I’m Gonna Get You Back
Chapter One. Reid
CHAPTER ONE
REID
THEN
THERE WAS THE VIEW? and then there was her.
Clara stared out at the lake below, a breathless, awestruck look on her face. Her green eyes wide and soft, color high on her cheeks from the hike.
Camera in hand, she panned the vista, entirely focused on getting the shot and not at all aware that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Nothing could pull her attention when she filmed.
Not that I didn’t still try.
“Look at how the light bends over those pines,” she said reverently. “Just there. Stunning, right?”
“Right.”
The light was nice, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from her.
But her turning the camera toward me was.
While it didn’t bother me, being filmed made me self-conscious—too aware of my arms and hands and the fact that she saw so much through that lens.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Don’t talk,” she said, a smile in her voice. “Stay broody. You look perfect.”
My entire body rushed with heat. As charged by her as the world around us that bounced with sunlight. I pulled off my beanie. “I’m not broody.”
“Have you seen you?”
I pushed my hand through my unruly hair, sure it was sticking up all over the place with the way Clara’s eyes bounced to it. “Meaning?”
“You’re, like, the definition of broody. Quintessentially broody. If I were making a documentary about the broodiest guys in Woodhurst, the list would begin and end with you.”
“Why would you make a documentary about that?”
She scoffed. “It’s an example.”
“An example of how you’re obsessed with me,” I teased, the corner of my mouth lifting.
That rosy flush I loved blossomed across her cheekbones.
When our eyes met over the camera, hers narrowed playfully. “You wish. As usual, just ignore me.”
“As usual, that’s impossible.”
Her responsive laugh was airy as she circled me, capturing whatever shot she envisioned. There was a focused fluidity to her movement that reminded me of the hawks soaring above us. Free and attuned all at once. “How ready are you to get out of Woodhurst?”
The question confused me a moment. We still had a few months before graduation. Though my future was all but decided, I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. The worn collar of my jacket rubbed against my neck as I shrugged. “I don’t know if I am … I like it here.”
Her eyes flicked to mine over the lens. “But you’re meant for bigger things, Reid.”
So everyone kept telling me.
“College is going to be amazing,” she said, her tone reassuring. “You’re amazing.”
My pulse picked up, a spike of annoyance flaring, but at what, I wasn’t sure. “Why? Because I run fast?”
“No.” She lowered the camera, her expression pinched as she shook her head. “Because the fact that you run fast is the least interesting thing about you.”
My chest swelled near to bursting.
The next moment a gust of wind shook the trees around us. I draped my jacket across her shoulders just as she pulled her hair down to take a photo of us—the first.
“You smell like a meadow,” I said in place of all the other things I longed to tell her.
She laughed again and showed me the picture. It was the kind that somehow captured both the moment and the beating heart within it. The kind you frame.
I blinked in surprise when she wrapped her arms around my waist and let out a contented sigh, her warm breath skimming my throat. Confidence surged through me every time she allowed herself to soften to me.
“I do love it here,” she said.
“Me too.” But I wasn’t talking about the overlook.
I held her tighter. Relishing the rare opportunity of having her to myself—suspended for a moment from the looming Legacy decision and all the overbearing rules and suffocating pressures that came with it.
All that we were up against.
My hand trailed the side of her rib cage down to the hem of her shirt. Her eyes fluttered closed when I slipped my fingertips under it, grazing the warm skin of her hip bone and drawing her close until she was a breath away.
Her tone was playfully scolding when she said, “Are you quite done?”
“Done?” I smiled against her lips. “Pretty sure we’re just getting started.”