear. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Mm. No, no.” I made a sound of disapproval as I scrambled away from him and off the couch, taking a few seconds to get myself steady when I was standing.
Holding the bread close to my chest, I moved through the tightly packed bodies, needing air. I don’t know why I didn’t go toward the front door. It would have made more sense to leave and go to my house, but before I knew what I was doing, I was standing in front of a door in the hall on the first floor.
“Safe room,” I mumbled to myself, and tapped my finger against the wood.
It didn’t.
I let my forehead fall roughly against the door and whined, “Stupid safe room. You didn’t go all wardrobe on me and lead me to Narnia.”
The door swung open and I stumbled forward.
“Shit—I got you,” a deep voice grunted as a pair of arms caught me and helped get me standing again. “Guess it’s time to go home?”
I looked up and gasped. “You. You have a girlfriend!”
Golden eyes widened with shock. “What?”
“You have a girlfriend, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“You don’t?” I breathed, and staggered closer to his body. His hands tightened on my upper arms to keep me where I was. My lips fell into a pout. “And you didn’t fix my car.”
He laughed softly and moved to wrap one arm around my back. “Hold on to your bread, Indy.”
I held up the bag and shrugged. “I don’t know where it came from,” I murmured. “But it’s delicious.”
“I bet it is. Up you go.” He lifted me into his arms, and I squealed.
“No, no! No!” I said sternly, my eyebrows slamming down.
“If you’re in my room, then it’s time to get you back to yours.”
My face fell, and I kept my eyes trained on the bread in my hands as he walked us down the hall, through the people at the party, and out the door. “I bothered you. In your room. That was your room, not Narnia.”
He missed a step and tightened his grip on me as loud laughs burst from his chest. “Narnia? What the hell did you drink tonight, Indy?”
I tried to glare at him, but I probably just looked like a three-year-old not getting her way. “It was the safe door. It was supposed to be magic,” I whispered. “No magic.”
He did stop walking then. “What did you just say?”
“No magic,” I repeated.
“Before that.”
I stared at his face for a few seconds before popping a piece of bread in my mouth. “I don’t remember,” I said honestly. “Why are you carrying me?”
“Because you would fall otherwise.”
“Nu-uh.”
“You did the first night,” he grumbled, and looked away.
I stopped chewing. “What first night?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He began walking again, his hardened eyes straight ahead.
“Cookie?” I asked when we walked into my house.
He snorted as he kicked the front door to my house shut. “You’ve called me a lot of names, but that’s definitely a new one. No.”
“I know your name,” I said, and held up my hand. “Do you want a cookie?”
His dark eyebrows pinched together. “That’s bread, Indy, not a cookie.”
I looked at the bread and frowned before offering it back up to him. “It’ll be our secret,” I whispered. “We can pretend it’s a cookie.”
He smiled wryly at me before dipping his head and biting the food out of my hand. “Amazing cookie.”
I watched his mouth as he chewed, and didn’t know if I should be embarrassed by the fact that my breathing was heavy now. “My room is—”
“On the second floor,” he finished for me. “I know.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Why’d you call my door the safe door?” he countered, his eyes flicking to my face for a second before he began climbing the stairs with me still in his arms.
This felt familiar . . . and right. But that couldn’t be right, because I’d only talked to Kier twice, a week and a half ago.
“Indy?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you call my door the safe door?”
“When did I call it that?”
He exhaled heavily but didn’t say anything else as he finished walking up the stairs and straight into my room. My eyebrows pinched together, and I wondered again how he knew where my room was, but before I could ask, he was lowering me onto the bed and pulling the bread from my hands.
“This is mine,” I complained, and tried to pull it back toward me.
“I know it is, but I’m betting you have about five minutes before you’re asleep. And you don’t want to fall asleep with garlic bread in your hands, do you?”
“Yes! Yes, I do!”
A bright smile crossed his face as he uncurled my fingers, one by one. “No, you don’t.” Once it was in his hand, he straightened and looked down at me, his gaze lingering on my face for a few seconds. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes. Get changed.”
“For what?”
He stopped midturn and looked back at me. “To go to sleep.”
“But I’m not tired,” I insisted when he walked away. He didn’t respond. “I’m not.”
I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know why he never talked to anyone, and why he didn’t have a girlfriend. I wanted to know why he sat in the back of the class, how he knew where my room was, and why he wasn’t the one to fix my car. I wanted to know if he’d been as consumed in thoughts of me the last week and a half as I’d been in thoughts of him.
Unzipping my hoodie, I yanked at the sleeves and fought with the material until it was off my arms and on the floor. Then I grabbed my long-sleeved shirt. But that proved to be much more difficult to deal with. I ended up on my side with one arm hanging out of the hole where my head was supposed to go, and the other caught up in the material along with my head before giving up.
I didn’t need to get undressed anyway, and it was oddly comfortable. Or that could’ve been because I was drunk and any position would be comfortable, but my eyes were already shutting, even though I knew I wanted to stay awake to talk to Kier.
My eyes were shut and my breathing was deep when I heard a low laugh followed by the sound of glass being set down on wood. “Kier?”
“Yeah, Indy?”
“My shirt attacked me,” I mumbled before letting myself go back to the place where sleep was calling me.
“I can see that.”
His hands were touching my arms, maneuvering them through the correct holes of the shirt as he tried to pull it off my body. When he was done, he moved me back so I was lying on the pillows, and I heard his footsteps cross my room before the light behind my eyelids disappeared.
My eyes cracked open, then shut again as he lifted one of my legs to tug my boot off. “Are you staying?”
“No,” he said as the other boot slid off, a dull thud sounding in the otherwise quiet room when it hit the floor. I was so close to sleep that the sound seemed miles away.
I felt a pull on the button of my jeans, and groggily slapped at his hands. “No,” I protested, and tried to open my eyes.
“Don’t kick me, Indy. You’re safe with me. Safe door, remember?” Kier’s voice filled my head seconds before his hands touched my ankles, grabbing the bottoms of my jeans and pulling them down.
“No, no,” I said louder, panic filling my voice as my eyes finally snapped open.
Kier let my pants fall to the floor as he pushed my legs onto the bed and pulled the comforter over my body, his eyes never once on any part of me as he did so. When I was covered, he glanced at me and cupped my cheek. “Get some sleep, sweetheart.”
He turned and walked from my room, shutting the door behind him as he did. But before he left, his fingers twisted the lock on the doorknob, and I knew he’d made it a safe door. He hadn’t been about to take advantage of me. He was taking care of me, and he was making sure no one was getting in my room tonight.
chapter three
Kier
I jogged down the steps of the house and hurried over to my SUV. As I neared the end of the walkway, movement to my right captured my eye, and I paused when I saw Indy slowing from her run. Her eyes widened before she glanced away, and she looked like she was trying to figure out a way to avoid s
eeing me.
Two weekends of her remembering my name, but nothing had changed during those weeks. It was painfully awkward to see her now, especially after the morning I’d had Darryn and Misha make Indy believe they’d been the ones to fix her car instead of me. But I hadn’t wanted her to know, just like I didn’t need her to know about how I took care of her every Saturday night. Until she figured it out, there was no point in talking to her about it.
I glanced at my SUV before looking at her again, a grimace tugging at my lips as I decided against what I knew was the right thing to do. “I thought you’d be gone for Thanksgiving break,” I said when she got a little closer.
“We still have classes for a couple days.”
“And? Most people skip them so they can actually have a full week off.”
Her green eyes fell to the straps of my backpack before she looked to the ground. “You’re not.”
“My parents aren’t big on celebrating Thanksgiving.” Or any holiday for that matter, including birthdays. “They take a trip every year instead, so there isn’t much of a point in going home.”
“Without you?” she asked, her eyebrows pinching together when she looked back up at me.
“Most years.”
“That’s sad.”
I laughed. It might have been sad when I was ten, but now it was normal. “Not really. Have your parents ever taken a trip without you?” She didn’t respond for a few seconds, but finally nodded. “That’s all it is. We just don’t do the whole traditional holiday thing, never have. When are you gonna head home?”
“I’m not.”
She looked uncomfortable, so I didn’t press for anything else. When she looked at the ground again, I took that as a cue to leave and turned to walk back to my car.
“What is it about you?”
I paused but didn’t turn around for a few moments, and then it was only to look over my shoulder.
“I don’t know you. Other than right now we’ve only talked to each other twice and it was for a handful of minutes, but I feel like I know you. I feel—I don’t know how to explain it,” she huffed, and a frustrated smile crossed her face. “I’m about to embarrass the hell out of myself, but I don’t care anymore. I feel like when I’m near you, I’m safe, and it makes no sense to me. It is the weirdest feeling to have with someone I only know three things about.”
When We Met Page 12
