I catch a thoughtful expression on Austin’s face. “What are you thinking about?”
“Your smile.”
I’m suddenly self-conscious, wondering if I’ve let my goofy laugh fly out too much.
He pokes a finger in my rib cage, like he knew exactly where my ticklish spot was. Obviously he did. I double over laughing and almost drop my cone.
“Well, don’t stop smiling now,” he says. “It’s amazing.”
“You were not just thinking that.”
“Was too.”
“Uh-uh.”
“I don’t lie.”
“All right,” I say, a challenge. “Then what brings you to River Street alone on a Friday night?”
I caught him mid-bite, so I wait for him to swallow. Again, he holds up his ice cream like a six-year-old in Disneyland as he replies, “Pralines.”
I laugh, but I have a hard time believing him. Pralines? I admit it’s cute. Still. I glance at a group of break-dancers, trying to figure out this guy. Super blunt. He had no problem picking a fight with those two creeps back there. Charged in like it was second nature. He must have experience. School yard fights? Hanging out with a rough crowd?
“You’ve got moves,” Austin says, and shoves the rest of his cone in his mouth.
I’m mortified to discover I’ve been moving with the beat. It’s habit, I guess, after so many years of dancing. “Do you like to dance?” I ask, deflecting the attention.
“Mm . . .”
“Show me what you’ve got,” I say.
He swallows his last bite of ice cream and almost chokes.
I give him a playful shove into the group of break-dancers. “You know you want to.”
His face says something different. People from the small crowd are pulling a few moves, joining in here and there.
“Come on, let’s see something.”
For the first time tonight, Austin is at a loss for words. Maybe he’s, like, a seriously awful dancer.
“For a kiss?” I say.
An expression I can’t quite read lights up his face.
“I mean, on the cheek, of course.”
“Deal.” He slides into the middle of the group and pulls out the worm.
Actually, he’s not bad. He’s athletic. This helps. He only does that one move, however, and then scoots back beside me, his face the shade of a Red Delicious as people cheer. He pulls down the brim of his baseball cap as though he can hide beneath it.
I give him a pat on the arm and let my hand linger. “That was awesome.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“Am not!”
His smile is priceless. “So, can I have it now?”
“What?”
“That kiss!”
I laugh. “Oh, yeah.”
“Hey, you’re not getting off that easy,” he says. “I did that for one reason only.”
Our laughter fades and our gazes meet. I take a step forward and tilt my chin up. He turns his head slightly, watching me through the corner of his eyes. Kissing Austin was probably the last thing I imagined happening tonight. Still, as my lips press against his cheek, all I can think is how I hope this isn’t the last time I kiss him.
CHAPTER 6
Austin
Either Sienna hit her head when she fainted or she’s the nicest girl in the world. No girl in her right mind would kiss me after watching me dance.
It’s a no-brainer what I should say next. “A’ight. You’re up.”
“I’m up?”
“Mm-hm.” I gesture to the group of guys dancing like this is the best thing they’ve got going for themselves. Probably is. I’m sure glad they’re here, though, because this is my chance for retribution. And my chance to kiss her back. “Your turn.”
Sienna shakes her head like it’s her worst nightmare. At least that makes two of us.
“Come on. For a kiss?”
Her eyes swivel up slowly to meet mine. Shoot, I’m scaring her off.
“On the cheek, of course.”
She glances at the guys dancing. “No thanks.”
“Ah, come on. That’s a fatal blow to a guy’s self-esteem!”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“I can take it.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, laughing. “I’d love a kiss from you.”
I raise a brow.
“I mean—” She bites her lip. As if she could get any nicer, she slips into the group of break-dancers to appease me.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize I made a fool of myself. Even the break-dancers who don’t have anything better to do with their lives should feel like wannabes next to her. Yeah, she’s dancing like something from Step Up. She draws cheers—no big surprise. Especially from the guys. Again, no big surprise.
She doesn’t dance for long, however. She scoots out of the spotlight. Stands next to me.
I throw her a sideways glance. “Well, don’t stop now.”
She holds back a smile. “I can’t believe we just did that.”
“Just what I was thinking.”
“Can we go now?”
I gladly take that as an invitation to slip my hand in hers and pull her along. I’m tempted to slide my fingers between each of hers, but I refrain. I pull Sienna into almost every shop on the way to her car, stalling. Prolonging the time.
She checks out the displays while I lean back and check her out, suddenly wondering what happened to that kiss I owe her.
She catches me staring, but I don’t look away. Again, her cheeks get all red. I want to cross the room right now and see how much she blushes when I kiss her full on the lips.
“Try them on,” I say with a glance toward the shoes she’s looking at.
She puts on these girly things with pink ruffly straps and wooden heels, carved to look like palm trees. Pretty sweet, actually. She glances down and cracks a smile that says she wants them.
“I don’t think it’s a question.”
She looks up. “Huh?”
I point at her sneakers on the floor, white hip-hop kinds with stars and swirls and even signatures drawn on them in colored markers.
“My friends,” she explains, “from my dance team. We all had a pair.”
So that explains the mad dancing skills. “I don’t think those kicks can be beat,” I lie, “but—”
She laughs. “Shut up.”
“What?”
“You’re making fun of my shoes!”
I raise my hands in a gesture of innocence.
“All right,” she says, “my mom thinks they’re hideous, too.”
“She’s cracked. I love them.”
Sienna laughs. “I admit, they’re not exactly flattering.”
I lift a brow, my eyes sliding down the length of her legs. “I’m pretty sure you could make anything look good.”
Blushing, she slips off the heels. Puts them back on display. “Too expensive.”
This coming from a girl who looks like she walked out of some magazine.
I snag the shoes. “Come on.”
She watches me, clearly stunned. “Seriously, Austin, I don’t need them.”
“I got it.”
“No, really.” She laughs, keeping it light. “Like, only boyfriends buy their girlfriends a pair of shoes.”
I give her a pointed look and let my lips spread into a suggestive smile. She’s chili-pepper red in no time.
“Thank you,” she tells me as the dude at the register rings up the shoes. Sienna turns around, pretending to look at souvenirs, but I catch her eyes on me as she glances in a mirror. She drops her gaze, and the embarrassment drains from her face, replaced with, I don’t know, terror? She grabs the bottom of her shirt and twists around, like she just grew a tail and she’s trying to get a look at it.
“Oh my gosh,” she says, looking at her shirt in the mirror. She shakes her head, and I can almost hear her swallow. “My mom’s going to kill me.”
CHAPTER 7
Si
enna
Thanks to Austin, I’m oblivious to all kinds of stuff tonight, like mud smeared across my backside. And the bottom of the new shirt my mom bought. I am so dead.
“Sorry,” Austin says. “I should’ve told you sooner.”
Oh, great. “You knew this was here the whole time?”
He makes an innocent face and shrugs. “Hey, I wear my shirt inside out; you wear yours with mud on it.”
“That makes me feel a lot better,” I mutter, but I’m still preoccupied with what my mom will say when I walk through the door like this.
“I tried to catch you before you hit the mud, but you fainted fast, and your back kind of dipped in, as well as your . . .” He gestures to my butt and clears his throat. “Your . . . shorts.”
Oh, man. How am I going to explain this? In the back of my mind I planned to omit the part about meeting Austin when my mom asks what I did tonight. Above all, I can’t tell her I fainted again.
I throw open my purse and dig in, shoveling through the goods my mom packed and locating the stain remover pen.
Austin examines my purse. “I’m starting to wonder if you put an extension charm on that thing.”
I shove the stain remover back inside, realizing how prissy this looks and knowing it will do little good anyway.
“Here,” Austin says, and starts fishing through a stack of T-shirts against the wall, “I’ll get you a new one.”
“No, you already bought me shoes.”
“We’ll make it an outfit.”
“Really, it’s fine. You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Austin, don’t. Seriously.” I glance at the price tag.
“Ten bucks,” he says. “Don’t tell me they’re too expensive.”
I rest my hand on his arm. “Austin.”
He glances at my hand and then his gaze travels to meet mine. “Fine. Take mine.”
Despite myself, I sneak a peek at his ripped arms, tempted. “Ah, that’s nice of you to offer, but—”
Austin points to the break-dancers through the front window. “Well, unless you want to take that top off and give those boys outside something else to cheer about, I don’t see another option.”
I burst into laughter. He gives a devilish grin, and I finally extend my hand, defeated. This is, after all, the most amusing option. For me.
I can’t help my eyes as he whips his shirt off, and I notice the definition of his shoulders and pecs under the tight fabric of his undershirt. Blasted undershirt. I slip into the changing room, and a minute later I exit wearing Austin’s navy blue T-shirt.
At last we find a sink. After I scrub the dirt off as best I can, Austin walks me to my car, one protective step behind me the entire way.
“Thank you,” I say, standing by my mom’s car. “For the pralines and the ice cream and, well, for saving me.”
Austin rests his arm against the car above me, coming close. Dangerously close. I gulp. He watches me with that amused, ever-confident grin. “No prob.”
“How old are you?” I sort of blurt it out as the thought occurs. Oh please, tell me I didn’t just go out with a random twenty-six-year-old man.
He grins. “Just graduated high school.”
Oh good. “Me too.”
By the look of his young face and smile and all that thick hair, I wouldn’t have guessed him a day older than twenty-one. But he’s mature. As in built. Seriously built.
My cell buzzes, yanking my thoughts back to safer territory. I pull it out. Check the screen. Kyle.
My boyfriend. Guilt punctuates the moment, just a nudge, and I realize how swept away I’ve been between when I called Kyle and now, my mind stuck somewhere in the clouds with this stranger. And if there’s one thing I’ve been warned plenty about when it comes to these kinds of things, it’s that being swept away by someone only lasts so long.
Austin watches me, his look calculating.
“I’ll get that later,” I say, surprising even myself. I always answer Kyle’s calls. “One last question?” I ask. “Why did you pick me up?”
“You looked pretty dizzy,” he answers.
“Uh-huh,” I say, trying to sound unconvinced. Duh, Sienna. I did faint right in front of him.
“But if you want the whole truth,” Austin says. He smiles and leans in close enough for my heart to stop beating altogether. “I just wanted to know what it felt like to have you in my arms, in case your boyfriend never lets me again.”
Austin’s eyelid moves so fast, so fluid, I stare at him, wondering if I imagined his wink. Oh, he’s smooth, real smooth. And confident. Make that borderline cocky. It only leads me to wonder how many other girls have melted in their shoes under the influence of his disarming smile.
When I realize my jaw is hanging, I let the question trip off my tongue. “H-how did you know I have a boyfriend?”
He grins, but this time I sense something else in it: disappointment.
“I figured,” he says, and I realize I just confirmed his suspicion. He didn’t know. Now he does.
I hear the door pop open beside me, and Austin holds it for me. I climb in, sit, and slowly secure my seat belt. The door closing beside me sounds like everything good and happy about tonight coming to a jarring close. I insert the key and roll down the window. I’m acutely aware of Austin’s arms as they rest on the open window next to me, and that’s when I notice the tattoo.
I try not to stare, but I do anyway. No big deal. Seen plenty of tats. Still, I’ve never gone out with a guy who has one. The parentals would’ve flipped out. Mom’s super traditional, proper like that. My gut tightens uneasily, and I try to hold on to that feeling. Covering the brake with my foot, I turn the key. The engine purrs to life like a lullaby of safety.
I’ll never forget tonight. Austin made me feel more alive than I’ve felt since my dad died last summer. I needed that. I came in search of the appetite for life I lost eleven months ago, something refreshing, something positive. I came looking for a silver dollar, and I found one.
I put the car into drive, and Austin moves away from the window. All the while I imagine my mom’s contented smile, her pride in me for being a good little girl by letting him go.
I turn to Austin, losing myself in his blue eyes all over again. “Would you like a ride?”
If my mom knew how my evening on River Street really went, she wouldn’t be too disappointed. An innocent walk along the riverfront. Pralines and ice cream—crap, there’s strike one. The person beside me along the way? Am I kidding myself? That counts as strikes two and three. She’d kill me if she knew I was driving a tattooed stranger to his house in the hood of Savannah. In her car. And we’re alone.
Austin guides me down a street of small houses, past a playground that looks more like a gang hangout. Shoes hang from telephone wires. Graffiti everywhere. I pull up beside the narrow sidewalk and look at the little house he directed me to. It’s simple, cozy. Something about this entire place is inviting yet scary all at once.
As I examine Austin’s home, I’m totally glad he hasn’t seen where I’m staying, that monster of a beach house. And that’s just a summer home my grandparents own.
“Too bad they didn’t have those Batman stunt figures,” Austin says.
I glance at the boxes of Lucky Charms and smile. I told Austin all about Spencer’s obsession with Batman on our trip to Winn-Dixie, about how he convinced Mom to buy thirty boxes of Lucky Charms a while back when they had a free Batman figure included. I told him about Spencer’s ADHD and shockingly early diagnosis of bipolar disorder, his erratic cycling between depression and hypomania, my parents’ struggle to find a system of medications to level his mood swings, and how, despite it all, I can’t help but love the kid. Way too much information—I know—considering I just met Austin, but talking to him came easy and I found myself wanting to share.
And what did Austin say about himself, about his family? A big fat nothing. He hardly said a word about himself. Almost makes me regret
babbling on like I did.
Austin pops his door open. “Promise me one thing.”
My eyes lock on his.
“Don’t give any other strangers a ride home, okay?”
I glance down, blushing. He’s right. Offering to give a ride to someone I don’t really know wasn’t the brightest idea.
Austin makes like he’s about to get out, but he turns back. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“You keep asking me that.” I laugh it off as I glance out at the dark street I’ve never driven down before. Thank heaven for GPS.
His eyebrows arch quizzically, and his eyes dart to the steering wheel in front of me. I did, after all, faint in his arms a couple of hours ago, and now I’m behind the wheel.
“I’ll be fine.”
He nods and steps out. I smile as he walks around the front of the car, the headlights illuminating his figure. He leans against my window again, and my nerves rattle, reacting to his closeness. I catch his curious stare again. “Really, Austin, I’ll be fine.”
“Can I call you? Make sure you get home okay?” he asks. Oh, man, it’s really hard to breathe when he looks at me like this. “Basically, I think I just want your number.”
More nervous laughter. “You don’t need to check up on me.”
He seems satisfied with this answer, and suddenly I wish he wasn’t. He pulls away from the car, and with every inch he draws away, I feel my regret swell. Until his hands meet the window frame again. “So . . . say I was to call you tomorrow anyway. Would your boyfriend beat me up?”
Kyle. A stab of guilt brings my hands to the steering wheel. If Kyle could beat you up, I think. My eyes take in the swell of muscles beneath Austin’s tight sleeves once more. I do have a boyfriend, a boyfriend I love, who has a good family my mom seriously dreams I’ll marry into someday. Sure, it’s always been just girly chitchat. But my mom rarely says anything she doesn’t honestly think. And enough of her hopes for the future have been crushed already.
“Well, if you happen to be on River Street again,” Austin says, breaking the silence. “If you’re out walking around late at night and some drunk pervs jump out at you and you need someone to break your fall . . .”
Rewind to You Page 4