Page 36 of Daring the Defender

With the space heater Reese gave me whirring on the floor, the room is pretty comfortable. I hear the porch door click shutbehind me and I grab the blanket off the couch and sit, keeping the ice pack in place, while pretending like all of this is normal. Completely. Totally. Normal. Like, I’m not closed off in a room alone with my brother’s friend and his oversized, very shirtless body.

Apparently Reid is impervious to the unsexiness of the porch.

Clueless, he sits and opens the laptop, propping it on his knees. With a lifted eyebrow, he says, “You’re going to need to get a little closer than that.”

Shifting, the old cushions sink underneath me, and I slide closer than I planned. Our legs crash together, mine bare, his covered in soft cotton that does nothing to stop the body heat from emitting through the fabric. Whatever I’m feeling is definitely one-sided, because he’s focused on queuing up the show and not the whirl of emotions running through me. I mean, Reid probably hangs out with girls all the time. Sometimes shirtless. Often alone.

I’m the one out of my element here. I’ve only seen David shirtless at a church sponsored pool party, surrounded by other people. I’ve never been alone with a man, shirtless or not, like this.

“What’s this show about?” I ask, trying not to completely spiral.

His expression lights up. “Twenty-six years ago a ten-year-old boy, Andrew, and his brother, Ashton, went to bed on a Sunday night, like normal. The next morning when their mother came to wake them up, Ashton wasn’t in his bed. The family immediately searched for him in the house, around the house, in the neighborhood. No one could find him, but later police heard from several eyewitnesses that saw him in the middle of the night, miles away from home on a stretch of deserted road.Although they did find a few signs that Ashton had been in the area, he was never seen again.”

“Wow, that sounds really strange.”

“Yeah, back then cell phones and having internet in the home wasn’t as common. No one has any clue why he left and where he was going, but last week police in the area did a search of a property that’s owned by a prominent family.” He gestures to the screen. “This is an update of that.”

I do my best to create a little space between us once he starts the video, but physics and the breakdown of the foam in the couch cushions work against me. Like in the truck, I’m overwhelmed by being so close to him. His scent. His warmth. The trail of soft-looking hair that travels between his belly button and the waistband of his pants.

So it’s no surprise when I have to say, “Wait. Stop the video.” He presses pause. “So no one saw him again after the trucker watched him run off the road in the dark, but they found candy wrappers near an old shed, and then a year later found his backpack and a Bulls basketball jersey twenty miles away in a ditch?”

“Wrapped in a garbage bag, yeah,” he says, with enthusiasm. “His mother claims the jersey wasn’t his, but the backpack is. So the big question for decades has been, who does the jersey belong to?”

“Do you know?” I ask, already invested.

“That’s the big news. The police just announced that they found DNA on the shorts that match someone that lives on the property they’re searching.”

“Wow.” I nod slowly, taking it all in. “This is a crazy story.”

“Right?”

“And you do this a lot? Follow old cases like this?”

“There are a few in particular I’m interested in. Usually ones with a strange mystery like this that is seemingly unsolvable.”He leans against the arm of the couch, assessing me. “Do you think it’s weird, because Twyler loves true crime too, although she’s way more into the cult stuff. Reese definitely thinks we’re weird.”

“No, but what is weird is that I’m starting to realize how all of you have so many interests and I’m just kind of floating around, waiting for someone else to tell me who I am and what I like.”

“Well,” he says slowly, “how do you feel about watching this show with me?”

I consider it. “The show is interesting. It’s like a whole other world, with people going through things I never even considered. Not from inside my well-crafted bubble where no one goes missing and if bad things happen we just pray over it and bake a casserole and go about our business.”

The ice pack slides off my shoulder. He snags it before it falls and puts it back in place. His hand is heavy, solid, and he doesn’t move it right away. “How’s the neck?”

“Sore,” I admit. “I’m sure it’ll be better in the morning.”

“Is it here?” he asks, pressing down his thumb. I feel a sharp twinge and grimace. “Yeah, I can feel the knot.”

“That’s it.” I roll my neck. “I’m sure it’ll be fine in the morning.”

His eyes linger around my collarbone, before returning to the laptop. He starts the show again, but doesn’t move his hand. I feel the firm press of his thumb into my neck, although softer this time. He hits the tender spot and my shoulders rise.

“Too hard?” he asks quietly.

The amount of pressure isn’t a problem. I try to form coherent words, “No, it’s just sensitive.”

“Here, take this,” he holds out the laptop. “And shift this way a little so I can see if I can work this out.”

The video continues to play, with the hosts detailing the events of the house search, but I can’t focus on anything otherthan the way Reid’s hands feel as he pushes my hair to the side. My skin is cold from the ice pack, making his fingers blaze a trail of heat. He works against the muscles, and I feel the effect not just in the places he’s touching but every other inch of my body.

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