Chapter 9
Sophie
Oh. Okay, so Pace Leigh did have a flaw.
He made terrible jokes at the worst possible time.
A borderline hysterical laugh bubbled up out of me—it was too absurd to react any other way.
I laughed so hard that the desk chair hit the back of my knees, and I sat back down.
Because, obviously, he was joking. It was enough that he had materialized to this place and time, and maybe he wasn’t making fun of me exactly, but surely this was some cosmic joke, nonetheless.
Hurt and confusion crossed his features as his eager smile melted off his face like whipped cream off the side of warm pumpkin pie.
If knowing all possible variables was my imagined superpower, then his effortless ability to manipulate people with those sweet little puppy dog features was his. And I’d just laughed in his face.
I snapped my mouth shut, feeling remorse for my outburst.
“You were being serious?” I asked in dawning horror.
“Yes. Why not?” His jaw flexed with a tight swallow.
It was a distractingly perfect jawline.
“It’s mortifying enough that you’re aware of the list. I can’t even—my brain actually will not let me understand why you would offer to help me.”
He pulled out the chair next to me and sat down with intense determination. His long legs caused his knees to spread out wide, almost touching my shut ones.
He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, direct eye contact on full blast. So much that I felt on fire with my awareness of his focus.
How could he look directly into my soul like that?
Like he wanted to. I had no idea how long to hold his gaze or where exactly to look: left or right eyeball, maybe his forehead just above his eyebrow?
If I stared back with the same intensity that he held right now, I would look like a cornered animal.
I was a cornered animal.
And yet.
And yet.
His cologne-y man smell was so unfamiliar but nice in this small space.
His body, so big and masculine, taking up more mass than the molecules of air, breaking laws of nature.
I was acutely aware of the thick canvas material of his pants radiating heat, the breadth of his shoulders .
. . so wide. Those thick veins on the back of his loosely clasped hands.
If I slid the tiniest bit forward, our knees would brush.
The idea of it was so titillating that I felt a pulse of dangerous excitement.
Meanwhile, this tension was likely not something even on his radar.
He was so used to just existing without even thinking about how his mere presence impacted those around him.
I had to get a grip.
“I think that it was fate that I found your note,” Pace said, sincerely and still. Holding. My. Gaze.
“Fate was, in fact, a cruel mistress if that was the case.”
“I’m serious. Look.” He leaned forward, and I swallowed.
His head turned toward the note sitting on the desk between us, causing him to display his neck.
That was a man’s tendons and muscles, thick ropes of muscles leading down to his shoulders that were, I mean, my goodness, the man’s shoulders were really something else.
His dark reddish-blond hair was almost completely blond on his neck, his skin tinged with a red hue.
And his ear. Look at that beautiful ear. Just inches from my face.
I was truly overwhelmed by the desire to lean forward and bite his neck or lick along that perfectly square jawline. His Adam’s apple moved along the column of his throat as he swallowed, and I couldn’t look away.
Must ignore wild, intrusive thoughts.
“Check this out,” he said. I blinked away from memorizing every hair and freckle on his neck, like the little weirdo that I was, and focused on the task. Wait, what was the task? Why was he still here in my bubble of safety, confusing all my senses? Shouldn’t I want him to leave?
“I was made to help you with this list. The gym?” He blew a pfft.
“AKA my second home. Karaoke? Once a month at Bookers at least.” His finger floated down the list, continuing to name all the things he was great at.
I didn’t doubt that he was being honest. But it wasn’t helping.
All things that came so naturally to him were my impossible hurdles. This was just proving the point.
Also, how was I ever supposed to be near him if seeing his neck made me this distracted? And he wanted to gallivant around town together? I wasn’t this person. I wasn’t even one of his peripheral people.
I could wax poetic about being a modern woman with contemporary wants and needs, but the second a hot firefighter with rippling muscles and an easy smile was tossed in my face, suddenly it’s all here, let me slip out of these panties, and can I suck on your earlobe?
“You see what I mean?” he asked.
I’d been watching his lips move, but to be honest, I had no clue what he’d just said. But he must have been used to whatever he saw on my face, because he just kept moving on down the list.
I stuffed a sock in my hormones and focused on what he was saying. I would be respectful. I would not objectify him in the way women have been objectified for millennia.
But seriously, what was that muscle between the neck and shoulders called? It’s like it was purposely designed to be bitten on when riding his—
He cleared his throat awkwardly. Please don’t tell me my thoughts were actually words.
But no. He stopped because he reached the end of the list. He stopped talking and was waiting for some response as his finger stopped just after the last line, seemingly without meaning to. The line item with all the orgasms.
Our eyes drifted together and then instantly apart. Of course, he was thinking of that last bit. The bit I crossed out but left so clearly visible on the off chance I decided to try it out after all.
“I obviously would also be able to find the right people for you, for uh, areas that I might not be the right fit for,” he mumbled.
“And I’m already going to be at the charity ball, obviously, I could just take you.
” Whatever he saw on my face must have been bad because he quickly added, “Or get you a ticket. Whatever.”
To my shock, the tips of his ears went red, and the already ruddy complexion of his neck darkened with splotches.
I wouldn’t take him as one to be shy about that sort of stuff.
I figured he was a gal-in-every-port sort of guy.
Wait, that wasn’t the expression. A hoe in every area code?
Gross. Not that either. The man was superfine and probably was drowning in—
Okay. Never mind. Why did I need to label it? I didn’t. Moving on.
I was just surprised that he might be shy about sex.
“I don’t want you to think I came here because of . . .” His eyes looked everywhere but at me.
Right, because no way he’d volunteer for that. In what universe would our two species comingle?
I’d gone too long without speaking. It was clear he was sincere in his offer to help me.
This was too much. I operated on pure shock and compartmentalizing now.
“I don’t understand why,” I said.
“Why, what?” He leaned back in the chair now, but faced me. His legs were still spread wide, and now his right arm balanced on the back of the chair.
“Why you want to help me? Why you care?” I asked.
“I’m a helper, it’s who I am.”
“And what’s in it for you?”
I didn’t buy it. Nobody was that altruistic. Not even a firefighter who seemed to be woven from the very threads of every woman’s fantasy.
“The thought of helping someone makes me feel better.” His pronounced Adam’s apple moved on a swallow, drawing my gaze to his neck once again.
“I feel like this is a trick. Or there’s something you aren’t telling me.” Here, his gaze flicked to the side. Ah, so I was close with that. “Are you going to reveal this is all for your video channel or that your best friend bet you that you could trick me into sleeping with you before prom—”
“Wait, what? You have trust issues.” His loose chuckle sent a thrill through me. I almost never got to make anybody laugh. That was a shot of straight adrenaline.
“Yes. I’m a human existing in the time of the internet. You should develop more trust issues, quite frankly,” I said.
“I just want to help. It’s really not that serious,” he said, shrugging with a less-sincere-sounding laugh.
I hated it when people said that. I’m so glad that it wasn’t that serious for him. I felt myself growing defensive.
“You have to understand, I don’t spend time around people like you.
” Anger pushed my words out in a rush. “It’s not the natural order.
We move in different circles, have extremely different social lives.
You are beloved by all, and I would bet money that most of our graduating class forgot that I exist.”
“Our graduating class?” Confusion was written all over his affable features.
“Did you even know that we were in the same grade?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Of course. You moved here in the fourth grade. We had every math class together throughout all of high school, and one time Levi and I gave you a jump when your battery died a few years after graduation.”
My jaw hung open. Shame flushed through me again. I would have never thought in a million years that he remembered we were the same age, let alone all the classes we had together. I was shaken. I hadn’t been right in a lot of my assumptions since he walked in here.
“Because we weren’t friends in high school, means you’re just not going to accept my offer of help?” he asked with a frown.
“But why are you helping? I just—” I threw out my arms. “Why are you here? What is it that you want?” The strain in my voice was embarrassing.
“I want to help you. Why are you so determined to see the worst about me? I’m a fellow citizen who can help. So let me help you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to be better about that. But I can’t fathom being able to do any of these items with you.”
“I can understand being weary, but you can ask my best friend, Levi, and he’ll tell you I’m a helper.” He shrugged in such a sweet, disarming way that for a second, I really considered his offer. “What’s it going to take for you to see that I’m sincere?”
He’d been watching me closely when his phone vibrated on the desk between us.
There was a text from someone named Mason. I hadn’t meant to look, but, of course, I did.
Pace. Bonfire. ASAP.
He looked up at me, seeing that I’d read it too. He was already bustling into action as he joked, “This is why I wore the pants.”
I sat back, feeling mostly relieved that he was leaving. The release of tension was enough, and I laughed at his joke.
His smile beamed back at me. He looked at me a beat too long. My laugh faded as he seemed to decide something.
“Come with,” he said. He grabbed my jacket and his baseball hat from where he’d hung them on a hook by the door.
“What. No. The shop. I can’t just—” There were a hundred reasons I couldn’t just go. The fact that I hadn’t spent half the day mentally preparing to leave the house was at big fat number one.
He wasn’t listening. He grabbed my hands and tugged me toward the exit.
“Pace—” My voice grew high-pitched with panic.
“It’s after nine. El won’t care if you close.”
That wasn’t the point. That was my only solid excuse to stay; the rest revolved heavily around my neurosis.
I felt my mouth opening and closing like I was a dying fish out of water, desperate to find any other excuse not to go with him.
My thoughts spun out so fast I couldn’t even follow all the different fears.
Pace and I together. People staring. All the looks.
All the gossip. I would say the wrong thing.
I was dizzy, and things were happening too fast. I pulled myself away.
“I have to think about this.” I dug my heels, balled fists at my temples.
Just inside the door, he stopped and turned to me. He took a step back to reach me and softly pulled my hands from my head.
“Don’t think,” he said.
He carefully put my coat on me, threading one arm through at a time. He zipped me up and then gently pulled my hair out of the collar so that it wouldn’t be tugged. His gaze held on to mine, like a lifeline, the entire careful process.
The woman was too stunned to speak.
Everything he did pinned me to this moment. It was like my entire body unclenched. There was only his easy touch, the sight of him, the heady scent of him . . .
“Just follow me,” he added.
I followed his commands like a robot. Watching myself outside my body as I let him lead me out and locked the door.
“We aren’t done with this conversation yet, and I need to go.
Easy solution is we go together,” he said.
He patted the shoulders of my jacket before dropping his hands on them and holding them there as if I would run away without warning.
They were so noticeable, his fingertips squeezed lightly on my shoulder blades.
It was all so intense. And I wondered if he was experiencing any of it.
“It’s okay, we can be done,” I mumbled. “A quick memory wipe for both of us, and we can pretend none of this ever happened.”
He laughed, but was already guiding me in the direction of the town square. My protests died on my lips as I was dragged into the cold fall night before I could get a grip.
I was both terrified and hyperaware of his touch as we left the safety of my home.