Page 19 of Catch the Sun

I forgo my black pen and exchange it for a hot-pink pen.

This is better. I will lie to him with pink ink and fairy-tale words.

I’m about to start another letter when I hear footsteps approaching from the bordering trail. Branches crunch under swiftly moving feet. Sticks and loose leaves rustle as the footfalls inch closer. I hold my breath. A vision of a cloaked figure with a dagger glinting in the sunlight flashes across my mind. The dagger has the wordvirginetched into the blade, and a helpless goat bleats in the far-off distance.

This is it; I’m a goner.

The sunshade of green foliage is pulled back, revealing the intruder.

I freeze.

I blink up at the familiar face as he blinks down at me. We stare at each other. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks.

Max.

Max Manning towers before me in faded blue jeans and a damp T-shirt stuck to his chest. His hair is a slow-drying mess of dark waves over his eyes, and his white sneakers are worn and smudged with dirt.

More importantly, he looks furious. My existence has provoked him.

Sighing, I glance back down at my barren note page and pretend he’s not there. If I avoid things long enough, they tend to go away. This worked against me that one time Mom bought me a betta fish, but generally, the results are favorable.

“What are you doing here?” he demands, stepping farther into the clearing.

It doesn’t seem to be working this time. “Taking a bath.” I start doodling at the top of the page, drawing a dubious picture of a sun.

Silence infects the space between us, but his presence is loud and commanding. I can almost see the flare of his nostrils and the twitch of his eye, even though my gaze is fixed on the sun design that has somehow morphed into a flower. I turn the sunrays into petals and add a long stem.

Finally, he says, “This is my spot.”

“I don’t see your name written anywhere.”

“You’re sitting on it.”

Frowning, I inch my butt off the bench and peer down at the mahogany wood, narrowing my eyes at the jagged little letters carved on the top.

MANNING, 2013

Well then.

Resituating on the bench, I fill my cheeks with air and let out a breath. “Sorry, I didn’t think to check for ownership. Do you have the official deed?”

“I’m serious. I come here when I want to be alone.”

“You can still be alone.”

I spare him a glance, noting the way he folds his arms across his chest as a strand of brown hair curls over his left eyebrow like a corkscrew. His cheeks are flushed from the Saturday sun, adding more color to his already bronzed skin, and his arms are well defined, the muscles twitching with suppressed wrath. They’re nice arms. If I had a thing for arms, I’d consider his top tier.

And I understand why girls fall all over themselves when he sweeps through the hallways, leaving them in a cloud of mint, pine, and shunned infatuation. I have twenty-twenty vision. Max Manning is good-looking, a ten across the board. If I ran purely on hormones, I could become bewitched. Thankfully, I run on trauma, black coffee, and sarcasm, so his compelling man-body and enigmatic blue eyes are wasted on me.

Max’s gaze flits around the scenic space before settling back on me. “I can’t be alone if you’re here. I’m sure there are plenty of other places you can mope.”

Feigning outrage, I let out a huff and hold up three fingers. “First of all, you can absolutely be alone. We can be alone together. Loneliness is nothing but a state of mind.” I lower my index finger. “Secondly, I wasn’t moping. I was brooding.” I lower my ring finger, leaving only my middle finger pointed toward the cloudless sky.

I don’t verbalize the third point because I’m already making it.

Slanting his eyes at me, Max rolls his jaw, scratches the back of his neck, then proceeds to plop down against a thickly trunked tree. “Fine.”

This surprises me. I definitely expected him to scram.

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