“You formed complete sentences, Hutch. Not just a grunt or a word, but actual sentences and everything.” She knocked my shoulder. “I’m teasing you, of course.” She leaned into me, and I swear I stopped breathing. She smelled like the ocean but mixed with something else too. Something sweeter; a delicacy I wanted to eat with a spoon. “What did you want to do?” Her green eyes had little specks of gold in them that I hadn’t noticed before until now. Must have been the way the sun caught them outside right now.
“Hutch?” We both looked up as my brother, Pat, who suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere. Cockblocker. “Jillian.” His tone changed when he noticed who I was sitting with. What? He was the only Kelly allowed to be seen with a Robinson girl? “What’s going on here?” I didn’t like that question. In fact, I didn’t like the way he was looking at me right now, like I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
Jillian didn’t flinch or made any move to get up. “Where’s Jo?” She simply asked because usually those two were connected at the hip at all times.
“At the taco truck.” He glanced at me before he looked back at Jillian. “What are you two—?”
I jumped to my feet. “I was just leaving.” I shoved my feet back into my boots before I took off. I heard Jillian calling out to me as I hurried down the beach and back up onto the footpath, but it didn’t stop me. Patrick was right behind me.
“What are you doing?” he hissed between clenched teeth. “Jillian, Hutch?”
“None of your business.” I kept walking, but Pat was hot on my heels. When his hand landed on my arm, I spun around. “Don’t touch me,” I warned.
He popped his jaw. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what that was.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder back to where I knew Jillian was probably wondering what the hell just happened. Maybe not. She probably didn’t even care. Last I heard, she had been dating Knox Carson, so she probably wasn’t even interested in me.
“Nothing,” I lied.
Patrick looked up at the clear blue sky. “You like her.” Stating the obvious, Sherlock. “She’s eighteen, Hutch, and has her entire life mapped out ahead of her. She’s not like you.”
I could knock his block off. I could punch him into next Tuesday, and he knew it. Instead, I kept waking because that was who I was. No bark, no bite.
“I didn’t...Hutch, wait!” Patrick caught right back up to me again. “I didn’t mean that.”
I bared my teeth at him. “You meant it.” I flipped my middle finger, warning him off. “I’m different. She’s not. I’m not stupid, Pat; just mute,” I reminded him. “Get out of my way now.”
When Pat did what I asked, I kept walking and didn’t look back. I made it all the way back to our house where I still lived, even at twenty-six, and into the apartment I had over the garage where I planned to spend the rest of the day drinking and feeling sorry for myself.
Jillian Robinson was going to break my heart.
I should get out while I still could.
She isn’t into me like that.
***
I didn’t see Jillian again until Friday night. Or at least, I didn’t talk to her again. I walked by the ballet studio she had class at every single morning on my way to work, but pretended I didn’t see her when she waved to me. I saw her when she was outside with the other girls in her class on their break, laughing and talking about God only knows what, but I acted like I didn’t when she turned to look over at the garage.
Patrick was right. Jillian wasn’t like me. She was normal, she was good, and she was going to get out of this town. I was the one who’d be stuck here until they buried me six feet in the ground. I thought I had come to terms with my life, but now I wasn’t so sure of that.
Friday night rolled around, and I was no longer as pissed off at my brother as I was on Sunday, which meant I let him convince me to go out to a party one of his buddies was having at their house. He made no mention of Jillian so I assumed she wouldn’t be there. If I had known, I would have just stayed home like I usually did. He told me it was just going to be a bunch of dudes hanging out. Guys, I could handle, but girls? Girls were something altogether different. Guys didn’t care if I sat there drinking a beer, grunting out an answer now and then, but girls? Girls wanted you to talk to them. I didn’t do that.
Jillian was there with her friends: Belle, Madison, and, of course, her sister, Jo. I kept to myself like usual, mostly talking with Pat when he could tear himself away from his girlfriend. I sipped on my warm beer by myself and gave a quick smile to whoever might give me a fleeting hello before I decided after an hour that I had had enough. Knox Carson was making my skin crawl with the way he was flirting with Jillian, and I was ready to leave until something made me Jillian’s raised voice caused me to change my mind.
“Put me down, Knox!”
I spun around at the sound of Jillian’s voice. Sure enough, Knox had Jillian in his arms while he strutted toward the beach as if he was about to dump her in the water. He was laughing as if he was having a great time, but Jillian looked otherwise. I sprinted toward them without a second thought.
“I think the lady asked you to put her down,” I growled incessantly.
Knox seemed surprised to either see me or hear me, because he immediately stopped dead in his tracks before he bared his teeth. “Are you serious, mute?” As if I didn’t know everyone used that name on me. “I think you’re lost.” He started toward the water again, but I blocked his path.
“Put her down.”
“Hutch, it’s okay,” Jillian tried to assure me.
I glanced between the two of them. The way Jillian’s eyes sparkled with laughter, the way she was gripping his arms; I realized I had read the entire situation wrong. Maybe they were still dating. Crap, where they still together? I was such an idiot. I turned and fled the scene as fast as I could, heading back up to where I had left my shoes so I could make a beeline back to my place. How could I be that stupid? To even think Jillian might be interested in me, when she had Knox Carson in her life.
“Wait, Hutch!” Jillian called out to me as she rushed up the sand. “Are you mad at me again?” she asked.
I turned around slowly to find her standing there in an oversized sweatshirt that fell to her knees. I saw red when I realized it probably belonged to fucking Knox. “No,” I assured her. “Not you.” I was mad at myself, but of course, I didn’t say that aloud.
Jillian searched my face. “I hoped we could finish our conversation from the other day.” She took a step forward. Loud, explosive laughter from her friends caused her to look back over her shoulder before she turned to me again.
“You should go back to your friends, Jillian,” I muttered.
“Aren’t we friends, Hutch?” she inquired softly.
“Are we?”
Jillian moved around to where I had my eyes pinned to my feet. “Yes.” Her lips turned up and that was what did me in. A smile so innocent, so perfect, that I had no other choice but to give in to what she wanted. “Stay and walk with me for a second?”
“Okay.” I nodded.
Chapter Three
Hutch
We walked a little further away from the crowd of people and the bonfire. I wasn’t sure what it was about Jillian that made me feel so relaxed or different, but maybe she made everyone feel that way. Maybe it was just her green eyes or her friendly smile; there was just something much deeper about Jillian that made all my anxieties just fade away. When the first bench came into view, she sat down and patted the spot next to her. I eased myself down without a second thought. I’m not sure how long we sat there in silence before I turned to find Jillian watching me.
“What?” I growled and felt her grow tense. “Sorry.” I dropped my gaze to my hands that were in my lap.
Jillian pulled her legs up onto the bench. “You were different before when we were alone,” she reminded me. I glanced over to find her hugging her legs against her chest. She had shorts on beneath her sweatshirt, but
I caught a peek of her toned thighs, and a glimpse of what I hoped was her bathing suit.
“I’m different.”
“Don’t do that.”
I met Jillian’s eyes and quickly looked away. “This is who I am,” I reminded her as I dragged my toe around in a circle of sand. She didn’t know me or anything about me. I wasn’t like her friends, and Jillian needed to realize that. I blinked up in surprise as she suddenly got up to stand in front of me. “What are you doing?” When my gaze met hers, I wondered what would it be like to kiss those luscious lips or hold her in my arms?
“You’re not this person you’re pretending to be right now, Hutch.” Jillian reached out to touch my face with her hand, and I was sure my heart skipped a beat in my chest. Her hand was warm against my cheek, her palm soft over my skin. She slowly tilted my face up to hers.
I gritted my teeth. “What...Jillian—” I couldn’t think straight with her touching me like that. It got worse when she pushed my legs open so she could move between them, and my fucking cock grew hard as steel. It had been a very long time since a woman made me feel this way.
“Finish your story,” she whispered as the waves washed over the sand. “Tell me what you would do if you left this little shit town without looking back.”
I stared up into Jillian’s green eyes, her gaze so inviting that all I wanted to do was make her happy. “I wanted to see the world,” I confessed truthfully. “I wanted to backpack through Europe, take a safari through Africa, ski in Colorado, and go to a NASCAR race at Daytona. I wanted to work for NASCAR, too, if given the chance. I’ve always been fascinated by cars, which I guess is how I ended up working on them.” I wasn’t even sure I was breathing at this point. My lungs hurt from the lack of air, but I didn’t care as long as I did what Jillian wanted. She could have a kidney, or all the money I had in the bank right now, if she simply asked me for it.
“Why didn’t you?” She didn’t move from where she stood. Didn’t seem to care that her friends might be watching, or her lame boyfriend was going to be jealous of his girlfriend touching me. That her sister was probably gawking, or my brother was going to fucking kill me when we got home.
The answer to that question...I kept locked in a safe inside my mind that no one would ever open. “I changed my mind,” I lied through gritted teeth.
The moment vanished in an instant.
Jillian pulled away. “You could have come up with a better answer, Hutch.” She retreated further away from me. “I can hear it in your voice that you’re lying.” The sounds of laughing caused her to look back toward the fire where everyone seemed to have forgotten about us.
“Go back to your friends.” I stood up, but she stayed where she was. I looked down at her, at her small yet alethic frame, and wished that things could be different for me. That what had changed me never happened or that I could have her the way I longed to. Beneath me, above me, and fucking everywhere in-between.
Jillian kept her gaze away from me when she spoke. “Is that what you really want me to do?” Her lashes were so long they brushed the tops of her cheeks.
“No.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
My breath caught in my throat when Jillian turned to look at me again. I noticed the sunburn fading into a tan on her face, the freckles that had started to break out over her nose, and the way she kept chewing on her bottom lip the longer we stared at one another. How long had it been since I had been touched by a female? It felt like forever since I had wanted to be touched by the opposite sex. I had long given up on anyone wanting me, but right now, I wondered if someone might.
A smile tugged at Jillian’s plump lips. “You’re staring.”
“So are you,” I answered right back. Shit, was I flirting? I couldn’t even remember the last time I had done that. Before everything that had happened to change me.
Jillian broke into a full-fledge smile this time that lit up her entire face. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen; and whatever was happening at this moment was wrong. So wrong, but right now, I didn’t care.
“Are you going to the carnival tomorrow night?” She tugged on her sweatshirt. “Knox asked me to go, but...” I lost whatever else she was about to utter into a jealous frenzy the moment another guy’s name came out of her mouth. Fucking idiot. I was stupid to think I stood a chance with Jillian. She was just being normal with me, and now, she was just casually talking like friends do. I suddenly realized I had lost myself in my own thoughts because Jillian was staring at me right now.
Fuck.
“I lost you. Where did you go?” She put her hands into the front pocket of her sweatshirt. When I didn’t answer, Jillian shook her head. “I’m sorry, I know asking you to go to the carnival was silly. You’re not interested in that sort of thing.”
Wait, what? “I’ll go.” Fuck, what did I just say? I hated that stupid place. Too many people, all those kids running around with sticky cotton candy fingers, and all the people.
“Really?” Jillian clapped her hands together. “Wait, are you sure? I don’t want to make you do something you don’t want to do.” She eyed me carefully as if she could read my mind or something.
Despite knowing this was a terrible idea, that I was going to have anxiety about it up until the moment we got there and after, I assured Jillian I was not doing this to make her happy. That I wanted to go. Only to be closer to her.
“Can I see your phone?” she asked. When I tilted my head at her, she smiled. “I want to put my number in it so I can text you the time. That way, when you come up with a good excuse not to go, you can text me.”
I rolled my eyes as I lifted my hip to pull out my cell. I unlocked it before I handed it over and then watched Jillian add her number and she gave it back to me. I looked at the phone for a second before I shot her a text and listened to her phone ding. When Jillian checked her texts, she chuckled.
Hutch: I’m not going to change my mind.
“Really?” She looked startled by my text as she looked up at me.
Hutch: Stuck with me.
I was so screwed.
***
I spent two hours getting ready for the damn carnival. A carnival that happened every single year at Ocean View, and one that I hadn’t been to since I was twelve years old. I took a half an hour shower before I changed into a pair of blue jeans, and a plain t-shirt with Zed’s Automotive sprawled across the front, which I decided wasn’t good enough, before I ripped that off to put on a shirt that said I got it at the View written in some terrible font. I stared at myself in the mirror. This wasn’t going to work either. This wasn’t who I was or what I stood for. I was not the guy that cared about what I dressed like. I rummaged around in my dresser before I found a NASCAR shirt I forgot I had buried in the back. It wasn’t wrinkled so I yanked it over my head.
I ran my hands through my unruly hair, wondering if I should bother with a hat. It was always windy at the carnival. Probably due to it being on the pier next to the water, and I didn’t want to take the chance of losing any of my hats. I glanced at my phone which told me I had five minutes before I would be officially late meeting Jillian so I shoved my feet into my sneakers, slid my cell into my pocket, and made sure my door was locked.
As I hurried down the steps from my apartment that was over the garage at my parents’ place, I noticed that Pat was already gone, which meant he and Jo were probably on their way too. I grunted, thinking about running into him. It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with my brother; it was just that he was probably either going to pretend that everything was normal or give me a side-eye the entire time. I went with the second one as I rounded the corner to the pier. Everything was within walking distance at the View so it didn’t take me long to get there, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Jillian.
Dressed in a pair of white lace shorts and a matching tank top, she was staring down at her phone, waiting for me. Did she seriously think I was going to cancel? When Jillian had texted me this mo
rning to confirm the time, I had assured her I would be there. Her dark hair fell in waves around her shoulders, and I caught my breath the moment she looked up to smile at me. Maybe I would have backed out, but it was way too late for that now.
“There you are!” she gushed happily as she slipped her phone in her back pocket. “I kept checking my phone in case you backed out.”
I nodded, lost in my own dirty thoughts. Thoughts that included what it would be like to slowly remove those shorts, the panties she had on underneath if she had any on, and then bury my face between her thighs.
Jillian grinned up at me. “Why do you have that weird look on your face right now?” she teased.
Weird look on my face? Oh shit, did I say something about her panties aloud? Damn, this was going to be a bad idea, wasn’t it?
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Jillian didn’t say anything else as we started to walk inside the already crowded carnival. Someone’s shoulder hit my arm, followed by a mumbled apology, but I hardly heard it. Shit, there were so many people here. Why did everyone have to come on the opening night? Didn’t they know this thing ran all summer long, seven days a week? Jesus, what was I doing here? I felt like maybe it was too much, too soon. I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden, and maybe if I went home, I would be okay. That would be better for me than this. Anything would be better than this.
Jillian gripped my wrist. “Hutch.” She planted herself in front of me. “Hutch, honey, you’re okay,” she tried to assure me. “You’re with me, Hutch.” My eyes slowly focused on her. “Do you want to sit down for a second?” When I nodded, she eased me into an empty seat, but she stood straight, only to begin tracing my jaw with the pads of her fingers. “Do you need to go home? Is this too much for you, Hutch? We can leave anytime you want,” she murmured, moving closer.
Out of the Dark Page 3
