Page 12 of The Sound of Us

I loved the station, and I didn’t want to see it close, especially for Noah’s sake, but I wasn’t about to get sucked into the tight-knit group of volunteers who helped the paid staff. Unlike me, they didn’t just show up for their programs and take off when they were done. They spent all their free time at the station, hanging out in the lounge, throwing impromptu parties, talking about their problems… They were a family, and I was never doing the family thing again.

Skye showed up around ten minutes later. She had a bag in one hand and a backpack that was so heavy she was hunched over, giving me a good view of the cleavage at the V of her shirt. Notthat I was looking. But I was. She may have been an elite athlete but damn she had curves.

I moved into her path, but she was so focused on putting in her earphones and staring at her phone that she almost walked right into me.

“Sorry… I…” Her voice trailed off when she recognized me, and her forehead creased in a puzzled frown. “What are you still doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” I gestured to the athletics building, the white dome rising beyond the trees in the distance. “I thought you might be stressed about the tryout and I’m very good at being distracting.” I gestured to her backpack. “I’m also adept at carrying heavy things.”

She shook her head. “I can carry my own stuff. Besides, your hands are full of lemon squares.”

“I’ll eat them.” I took out a square and offered it to her. “These came highly recommended.”

“If I eat too close to any kind of intense activity, I throw up. It’s not a good look on me.”

I couldn’t imagine anything that wasn’t a good look on Skye, but I wasn’t about to let the lemon square go to waste. I took a bite, and tangy sweetness burst across my tongue, softened by the crumbly shortcake crust. I finished the first square in a few bites and reached into the box for another.

“Are you seriously using the threat of a sugar overdose to blackmail me into letting you carry my bag?” She gave me a sidelong glance as we walked along the path. “You’re twisted.”

“An accurate description.”

“You can carry this.” She handed me a lunch bag with a Superman decal on the front. “I’m only allowing it to save you from sugar poisoning.”

My fingers brushed against hers when I took the bag. The skin-to-skin contact was staggeringly powerful, and a buzz of awareness sizzled through my veins. “It seems you are a superhero afterall,” I said, inspecting the worn image of Christopher Reeve mid-flight.

“You remember that, too?” she asked softly.

“That night is etched into my brain.” Aside from the fact that I processed information so quickly I didn’t need to take notes in class, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Skye and our kiss and our curious connection.

“The lunch box is an inside joke,” she explained. “My friend Isla found it at a thrift shop and gave it to me. I missed my sophomore year and the last few months of my freshman year after I was in a car accident. She said I was a superhero for making it back.” She moved in the direction of the fitness center, and I fell into step beside her.

“She’s a good friend,” I said. “But I do hope it’s a joke. There is no better Superman than Henry Cavill.”

“Are you kidding me? Christopher Reeve was the best. He was kind, humble, compassionate and noble with pure farm boy wholesomeness and a subtle sense of humor. What else could you ask for in a superhero?”

“Grit,” I said. “Steel. Passion. Determination. The ability to dole out hard justice when necessary. Raw physicality…”

Raw physicality.Right there beside me. It was hard to concentrate on the conversation when she was walking so close that I could feel the heat of her body and breathe in her scent—wildflowers and coffee and something sweet.

“Yawn to the cookie-cutter superhero ideal,” she said. “I like a nuanced hero. A person who is strong, confident, and brave but isn’t afraid to show their soft side. Although I will give you that Cavill looked better in his suit than Reeves.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her watching me. “The Man of Steel screamed and cried in anguish during intense action sequences and emotional scenes. What more do you want?”

“A fur bed in a palace of ice.”

My laughter took me by surprise. Except when I was withNoah, or trying to charm a woman into my bed, I rarely laughed, and I hadn’t laughed so loudly since Sasha died.

I heard a shout, thethunkof a ball. In the distance I saw a group of guys running down the sidewalk tossing a football back and forth, heedless of the people who were dashing to the side to get out of their way. Instinctively, I slid my hand around Skye’s waist and pulled her to the side. Fast. But not fast enough. The ball bounced off her shoulder and onto the grass.

“What the fuck!?” I yelled, more annoyed at my failure to protect Skye than anything else. I grabbed the ball and hurled it at the guy who had hit Skye, putting all my energy into the throw. “Get off the fucking path!”

“It’s okay, Dante.” Skye’s quiet voice penetrated the churn of blood in my ears. “The ball barely touched me.”

I took a deep shuddering breath and tried to find the self-control I had so quickly and inexplicably lost. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so close to releasing the anger that I kept tightly leashed. “I just… you didn’t need that right before your big tryout. What if you’d been injured?”

“Then I’d be on the phone right now booking a plane ticket back to Denver.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Are you saying that if you don’t make the team, you’re leaving Havencrest?”

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