Chapter 2 Until You Realize You’re Caught
UNTIL YOU REALIZE YOU’RE CAUGHT
We ride our bikes to the lake. The sun beats down on us, unrelenting as we challenge its power with all the gall of youth, peeling clothes from our skin to lounge as uncovered as possible by the glitter of clear mountain water.
The high peaks of sunbaked stone peer down at us.
The marbled veins are a blue-gray so deep, in some parts, the jagged lines glisten purple.
“So, sweet girl.” Tate stretches out beside me, but not too close. He shakes his longish golden-brown hair and droplets of water fly. Goosebumps pebble where beads of cool water land on my sun-kissed skin. “What brought you here to our little town?”
“My mom and dad.” I’m being cheeky, and I know it.
His grin stretches wide, and he drags his green eyes over my face, dipping down over my body before drifting back up again. Sometimes, the way Tate looks at me…
“And what brought them?”
I ignore the hot that burns under my skin as I cast my eyes to the water. “Cheaper living. The opportunity for Dad to open the business he’s always wanted to open.”
“Yeah?” I can feel his eyes on me. The foggy, sea-glass green is cool over my warm skin. The touch of his gaze pulls tiny goosebumps to the surface, and I fight the shiver that threatens as he asks, “What’s he want to open?”
“An outfitter shop. Hiking, hunting, and fishing gear. Bikes and lake boats. Tents. You know, the works.”
“Your dad likes nature.”
“He does.” I bob my head. “He wants to offer tours, too. But I think he’ll be happy to just start with the shop.”
“Your mom?”
“Mom loves Dad. She’ll follow him anywhere.”
He laughs. It’s nice. It’s the first time I’ve heard it.
I’ve seen Tate plenty since that first day when I made a fool of myself. The day I met Holt. I’ve even talked to Tate a few times, but he’s usually with his friends, and I’m always with Holt.
I can’t lie and say I’m not head-over-heels for Holt, because I am. Even though right now, we’re just friends. I think about him for hours every night before I fall asleep. His dark eyes, his hard jaw, and the pipes Mom has clearly noticed, follow me into my dreams.
I’m what Mom would call smitten, and I’m not sorry about it at all.
“So, she doesn’t work?”
“She does, usually part time gigs. We’re from Victoria, and everyone knows it’s not cheap to live there. Mom usually works in greenhouses or breakfast joints.”
“Yeah?”
I bob my head. “She likes busy work.”
“That’s cool. So does my mom.”
I chance a peek at him. “What does she do?”
He cocks a brow. “Holt hasn’t told you?”
Holt jogs over sand, dripping water. His eyes shift from Tate to me, and I swear, my mouth goes bone dry as pebbles of lake-water cling to his skin like prisms to snare the sun. He’s beautiful.
His eyes dance on mine and a roguish smile pulls at his lips. “What hasn’t Holt told you?”
My heart skips, a wild thing in my chest. I smile as I tip my head back to gaze up at him. “What your parent’s do for a living.”
He shakes his head on a laugh. “Seriously? You’re sitting up here talking about what our parent’s do for work?” He makes a noise at Tate. “Dude.”
I push. “What do they do for work?”
“Dad owns Wilder Builds and Renos.”
“O—kay.”
Holt moves behind me to settle his wet self on the towel I’m sitting on. My heart skips at least a whole sequence of beats. I think I forget to breathe as he spreads his long legs around me, capturing me in the cage of his body.
There is literally no other cage on earth I would be this happy to be in.
He rests his arms on his raised knees, and I can feel the heat of his breath as his voice rumbles in his chest. “It’s a construction company. Wilder Builds and Renos builds houses and renovates them. Some businesses, too. It keeps them busy. Mom mostly does admin work for the company.”
“That’s cool.” I think my voice comes out breathless.
He’s so close to me. I don’t think I’ve ever had a boy sit like this with me.
Not even Ethan, the boy I’d been forced to say goodbye to when Dad announced we were packing up and ‘ditching this town’ before we actually packed up and ditched the town.
To be fair, Ethan hadn’t had the time to sit with me like this. He’d finally gotten the nerve to ask me to be his girlfriend a month before school ended, and two weeks later the first box appeared. With Ethan, it had been about the hand-holding and light flirting chaperoned by our friends.
Things with Holt feel next level.
Beside us, Tate lays back in the sand, propped up on his elbows.
His sea-glass green eyes are cast to the water where a couple other guys are horsing around with Andy.
She warns them off, looking serious about a threat she spews as Micha charges through the water at her.
He grips her around the waist and splashes them both into the water.
I gasp, covering my dropped jaw with my hands as, for his trouble, Andy smears Micha’s shocked face with a fist-full of lake-mud.
“Ah!” I squeal, shocked. “She didn’t!”
“That’s Andy,” Tate says.
“Micha should have known better,” Holt agrees.
I’m floored in the best way. “This is a thing, then?”
Holt chuckles. “The Micha and Andy show.”
“He’s always chasing her.” Tate sighs as Holt finishes, “She’s always pushing him away.”
I watch the two as Micha dives below water to wash the mud from his face while Andy grins, looking pleased as punch with herself. “I think she likes him.”
Tate’s head whips to me. There’s disbelief on his face as he asks, “Really?”
“Yeah.”
Behind me, Holt scoots closer. His voice has a rough edge where it sounds over my shoulder. “What makes you think that?”
Tingles explode in my belly, birthing a swarm of fireflies. I feel hot and abuzz.
Trying to keep my cool, I shrug. “The way she looks at him.”
“You think she looks at him differently than she looks at the other guys?”
I twist, shock striking a match in my core at how close he is. The warmth of his breath whispers across my lips, but he doesn’t pull away. I feel robbed of air, momentarily stripped of breath. I whisper, “Yes.”
His dark eyes sweep from mine to my lips. “How so?”
Tate makes a noise that pulls me violently from whatever Holt-orbit I’d been sucked into. Blushing fiercely, I turn back to the water. Clearing my throat, I shove my feet from the towel into the hot sand. It’s a distraction—and right now, I severely need a distraction.
“Just look at her. She might be running from him, but her eyes always stray back to him.” I sigh as I bring my knees up again, wrapping my arms around them as I lean forward. “I think she just likes being chased.”
“What about you?” Holt asks, but there’s a smile in his words. “Do you like being chased?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “No one’s ever really chased me before.”
“That’s not true.” The smile is gone from his tone. All that’s left behind is seriousness I’m not sure how to respond to.
I look back at him again to find his eyes are already on me. “It’s not?”
He gives his head a slow shake, never once tearing his gaze from mine. “I’ve been chasing you since the day you moved in, Faye.”
This time, there’s no hiding my blush. He smiles when he sees it, like he likes it. I croak, “Oh. I hadn’t noticed.”
“Then I’ll just have to keep chasing you.” There’s a dare in the current of his words, threatening to steal me away. “Until you realize you’re caught.”
I don’t know what possesses me, but I ask, “Do you promise?”
His smile is slow and, I think a little hungry. He draws an X over his heart. The same way he did that first day I met him. “I promise.”