3. Isla #2
I’ve heard that exact word, in that exact same voice, exactly once before. Last night. I couldn’t make heads or tails of anything I was looking at, but I could hear just as clear as anything, thank you very much.
Slowly, I turn around.
Now that I can actually see him in my pathetic backup glasses, my mouth goes dry, and my insides get all fluttery, because holy shit.
This is the guy I was in the truck with?
My gaze darts over his face, taking inventory.
Dark, heavy brows. Eyes almost black. Sharp jaw.
Unruly hair that doesn’t look styled so much as it looks like it gave up trying to behave.
And underneath all of that, there’s an expression that sits somewhere between amused and unreadable as he watches me put the pieces together in real time.
Son of a bitch.
“You,” I whisper. Right now, that’s the pinnacle of what my brain can put together. “You...”
“Everett Stone.” The way he says it makes it sound like he’s bored of his own name. He shoves his fists into the pockets of his hoodie and rocks back slightly on his heels. “Looks like you found a backup pair of glasses.”
“You... drove me home.” Because my brain is still three steps behind the rest of the conversation, stuck somewhere back at the point where he just punched his own teammate without blinking. “You knew the whole time. You knew it was you I was looking for, and you didn’t say anything.”
“I wanted to hear your pitch first.” He glances back toward his table—there’s still soft laughter here and there, and someone loudly offering to grab some ice. “I figured it would be more honest that way.”
“And you just hit your own teammate.”
“He made fun of your glasses.” It’s not what he says, but more how he says it. Like it was the most obvious explanation in the world. Like sucker-punching your teammate over a stranger’s broken glasses is standard. “I didn’t like it.”
I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with that information.
I don’t even have room in my brain for it right now.
“So. Do you want the job or don’t you?” Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have sounded so bitchy, considering I’ve just seen what he’s capable of.
On the football field is one thing. Off the field?
I guess I didn’t expect him to carry his reputation into his everyday life.
And sick as it sounds even to me, it’s even more of a reason to hire him.
“I have money,” I add when he doesn’t answer right away, like that’s going to help. “It’s not a lot, but it’s some. I could pay you to—”
“How much is some?”
“...Five hundred?” It sounds even smaller out loud than it did in my head. Embarrassingly small, the kind of number that wouldn’t cover a decent used car, let alone whatever rate a guy with his particular skill set should reasonably charge.
I half expect him to laugh, but he doesn’t. Instead, something flickers across his face. It’s close enough to amused that my whole chest goes hot with humiliation. “That’s not enough.”
“I know it’s not a lot, but it’s genuinely all I have.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He takes a step closer, and the air around me suddenly feels several degrees warmer.
Every instinct I own goes on full alert.
A guy this large stepping into my personal space should probably terrify me—some small, sane corner of my brain insists that it does, except the rest of me is too busy noticing he smells like sandalwood and clean laundry instead of turf and sweat today.
“I mean, it’s not enough for what I’m about to ask you to spend it on. ”
My stomach drops somewhere near my shoes. Here it comes. Whatever this is, whatever a guy like him actually wants from a girl like me. I brace myself for something terrible that I will have to politely but firmly decline before fleeing the building and maybe the entire college.
“I want you to spend it on glasses,” he says.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“Glasses. Real ones. Not whatever pathetic excuse you’ve got taped together right now.” He nods at my face with something that might be the ghost of a smile if I squint hard enough. To be fair, I’m doing a lot of squinting right now. “No offense, but they look ridiculous.”
“They’re a backup pair.”
“They look like a crime scene.” He turns and heads for the exit like the conversation’s settled. Like I’m just supposed to follow.
And somehow, despite every rational impulse screaming at me to walk the other way, I find myself trailing after him.
“I’ll drive you,” he offers as I trot alongside him. “We can figure out the rest after.”
What the hell am I doing? Like, what has gotten into me? Because there is no way in the world I am actually following Everett Stone to his truck after leaving my tray on top of the trash can near the door. And I am definitely, most certainly not getting into the truck and buckling myself in, right?
I don’t know what to do with this guy. I’ve spent all of my eighteen years sorting people into fairly predictable categories: kind or unkind, safe or unsafe, the type who would laugh at my glasses or the type who would politely pretend not to notice.
Everett is refusing to fit into a single one of those categories.
Quite frankly, it’s an inconvenience I don’t have room for in my course load.
Either way, I’m pretty sure by the time we pull out of the lot that my life just got a lot more complicated.
Brad Pitt would be so unimpressed with me right now.