Page 56 of Iron Hearts

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

Rarity…

“Rarity, you okay?” I blinked and snapped out of my thoughts about Striker and pushed myself into a standing position behind the cutting counter at the craft store.

“Sorry, what?” I asked, Meredith. She was seventeen and worked part time after school. She was a goth girl, in Florida, which I couldn’t fathom all that black and all those layers in this heat but to each their own.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t a moody teen, but rather bubbly and bright in this weird Wednesday Addams meets a Disney Princess kind of a way. She and I got along famously – but didn’t get to work together very often. It was a rare treat when we did. I was usually gone and at the bar in the afternoons and evenings when she came in after school.

“Where have you been all day?” she asked, wrinkling her nose and grinning at me. I turned and stuffed my hands in my green apron pockets and leaned my butt against the edge of the counter behind me.

She gave me a dubious look and put her own apron over her head working on tying it in the back as she was back from her break.

“Just got a lot on my mind,” I said. “I promise, everything is all good. I actually… met somebody,” I said and I knew I was blushing by the heat creeping up my neck, my chest flushing and my cheeks growing warm. I couldn’t help it. It was pretty much what happened any time I thought about Striker anymore.

“Ooo, so what’s he like?” she asked and I couldn’t help but stuff my hand against my mouth as I giggled.

It was ridiculous being this… I don’t know!Girlyabout it, but we’d been talking… about all sorts of things.

It’d started when I’d texted him late several nights ago, after waking up from thisawfuldream where I was standing there, as my dad drove by and I was just helpless to watch him get slammed into in that awful accident all over again – which was nuts. I’d already been walking into class when he’d been hit, getting some of my early stuff done and out of the way before deciding on a degree and a course of action for the rest of my education…

Of course, that had all come crashing down when he’d been crashedinto.

“He’s a biker,” I said reluctantly.

“Are you serious?” she asked, her face going blank as she thought about it, and I was about to cringe, fully expecting her ask me if I wasinsanebecause that wouldtotallybe what my mom or my grandmom would demand, but she focused back on me and said, “That issohot!”

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding and laughed a little nervously.

“Yeah, well, they aren’t exactly known to begoodguys… but he’s… different from I expected.”

She shrugged and said, “If he’s good toyou, that’s all that really matters, right?”

“Ha, wow! I mean, yeah, I guess but I don’t think my mom or anyone would be half so understanding.”

“They don’t know yet?” she asked.

I sort of half-winced and said, “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Really?” she asked and she looked so excited under her pale makeup.

“He’s a lot older than me, and I’m really worried about what people would think,” I said and she cocked her head and asked, “How much older?”

“Like eighteen…”

She frowned, “Months?”

“Years…” I said and her mouth dropped open.

“Wait, that makes him like what? Fifty?” she asked.

I laughed.

“Wow, you’re bad at math!” I cried, laughing until tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. “He’s forty-two,” I wheezed.

“And you’re what?” she asked.

“Twenty-four.”

---