Page 22 of My Star-Crossed Summer

“Hey,” Noah says from behind me, and that one word is enough to startle me so much that my knees wobble.

I turn, giving him my nothing-to-see-here face. “Hi,” I say, my tone way too chipper. “How’s it going?”

“How are you just now getting back?” he says, his brow furrowed. “Is everything okay?” His eyes rake over me—slower than necessary—taking in my messy hair, my dirty tee shirt and jeans. A blush creeps into my cheeks as his eyes lift up to mine.

“Flat tire,” I answer, hoping I don’t have to admit to also losing a child.

His eyebrows shoot up. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“That seemed unnecessary,” I say with a shrug. “It wasn’t hard to change.”

“We paid for roadside assistance, you know. With the rentals.” He plants his hands on his hips and frowns. Even his scowl is sexy.

“I figured that would take too long,” I answer. “It wasn’t a big deal.” Plus, I really wanted to solve that problem on my own and not call for rescue. But I keep that thought to myself.

“You’re allowed to ask for help, you know.” He lifts a brow. “You don’t have to do everything yourself.”

I make a show of leaning past him, searching the horizon.

“What?” he says, turning around.

“I’m just looking for that big white horse of yours.”

He lets out a heavy sigh, clearly exasperated. “As the site director, it’s my job to make sure that you’re safe and have all the help you need.” His eyes bore into mine, pinning me to this spot, and my heart does a little somersault because protective Noah ishot. Like surface-of-the-sun hot. “Next time, call me,” he says, his voice gravelly. “We look out for each other here. Buddy system, remember?”

“Fine,” I tell him, holding my hands up in surrender. “Next time I’ll call you.”

He frowns as if he doesn’t believe me.

“Cross my heart,” I say, drawing an invisible X over my chest. His eyes track the movement, and when they drift back up to mine, they’re filled with something that looks a lot like want.

It’s the same look he’d had all those years ago, right before I kissed him on that moonlit beach in Charleston.

He seems to realize that fact at the precise moment that I do and tears his gaze away from mine as a blush touches the tips of his ears.

“Orientation in five,” he says, and is gone before the memory fades.

Chapter Seven

NOAH

Victoria is going to unravel me. It’s bad enough that she’s here demanding all of my attention without even trying. But the way she looks at me with those wide blue eyes, as if she can’t decide whether to punch me in the gut or kiss me until I forget my name—that’s going to be a problem.

Because I really want it to be the latter. As soon as humanly possible.

The kids are hyper-focused during orientation, giving Sophie their full attention as she explains what everyone can expect from their camp experience. I’m hyper-focused because I can’t tear my eyes away from Victoria’s delicate neck, where a smudge of grease lies just below her ear, a swipe perhaps made by her fingers as she was changing that flat tire. There’s just one empty seat between us in the auditorium, and she draws my gaze like a magnet—just like she always has. She’s wearing a clean shirt now, her hair pulled back into a ponytail that swings every time she moves her head. When she tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, I spot another smudge on her cheekbone that I’m dying to reach over and wipe away with my thumb.

I hate that she didn’t call me for help. She’s perfectly capable of changing a tire, but having a bunch of kids around like this can make even the simplest task more difficult because you have to keep one eye on them all the time. It’s like having a box full of kittens that keep crawling out and scurrying off the second you look away. Plus, I know the roads around here and I wouldn’t want to change a flat on any of them. It’s all blind curves and narrow shoulders on this mountain, and I don’t like to think of her putting herself in danger.

More than that, I hate the idea that she feels uncomfortable asking me for help.

I drag my fingers through my hair, trying to set aside all those unsettling thoughts. Probably, she didn’t call me because she was embarrassed. I need her to know that she can trust me and depend on me to help her when she needs it. She’s always been independent and never liked asking for my help—whether it was to fix a busted radiator in her car or pay her electric bill when it was overdue—so I shouldn’t expect her to ask for it now.

Now she’s twirling the end of her ponytail in her fingers, and that smear of grease is taunting me. Helpless to tear my gaze away, I study the line of her neck, that elegant curve where it meets her shoulder, and then think of how it would feel to kiss her there, to drag my lips down to her collarbone as I push the collar of that shirt aside and undo the buttons with my teeth.

She coughs, and I look up to meet her eyes.

Busted.

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