Honeytrap

by Crystal Green

  Reading me, Evie switched focus. “All right, forget all that. What I’m really getting around to is that this new guy is supposedly making his way through half the female population in Aidan Falls, and he’s only been here since the beginning of the year. Jadyn’s just another notch in his huge pistol slinger belt, if you know what I mean.”

  Thank God, moving on. “I can’t believe Jadyn would do that to Rex. She’s had a crush on him since junior year.”

  “Didn’t just about everyone? Except me.”

  I turned to her. “You’re positive she did this.”

  “Basically. Not that this is proof, but my sister saw Jadyn sulking around Kroger a week ago. She was stocking shelves, looking like she just wanted to go off somewhere and cry.”

  I knew the feeling. But maybe I was supposed to hate Jadyn, seeing as Rex had fallen into her arms so quickly after our breakup. It’d been hard to dislike her, though, since she’d always seemed sweet in high school. Very decent to everyone. Who could hate that?

  Evie continued. “I keep hearing how hot this Micah Wyatt guy is, so I’m wondering just how easy he makes it to go ga-ga over him.”

  Time to give Evie another what? look. This was a girl who’d told me that, in a college psychology class, she’d discovered she was “asexual,” which pretty much explained why she couldn’t care less about having steady, committed boyfriends. But clearly she could still think a guy was hot.

  “No lie,” Evie said.

  I hugged my knees to my chest and exhaled. No matter what I’d been through with Rex, I didn’t want him to hurt. And I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the idea of someone being more desirable than he was.

  He wasn’t just beautiful, with his tall, honed athlete’s body, toasty-tan skin that brought out the light brown of his eyes, and thick brown hair that flopped over his forehead. I missed his laugh and his lust for life.

  How could any other guy compare to him?

  Evie didn’t say anything for a minute. There were only the chopping beats of music coming from the dock, the laughter, the feel of eyes on me, even from a distance.

  But she didn’t stay quiet for long. “I hope you aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Rex. Now that he’s single again, you aren’t going to . . . ?”

  “No.” My heart cracked around the edges.

  The seconds ticked by as I kept taking in Evie’s news, and when a cheer went up from the dock, I glanced over to see a sight that suspended my pulse.

  Rex was sauntering toward his open-armed friends. He was in his swimming trunks, his skin warmed and worked with gym-honed muscles. It was like I’d conjured him just by picturing him in my mind.

  Something in my chest twisted again, like it was being drilled. And when one of the cheerdevils called out, “Guess who else is here, Rex?” I wanted to die.

  “Can we go?” I whispered to Evie, wishing we’d taken off ten minutes ago. Forget taking a stand against the others.

  From the dock, a chant started: “Lo-ser! Lo-ser! Lo-ser!”

  And they weren’t talking about Rex, their gridiron god.

  “Come on,” Evie said softly, standing and turning her back on the jerks. “Pretend they don’t exist.”

  I wished. But I managed to piece together all the dignity I could as I pulled on my cut-off jeans shorts and a halter top, then stuffed my towel in my oversized hand-me-down bag. My legs shook as I walked side-by-side with Evie, who was obviously taking great pains to block everyone’s view of me.

  But I couldn’t stop myself from peering around her to get a glimpse of Rex.

  He was telling his friends to be quiet, and as their jeers petered out, his gaze caught mine. Even with the tense distance between us, the connection rocked me and, for a suspended moment, we were back in the first week of college, on the lawn in front of the brick dorms. I was reading a book when I felt a shadow cover me.

  Don’t I know you? he asked, a dark figure haloed by the sun. Still, I’d recognized him. Who didn’t?

  My heart was in my throat, my pulse tripping in my veins as I looked up at him. We went to high school together.

  I thought so. We didn’t have the same classes.

  That was true. When he’d first moved to Aidan Falls junior year, I’d already been on the honors track, then AP. He’d skated by in the lower-level classes, powered by an amazing football arm and the knowledge that he’d have his pick of colleges on a sports scholarship.

  Then he’d smiled with those kissable lips. You grew up over the summer, didn’t you?

  A blush. A stammer. I wasn’t used to the attention because I had changed lately. I’d finally grown out of my gawky body and into this new, improved one.

  I suppose I did, I said.

  I recognized your hair, though. He’d sat next to me, a rush of shivers rolling over my skin. And when he’d brazenly touched my hair, I bit my lip, just to make sure I didn’t gasp.

  Blondest I’ve ever seen, he said, grinning.

  But now, he wasn’t here by my side, and my heart wasn’t pumping because of his nearness. It was because I wanted to run away before things got ugly again. And they would, because his friends were crowding around him, flanking him.

  When he looked away from me first, a pained expression on his face, my stomach sank. It felt like someone had wrapped a towel over my face and shoved me underwater.

  Evie pushed me ahead of her as we entered the copse of trees where I’d parked the used, paint-challenged gray Ford pickup Mom had bought for me on my sixteenth birthday. As soon as we were in the clear, relief overcame me, and my legs almost gave out before I opened the driver’s door and plopped into the seat, dropping my bag down next to me.

  Evie didn’t make a sound as I started the engine. She only clicked on the radio, which was tuned to a throwback station that was playing a ’70s song.

  But she changed her mind about the white noise, turning off the tunes as soon as I drove onto the lane leading away from the lake.

  “That stunk,” she said. “I’m sorry for putting you through it.”

  “I put myself there, Evie.” I swerved the car onto the main road and gassed the pedal.

  She changed the subject. “What’s going on with you for the rest of the day? You up for a sundae at the DQ?”

  “I’ve got to run some errands for Mom before I go into work.” I jerked my thumb to the tarp-covered bed in back. “Lawn mower is giving her fits, so I have to take it to the fix-it shop.”

  “Deacon & Darwin’s?” She paused. “Can’t they just come to your place for a house call?”

  “They charge an extra fee for that, and Mom’s trying to cut every corner these days because of the café. So I volunteered to take it in and pick it up for her.”

  “You know who works at Deacon & Darwin’s, right?”

  “People who know how to fix things?”

  Evie’s mood changed for some reason, lightening up with a secretive grin. “Just take me with you since it’s on the way, then you can drop me off at home.”

  I didn’t think too hard about it, but that was only because I couldn’t stop torturing myself with the haunted gaze Rex had given me before he’d looked away; I couldn’t stop thinking about the army of friends who’d surrounded him, shooting fire at me with their eyes.

  Evie put the radio back on, and we were quiet as white fences sped by, steer grazing on the grass, oaks dotting the landscape that stretched from here to forever. Everything seemed so open . . . and closed at the same time. Shut away, shut out, just like I’d been back at the lake.

  We pulled onto the fringes of town, past the rusty old gas station and the summer stock playhouse with its gingham-curtained restaurant that always seemed to be closed, and I slowed down as we pulled into the parking lot of the next building.

&
nbsp; Dust scrolled by the windows as I cut the engine. In front of us was what looked to be a warehouse with a painted wood sign announcing “Deacon & Darwin’s,” and no further explanation was needed since everyone knew who the hell-on-wheels twins were and what they did in their repair shop.

  “If only they fixed more than lawn mowers,” I said.

  Evie paused before she opened the door. “There’s something I should tell you before we go in.”

  “Oh, Lord. Who else cheated on Rex?”

  “Funny, but that’s not quite what I was going to say.” She smoothed her Picasso T-shirt over her stomach. “That guy who got Jadyn Dandritch to sleep with him? He works here with his cousins now.”

  I blinked. Micah Wyatt, right? It was a name that was hard to forget. “His cousins. As in Deacon and Darwin Wyatt?” I should’ve caught on to that before. The twins were former-glory defensive players for the Aidan Falls Rebels. Of course they’d have a cousin who was like them, sleeping around the whole town.

  But what Evie had said about Micah lingered. A rumor . . . Rex’s insecurities about his girlfriends . . . testing Jadyn with another guy at a party . . .

  No way. The story was too insane, even for a bunch of hormonal people like us.

  Evie nudged me with her elbow. “Aren’t you the slightest bit curious to know what he’s like? The one guy who could lure Jadyn Dandritch from Rex?”

  I stared at the building. Maybe I was curious in a perverse way. Jadyn had been known as a loyal person, the kind of girlfriend Rex had obviously needed after our breakup. What had been so wonderful about Micah Wyatt that Jadyn had broken down and hooked up with him? How’d he been able to seduce her away from a superstar?

  “Let’s get in there,” Evie said.

  I wasn’t about to show how curious I was, so I said a vague, “Whatever,” then opened the truck’s door and jumped to the ground, shutting it, striding toward the shop with Evie at my side.

  I might’ve been curious, but with every step, I realized that I was also feeling defensive when it came to Micah. It was that warped side of me that still had feelings for Rex. Excellent.

  When we got inside the shop’s lobby, she casually dinged the service bell on the counter, and I stood by, my arms folded over my chest while an overhead fan tickled the hair off my humidity-sticky back and neck. The service door was open, letting in the smell of grease and the sparky waft of machinery. My curiosity was bashing at me, acting like a substitute heartbeat.

  Evie rang the bell again, and I bumped against her.

  “Eager much?” I whispered, just as someone walked into the room, wiping his hands on a rag.

  I tightened my arms over my chest, my pulse exploding as I read his nametag.

  Micah.

  2

  As I ran my gaze from his nametag and up to his face, I couldn’t stop myself from taking in the smile he was aiming at me. Suggestive, slow, and cocked to one side . . . And it didn’t stop at his mouth, either. His light eyes—gray or green or maybe a little of both—seemed to melt the room, too.

  I didn’t know how long I watched that smile, but little by little, I noticed the rest of him: tall, but not quite as tall as Rex. Broad shoulders under a blue shop uniform, sleeves rolled over his muscled forearms. Skin, tanned and grease-streaked. Hair, dark blond, long enough to be held back in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck.

  But that smile, and those clear eyes under wickedly long brows . . . I could see why he had girls wrapped around his finger. The way he ran his gaze up and down me made me feel like he was taking off my clothes piece by piece—undoing the knot at the back of my halter, easing the material down over my skin until I was just in my bikini top. Traveling lower, working off my jeans shorts and sliding them over my hips until my temperature flared and . . .

  Again, I tightened my arms over my breasts, but now it was because I was afraid he’d see the pebbling tips of them under the white linen of my halter and thin cotton of my bikini. Still, goose bumps prickled my arms, giving my reaction away. It was just that the look he’d given me was so raw and unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It brought up all my defenses. Instinctively, I frowned at him, discouraging any more eye-screwing.

  Like I needed to be associated with more trouble in this town, especially when it came with the guy who was Rex’s new enemy. Or his ally, if you could give any truth to the rumor that Rex had tested Jadyn with Micah. And that couldn’t be true. At any rate, I didn’t want Aidan Falls to see the two of us as a Rex-wrecking team or something.

  Evie slid me a glance from her spot at the counter. Curiouser and curiouser.

  I tried not to narrow my eyes at her and, instead, nodded toward the wall-length window as I took care of business with Mr. Naughty. “I’ve got a sick lawn mower in the back of my truck. My mom called about dropping it off . . . ?”

  “Yeah, I took that call.”

  His voice was a molasses Texas drawl, deep and smooth. I was starting to see why Jadyn Dandritch had messed up with him in a lapse of good judgment, but I still didn’t excuse her for it. Or excuse him.

  Micah checked me out thoroughly for one more heart-kicking moment, then tossed his rag on the counter and accessed a computer. “Carson, right? Jackie Carson?”

  “Yes, that’s my mom’s name.”

  “You have a name, too?”

  Evie held back a laugh and lowered her head to hide the sound. Big help she was.

  Lothario noticed her amusement, winked at her, then gestured at the computer with a side-grin. “I need to put a note in here about who dropped off the mower.”

  All right. So he wasn’t hitting on me. He just had the talent to make every question he asked sound flirty, and it didn’t mean a thing that he kept grinning and stripping me down with his bedroom eyes.

  “I’m Shelby,” I said.

  “Pretty name.”

  Before I could tell him he had no shot with this, Evie spoke up, the wind from the overhead fan making a stray red curl flutter by her face. “Her mom’s a big fan of Steel Magnolias and Julia Roberts. Blast from the past, right?”

  I shot her a that’ll-do glance. “Shelby dies in that movie. I’m not sure it was a good omen.”

  “Everyone adored Shelby and you know it,” Evie said.

  Micah smiled at her, and even Evie’s grin went a little fizzy.

  Then he went back to typing. “I know who your mom is. She runs the restaurant down the road.”

  “Farm-to-table,” Evie said. “Best food in the county.”

  “Fancy food,” he said. “But good. We order takeout on some nights.”

  “Fancy?” Evie was definitely chatty today. “Maybe being a locavore is the newest trend, but the whole locally sourced food craze finally caught up to Jackie, and not the other way around. She and Shelby have been eating like locavores for years.”

  Thank God Evie didn’t go into how the café was struggling. It was like Micah had this superpower that could cause even an asexual to reveal everything to him.

  He stopped typing and fixed his intense gaze on me again. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Shelby Carson.”

  I put up my guard at the way he said my name. So did Evie as she straightened from the counter. He had a knowing tone, and I wasn’t sure if that was because he’d heard all the rumors about me and Rex and had been waiting to attach a name to my particular scandal, or if he was referring to my mom’s own “situation,” as my grandpa used to call it. Like mother, like daughter, I supposed, because Mom had weathered her own troubles back in the day.

  Actually, I was that trouble, but she’d never made me feel like a burden to a single mom—one from the upper-class who should’ve been more careful in a small, judgmental town. The biggest hypocrites, most of them churchgoers, had called her a whore as she’d held up her chin and walked through the high school halls with a pregnant belly.
She’d never told me who my dad was, said it didn’t matter anyway because he was out of the picture, but that hadn’t stopped me from wondering and searching the Internet for yearbook clues and newspaper archives.

  He added, “I hear you’re a popular girl around these parts.”

  I bit my tongue, so close to coming back with a, “I hear you’re pretty popular, too, player.”

  Instead, I decided to make him come right out with it. “What do you mean?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “You’re the one who used to date the big QB, right? The third-string freshman quarterback at Texas-U.”

  So he was blunt. I glanced at Evie to find her thrown off guard by his straight talk, too. True to form, she jumped in to protect me.

  “What of it?”

  “Nothing.” A flop of hair had gotten loose from his ponytail, and he didn’t bother to smooth it back. He just grinned again as the stray hair framed one side of his face. While it brushed against his skin with the wind from the overhead fan, I noticed his cheekbones, giving him a sculpted, strong profile. “I only mention the QB because he seems to be top man around here. Royalty. And I can see why he’d choose Miss Shelby here as his queen.”

  A gust of air escaped me, but I didn’t give him the thrill of hearing me gasp. But wow. Just wow. I was weirdly flattered by the compliment. Or maybe not. Or both.

  The words came out of me before I could stop them. “You say whatever you want, don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Life’s too short not to.”

  “Life’s too short to go around offending people, too.”

  “Am I offending you?” His amusement disappeared, and he actually seemed like he cared. Sure. “Sorry about that. My cousins tell me that sometimes I shoot from the hip too much.” Then he went back to that cocky smirk. “Hell, my teachers also used to tell me that. It’s why I was a king once, myself—of detention.”

  A sudden laugh escaped me. He was a wildcard, and all I knew was that the more distance I kept from him and his striptease stare, the better. I could hear the kids from the dock now, if they saw me chatting away with him and laughing at whatever he said.