Page 24 of Rosie and the Beast Next Door

“Let’s get you home,Rosie.” Charlie linked her arm over my shoulder and gave Max the stink eye.

Gene drove slow enough that walkers passed us on the way to my apartment. But I was grateful for the ride.

“What’s going on?” Charlie pointed toward a group of people gathered in front of Alaska Chic. “Did a cruise ship come in?”

“No.” I sat up straighter in the backseat. Mrs. Mabel insisted I lay down, which meant she was squeezed up front on the bench seat between Gene and Charlie. “The next one isn’t scheduled to dock until tomorrow afternoon.”

As we got closer, I recognized people from town. Most of the Bookish Ballers were there, as well as the Icy Asps (minus Bennett, who was out at sea this weekend.) Several girls from the high school were in a circle, giggling, and all of them were looking upward.

I followed their gazes to find none other than a shirtless Dylan Savage framed in the window. He had installed a pull up bar in the closet doorway and was pulling himself up again and again at a punishing speed, like it was completely effortless. Even from here, I could see his biceps harden with each pull and his defined triceps clench as he released.

His sweatpants were slung low on his hips, revealing taut obliques—which I had already seen, thank you very much, but had been too flustered to fully appreciate. Was it suddenly extra hot in this car?

He wore white earbuds, oblivious to the crowd watching him work out. Which made me feel kind of like a stalker, but also, he was the one who chose to work out half-dressed in front of a public-facing window. So …

“Oh my,” Mrs. Mabel breathed.

Oh my, indeed.

“Again I say: gross,” Charlie said.

“Is The David gross?” I tugged her ponytail to silence her blasphemy.

“That’s mycousinyou’re ogling.”

“Appreciating. It’s totally different.”

He stopped and bent down to get something. A water bottle. My pink water bottle. Hey! But I found I didn’t really mind as I watched him lift it over his head, and his forearms flexed as he squeezed water into his mouth.

“Not really different at all. But I will say this.” Charlie paused, waiting until she had my full attention—well most of my attention; the obliques were hard to look away from. She smirked. “I’ll bethecould pick you up.”

“She’s not wrong, honey.” Mrs. Mabel fanned herself, and Gene nodded. Charlie helped me out of the car, and I slung my arm around her shoulders.

“I—” My words caught in my throat as Dylan happened to glance out the window to the crowd. His gaze landed directly on me, igniting my entire body with a fire that burned from inside out. He grabbed the curtain and flung it across the open window, removing our view.

A few people groaned and started to drift away, but I stood there for another moment with my realization.

Dylan Savage was going to shake up this whole town.

Chapter 11

Dylan

No one in thistown could mind their own business.

It was one of the reasons I left and a large part of why I never wanted to come back. Heat, not related to doing over a hundred pull-ups, burned the back of my neck.

A knock sounded on the door.

Either Rosie was coming to chew me out for giving the whole neighborhood a show, or she’d forgotten something. The house felt emptier without her stuff—she’d even taken her pillow and left me with something that looked like it could float me down the channel between Winterhaven and Thorne Bay.

I opened the door, surprised to see my cousin, Charlie—whom I’d purposely neglected to inform I was in town. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Charlie to know. I’d missed her a ton and loved the encouraging text messages she sent me before and after every game. It was that I didn’t want my sister, Lily, to know. To put it mildly, Lily hated my guts.

Charlie motioned toward my chest, biting back her always-present smile. “You just walk around like that?”

“The women of Winterhaven don’t seem to mind.”

“Ha ha,” she said. “Things haven’t changed, I see.”

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