11. Kendra
Kendra
NINETEEN YEARS OLD
This summer is going to be so different.
Not in a bad way, just in an unusual way, I guess.
Hannah Hargrove, my best friend in Fox Grove, was away working at a summer camp for the first time.
Normally we hung out, were at the library together, went to the beach, parties she knew of.
I was her tagalong. She made summers here easy because I didn’t have to make any real decisions, I could kind of be numb and follow her lead.
Now I had the summer totally open, unplanned, in my control, and it was . . . weird.
One thing that was the same—going to the library daily with Nana.
This was such a special place. Our love of books ran deep, so spending a majority of my time here and helping her was not ever a burden.
Even less of a burden this summer was when Eli Hargrove walked in the doors with a tool belt and a wink, telling me he was going to be working on a whole wall of new bookshelves for Nana in the back of the library.
For the romance section. Oh the irony.
I have had the biggest crush on Hannah’s older brother since the first day I saw his dimpled smile. Now I would get to see him do manual labor, daily, in my favorite place? In the name of helping books? Praise the Lord.
Over the years I had gotten used to Eli’s teasing ways. His big personality. I also got used to the simple truth that I noticed him, but he certainly never noticed me.
I was organizing all the books that were going to be reshelved once the new project Eli was building got completed.
Some of the books were older, damaged, or needed to be re-covered.
It was my job to make sure all the books in the romance section were in tip-top shape to go back in place, in their newly built home.
It made me have a strange thrill to know that I was kind of working on this project alongside Eli, even if I was the only one that put that train of thought on those tracks.
Anything to tie myself to him, as usual.
Lost in my own daydream, I don’t hear him come up behind me. Eli clears his throat, which startles me, making me drop the three books I have in my hands.
“Crap,” I yelp.
Scooping the books up in his massive hands, Eli smiles at me, dimple flashing, and says, “Want to have dinner with me after we get done for the day?”
My brain goes numb.
Tongue dry as the sand at the beach.
A bead of sweat runs down my back.
I just stare at him. Immobilized. Shocked.
“Uhhh, Kendra?” Eli dips his face down closer to mine, probably wondering if I am going catatonic.
Holy shit, get it together, girl!
“You want to have dinner with me?” I stupidly parrot instead of just saying an enthusiastic yes.
“I asked, didn’t I,” he says with a tiny smile.
“Yeah, but don’t you have, like, better things to do? Friends to hang out with? A . . . date to go on? Shit. We’ve never done anything other than talk when Hannah is around.” I ramble nervously, hugging the books that he handed back to my chest.
“Well, I know that when you’re in Fox Grove if you aren’t at the library, you are usually somewhere with my sister.
And since Hannah’s gone all summer this time, I thought it would be fun for us to hang out.
But if you don’t want to, it’s fine. I get it,” Eli says, rubbing the back of his neck, which has his bicep flexing, making me want to pant. He even looks . . . disappointed?
“Wow, no. That’s really sweet of you. Thank you. I, um, yeah. Yes. I would like that.” More rambling from me, I dip my eyes to the floor, not even able to look at his handsome face and striking navy-blue eyes.
I feel his rough fingertips grasp my chin, making me gasp.
No amount of oxygen on the planet could be sufficient for my lungs right now.
We could be in the freaking rainforest with the purest sources of air, and I would still feel like passing out just from his simple touch flaming my skin—the first time he’s ever really touched me.
Not a handshake, or accidentally bumping into one another. This is intentional.
“Don’t hide from me,” he commands. “I’m not scary, it’s just me.”
“Yeah, okay, Hulk,” I quip, which makes him bark out a deep, throaty laugh.
He is like Hulk. His six-foot-four frame ripples with muscles, dwarfing my five-foot-two self.
I have spent endless hours wondering what it would be like to have his body commanding mine .
. . not that I would know how it would feel to have any body do that.
I have never let anyone get that close to me.
“Let me clean up my mess out back and then we can go? It will be like twenty minutes. I was thinking we could get burgers or something at the Den?” Eli suggests.
“Sounds good,” I say, my excitement fizzling.
The Fox’s Den, of course. This is just the small-town family restaurant.
It’s where everyone goes for everything.
Burgers with friends, ice cream after little league baseball games, breakfast if you want the best sausage gravy you have ever tasted.
This is not a date. This is us hanging out as friends because his sister, my one real friend in Fox Grove, is gone for the summer.
It’s a pity hang. The tiny flicker of hope that it could be something more is immediately blown out, and I go back to my task of organizing the books.