Page 14 of Pinkie Promise

I lift the beer bottle to my lips and take a seat in the open-air booth, scanning across all of the pumpkins and the hay bales tosee if the girl that I’m looking for has arrived yet. If she’s going to be showing up at all.

I just have a lot on my plate right now.

Hell if those words didn’t make my jaw clench tight. She seemed so serious when I saw her at the wash, even when I was trying to keep it light and teasing. What’s got her so stressed?

I’m about three-quarters of the way through my beer when I catch sight of something in my peripheral vision. The fuzzy halo. The bunched white leg-warmers. The tiny pleated ‘skirt’ that makes my jaw drop to the table.

“What the hell?” Tanner shouts, and my eyes flash over to him. It takes a second for me to realise that I just poured the rest of my drink on him.

I set the bottle on the table and run a hand through my hair. Then I curse because, yeah, I dostill have black car oil all over my fingers.

“Am I hallucinating?” I ask, jerking my chin in the direction of the cheer squad.

Tanner follows my line of sight and suddenly he no longer cares about the beer on his shorts. “Jesus,” he grunts, getting to his feet so quickly that he knocks over every other bottle on the table.

“That’s what I thought,” I say, and suddenly the whole team is in motion.

She senses us before the other girls do and her eyes widen the second that she sees me. Smile-creases cut into the sides of my cheeks as I look her up and down, taking her in.

After a beat of hesitation, she bolts straight to the back of the pack.

I shake my head as I round her squad and she stops her little jog after a couple of laps.

She mutters something frantic under her breath and then looks up at me with her big sparkly eyes.

“You found me,” she says, her voice slightly breathless.

“Yeah I found you, because I have fucking eyes,” I tell her teasingly, flashing her a grin before I give her outfit another little once-over.

“I see you didn’t wear a costume,” she says, as she takes in the fact that the whole team came in our hockey gear. The guys also have war-paint smeared on their cheekbones, which works great for me seeing as I was already covered in oil from my hours under the hood of a customer’s truck.

I jerk my chin at her halo and say, “I see you didn’t either.”

Her cheeks flush pink as she realises what I’m implying. I fold my arms over my chest, satisfied as hell.

“You really didn’t need to wear all of that…” She gestures vaguely in the vicinity of my arms. “You know, your shoulder pads and stuff.”

I give her a confused look. “…I’m not wearing shoulder pads,” I say to her.

Her pupils immediately dial out and it’s so damn sexy that a grunt rumbles through my chest.

“Wanna do the maze?” I ask her, rolling a shoulder backwards in the direction of the lit-up corn fields.

For the first time ever I hear her laugh, and something warm immediately spreads through my chest.

“Seriously?” she asks, curiosity twinkling in her eyes. “Isn’t that, like, for kids?”

I feel my neck get hot and I glance over to where Tanner is dog-tailing Aisling O’Malley. Although this set-up is for Carter U students only, I guess that the maze is kind of childish – which is probably exactly why it was our favourite part of this night back when we were fifteen. But I didn’t have a girlfriend when I was fifteen, so I hadn’t had to think about how mature I needed to be acting.

That realisation makes my neck get even hotter because, having never had a girlfriend, how mature exactly am I supposed to be acting now? Am I supposed to just… jump right in? Because if she wants to, I can get real mature real quick.I glance back down at her and let myself imagine doing just that. Laying her on my mattress and getting down to work.

“Uh…” I rasp, scratching roughly at my stubble. Then I swipe a hand across my forehead, worried that she’ll be able to see what I’m thinking. “We don’t have to do the maze,” I say hoarsely. “We could, uh, we could just–”

“Pairs, right?” Tanner says loudly, clasping a hand around my shoulder. “First team to reach the middle gets, I don’t know, seven minutes in heaven or something. Hunter’s going with you,” he orders to the angel in front of us. Then he tips his head to the side. “I’ll be going with her.”

“Uh, no you will not,” Aisling says, rolling her eyes as she breezes right past him.

Tanner stares after her for a long beat and then his eyes trail down to the girl that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about all week.

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