by Box Set
I found a thicker branch to stand on. I climbed for a short distance until I could see over most of the leaves. A guy with a stern face and serious blue eyes looked back at me. He wore a red and white Nike shirt, the sleeves cut off, and sport shorts in a matching red color. Earbud headphones hung around his shoulders. His hair was cut short, a mix between red and brown, leaning more on the red side. His chin was angled and his jaw was set as he looked at me. The expression was so solemn. This guy could mean business just by his look. He was about the same height as Kota but it was the bulk of his muscles that had my spine tingling. He had broad tapered shoulders and there was a power in his stature that was undefinable.
“Can you get out?” he asked. He dropped a hand onto his hip, with his head tilted toward me, and a baffled look on his face.
“I think so,” I whispered, not trying to get too cocky with my predicament. I was already this far. I picked my way over branches and pushed away leaves from my face.
“What’s wrong? Why are you whispering?”
I took a deep breath in and then patted my throat where he could see.
“Your voice broke?”
I partially smiled at the way he said it and nodded.
“Move left,” he said.
I turned left, squinting my eyes to try to figure out what he was talking about because the branches were thick on that end.
“Shit, sorry. I meant my left. Your right.”
I turned around and then pointed to the trunk, raising my eyebrows.
“Follow it down the tree until you get beyond the branches,” he motioned toward where the trunk had split, where the branches stopped. He maneuvered himself to walk around the edge of the tree, picking his way beyond the path to find where the tree limbs thinned out.
I followed his instructions, hanging on to tree branches, carefully this time. Using the trunk as a bridge, I shuffled my way over the limbs. It was a slow process, but I managed to get to the point where the tree trunk started to slant up . When I got there, I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Can you climb up to the top?” he asked when he saw me starting to turn around. He was standing by the roots, a hand covering the top of his eyes as he looked at me against the sun.
I coughed and whispered as loud as I could, “What do you mean?”
“Just climb up here and then jump down.”
I tried to judge the distance from where he was pointing. My heart started to thump again. Did he mean for me to jump from that high?
“You’ll be fine. Come on.”
My heart was thudding, but he seemed confident in his suggestion. I crouched a little on the trunk. Using my hands to help, I pulled myself up until I was out of the way of branches and I had a clear shot at the ground. I got up to a point where he was standing under me. He lifted his arms up, urging with his hands.
“Jump from there,” he said.
I blinked at him. “Back up so I’ve got room,” I whispered. I was already wary of the distance, but I’d had some training as a kid in elementary school on how to fall, so I thought I could tumble roll when I hit the ground.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll get you.”
My mouth dropped open. He couldn’t mean he was going to try to catch me when I jumped down. Wouldn’t it hurt?
He smirked. “Will you just listen to me? Jump.”
I hesitated again, swallowing and considering trying behind me where he wasn’t able to reach.
“Fuck thinking. Thinking hurts the team. Jump.”
My heart was thudding, but I lined myself up and leapt down to him. If he wanted to get hurt trying to soften my landing, I’d let him.
With his arms out, he seized me around the waist as I fell, and spun me a little to ease the momentum. My head was pressed up against his chest, and I breathed deeply from the adrenaline rushing through me. I inhaled a leather and Cyprus scent from him. My body shook against him.
He didn’t let go. A hand came up at my back, holding me to him and he rubbed at my shoulders. His chin moved against my forehead so I felt the gruffness of coarse hair against his face. “It’s okay. You’re fine. You made it.” He repeated himself a couple of times, softly and reassuring.
When I felt I could stand without falling over, I backed away. My face felt flushed and while my hands still shook, it became too awkward to hold on to him anymore. The moment was so intimate; I was embarrassed at having put myself in such a predicament. I didn’t even know his name. “Thank you,” I whispered. “You’re okay, right?” I asked, swallowing after. I was worried I had hit something on him on my way down.
He nodded. His cheeks were tinted red but his face was back to that serious expression. “I’m okay. What made you think you could climb over it like that?”
“It didn’t look too bad from the other side,” I said, casting my eyes away. “I guess I just wanted to see if I could.”
A small smile formed at the side of his mouth. “You’re not really dressed for climbing like that.”
At his mention of it, I checked myself over. I had a few scratches on my arm, but nothing was bleeding. My clothes were a little dirty, but everything seemed fine.
“What happened to your wrist?” he said, pointing to the bandage on my arm. The wound was scabbed over and I didn’t really need the bandage. It just looked ugly, so I opted to cover it up.
“I fell a couple days ago,” I whispered. How many times would I need to explain my injuries? It made me hyper sensitive to dare to put another bandage on myself. I’d have to repeat myself so much.
“You’re accident prone. Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He took my hand and led the way around the tree until we were on the other side where the path started again. When we were safe, he let go of me. I was grateful that he let go because I was nervous, but I was also sad. His hand felt comforting.
“How long has the tree been down?” I asked in a whisper.
He looked at me, raising his eyebrows. He leaned over me, bringing his ear close to my face. “What?”
His reddish hair looked soft, like rabbit fur. My fingers itched to touch, but I knew I never would. I swallowed to try to gain some of my voice back and repeated myself.
“A week, I think,” he said. “I keep meaning to come back out here to clear it out from the path, but I’ve been putting it off. There was a bad storm before you moved in.”
I blinked at him, my hand on my upper stomach, rubbing at where a branch had scratched me. “You know who I am?”
“I’ve seen you around.” He ran his fingers through the longer bits of hair on the top of his head. “I’m Nathan.”
“Sang.”
He blinked at me and then leaned in closer.
“My name is Sang,” I rattled off.
“Sang?”
I nodded.
He smiled, the blue of his eyes softening. “I’m two houses down from you. Same side.” He waved at the direction our houses were. “Want me to walk you back?”
The question surprised me. He was being nice. Another person that could be a friend. My head swirled with the suddenness of it. At the same time, I was resistant. It felt like I was pressing my luck. The more people I tried to be friends with, the bigger the chance my parents would find out. I’d get myself into trouble. “I don’t mean to ruin your jog.” It was the politest thing I could say to decline.
He shrugged. “It’s nothing.” He motioned to the path. “Comin’?”
I pushed a finger to my lower lip but I started after him. I couldn’t say no without sounding mean. Part of me didn’t want to. He was handsome and sweet and he had helped me. How could I refuse?
The path left enough room that we were walking side by side. “You’re going to the public school, right?” he asked.
I nodded.
“About time we had someone new around here. There’s only a handful of kids on this street.”
“I haven’t seen them around.”
“You will,” he said, sw
aying his arms a little as he strolled along beside me.
I raised an eyebrow at him, curious as to what he meant.
He grinned, understanding my expression. “You’ve got the good basketball goal.”
I tried to remember where the basketball goal was. “The one hanging from the garage,” I whispered. It had been there when we moved in.
“Yeah. Full height and that wide driveway that’s at least half court, I think,” he smirked. “Don’t laugh, but I came over one night to jump on it, just to see if I could hang from it.”
I did smile but stopped myself from giggling. “It’s still there, so you must have made it.”
He nodded. “It’s pretty strong.”
I admired the muscles in his arms, and what I could see of his chest. He looked pretty sturdy. It must have been true about the basketball goal, if he was able to hang off of it.
“So what happened to your voice?”
I opened my mouth to respond to him but I wasn’t sure how.
“You’re not sick, are you?” he asked, his eyebrow going up. “I’m not going to catch something, am I?”
I didn’t want to worry him, so I shook my head.
He smirked. “You’ve been talking too much, huh?” he asked. “Girls always talk too much.”
I tried to shoot him a friendly smirk back. It was a better solution than the truth.
We turned a bend and I started to recognize we were coming up along where the path split. He had taken me back around to where I had started.
“You go for walks this early in the morning a lot?” he asked.
I twisted my mouth a little, unsure how to answer. “I couldn’t sleep and I hadn’t followed this path yet, so I came to check it out.”
He looked at me. “Did you try the woods on the other side of the street yet?”
“No. How do you get over there?”
He smiled. “I’ll show you. It’s a little easier to get lost over there though and there’s some things you should see. Like there’s a big ditch you may not see walking up to. I think that’s how they drained the land around here, so they could develop it.”
I grinned, nodding to him. I understood. I swallowed. “I’ll check it out.”
He gave me a side glance and smirked again. “On second thought, I ought to go with you over there. Don’t go without me.”
I angled my head toward him. “I’d be fine.”
“Uh huh,” he said. He stopped walking and turned toward me. He reached over my head and pulled a maple leaf from my hair. “You’ll be fine, unless there’s a fallen tree.”
My face heated up. I started to shake my head, my mouth moving trying to figure out the best way to say I would have gotten out eventually.
“Think you could do it alone? As you wish. Next time I’ll leave you,” he said, letting the leaf fly from his hand to the ground and starting off down the path again.
I stepped quickly up next to him, matching his stride. Something about him made me want to stick around. He seemed so cool. I wanted him to like me. “How do you get over there?” I whispered.
“Nope. I’m not telling you now.”
I frowned, my lip pouting.
He made a face and then pulled his fingers over his lips, zipping.
“Ugh,” I grumbled. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Sure.”
I rolled my eyes.
He stopped short along the path at a place where the trees started to thin out, giving us a view of the back of some homes. He pointed to an opening in the trees. Another slab of wood was nestled into the ground over a ditch, and on the other side was a wide wood fence. I had missed it the first time, but there was a latch and handle sticking out of one of the wood planks. It took me a moment to see the frame of the door. “This is my stop,” he said.
I caught the scent of chlorine and a hint of sparkling aqua blue between the gaps in the fence. “You have a pool?”
He hesitated and then nodded.
I grinned and felt my heart lifting. “Is it big?”
My enthusiasm seemed to catch him off guard. “Come and look at it. You tell me.” He headed toward the plank.
I followed him. When he got to the wood piece, he crossed it halfway and then reached out for my hand. “Or do you want to do it yourself?”
I made a face but reached for his hand. He took mine in his grasp, holding on to me as he moved forward. I followed on his heels. My heart fluttered as his hand was big, wrapping easily around mine. He let go when we were both on the ledge on the other side and he moved to open the gate.
What yard there might have been in the back of his house was taken up by a large shed close to the fence. Beyond that was a rectangular pool, at least twenty-five feet long. The edges were curved and the water rippled, sparkling in the sunlight. A large beige concrete patio surrounded it, looking almost like sand.
I stepped up to the edge of the pool, looking down into the water. If I was a cat, I would have been purring. Before my mother got sick, she took Marie and me to the pool to learn how to swim. When I was in seventh grade, the school had a pool, and during gym for a whole month, I got to swim in it. I had missed the scent of chlorine and the feel of the water flowing around me as I swam.
“How deep is it?” I asked, forgetting that I was probably whispering and wasn’t sure if he could hear me. My eyes locked on the sparkle of the water from the sun, dazzling me.
I heard him step up behind me and I felt the hand on my back, but even then I wouldn’t have imagined he would have pushed. I found myself flying and I hit the water.
At first the water had a crispness to it but my skin quickly adjusted to the temperature, so that it was actually very comfortable. The sharp taste of chlorine swept into my mouth. I touched bottom after about six feet and then slowly rose to the top. A splash hit the water nearby. Nathan smoothly touched the bottom with a palm. His shirt and shoes were off. When his head and chest rose out of the water, I was in awe of the muscles that were defined in his body. Unlike Silas, whose bulk of muscle was smooth, Nathan was a precision machine. The ripples of muscles along his abdomen fit together like a living puzzle.
A smile broke on his lips as those penetrating blue eyes fixed on my face. “Did you find out?”
I was grinning like a crazy girl. I didn’t care that he pushed me in at all. I pushed a hand against the surface of the water to splash him.
He ducked his head away, lifting an arm in a half effort to protect himself. “Hey there, little mermaid. You don’t want to start that game with me. I win every time.”
I pulled a face and did another splash, smaller, but still defiant.
“As you wish.” He was gone under the water again.
With the bulk of my jeans and being weighed down by my sneakers, I couldn’t move fast enough on the surface to break away from him. His arms enveloped my waist. My heart was furiously beating in my chest as I felt this touch. He lifted me out of the water onto his shoulder. He waited just a moment, and then tossed me back into the water like I was nothing but a doll.
I landed with another splash not far from where he was. When I broke the surface again, I was giggling, flicking water away from my eyes. He laughed too, swimming closer to me.
I shook my head, holding up my hands in defeat. “Not fair.” I pointed to the jeans and shoes I had on that were weighing me down.
“Take them off.”
My mouth dropped open. “What? No!” I screeched.
“Then lose.” He inched toward me, deliberately teasing with his grin and wiggling his fingers at me.
I took one shoe off, flinging it toward the side of the pool. It landed with a thick thud against the concrete. The other one joined it a moment later.
“I’m not taking my pants off,” I whispered.
He stood there laughing, his hands on his hips. “You’ll wear a bikini that has less material than you’re wearing now with that shirt and you won’t take your pants off. You are wearing underwear, right?”
>
I hated to tell him that I’d never worn a bikini. I inched back a little where I could stand on my toes. With my jeans on, it took a lot more energy just to stay afloat. “Yeah...”
“You could run back to your house and grab your bathing suit, I guess.”
There was a problem with that. Sneaking back in, soaking wet, would definitely draw attention, and there was no way I could get back out again. Besides that, I couldn't remember if I had a bathing suit; I hadn't been swimming for years. If I ran away and never came back, he wouldn’t understand. It really wasn’t an option, if I wanted him to like me, and I did.
I felt for my pants button and started to undo them.
“No!” he called out, holding up a hand to me and laughing. “Stop it.” He swam to the edge of the pool and got out. He came around to where I was close to the edge and motioned to me. “Come on. I’ve got an old pair of shorts that might fit you. If you tie them, they’ll probably be okay.”
I moved to the edge of the pool, intending to get out on my own, but he grabbed me under my shoulders, pulling me up out of the water. He plopped me down next to him, holding me steady again to make sure I was on my feet before letting go.
I was breathless. He stepped away from me toward the house. I wanted to fall over. My heart was about to explode. He was strong, nice, and funny. I couldn’t think straight. Another friend. What was I getting myself into? The more people I met, the more disappointed I was going to be when they found out who I really was and rejected me. Weird. No sense of how to behave around people. All I had to rely on was what I’d read in books, and so far it wasn’t helping much.
Nathan disappeared into the house. I moved under the overhang of the back porch and toward the sliding glass door he had gone in. The house was one story, with brown and beige brickwork and I half remembered what it looked like from the street. What it lacked in height, it made up in sprawl. From the doorway, I could see into a living room with a high, white ceiling and exposed beams. The floor was a gray stone tile. The walls were white. The furniture was dark brown and leather. It reminded me of a cabin that I’d seen once on television. There was a musky smell, like a mix of the leather and the lacquer in the wood fixtures.