Page 37 of The Run Home
My hand came around to the front of his abs, sliding further up his chest. If he didn’t kiss me, I just might find that quicksand and throw myself back into it.
The master of all teases pulled away from me, released my face, and backed up. My hands fell away from his body. He dipped to pick up the shovel, standing but not meeting my gaze.
“I better go plant your flowers, lovebug. You’ve got a puzzle to finish.” He winked at me, but I was too stunned to speak.
He marched off, whistling while he went, like he hadn’t just teased me senseless in my own freaking living room. If I’d been wearing shoes, I would have taken one off and thrown it at him.
The bastard stole the very air from my lungs and then walked off with a wink? The back door clicked shut, and even though I couldn’t see him anymore and I was nearly forty years old, I gave him double middle fingers. It was juvenile, but it made me feel better anyway.
If he was just playing with me, I wasn’t sure I could build a wall thick enough, tall enough to keep him away from my heart. Even knowing he was teasing me, I had to shift my thighsawkwardly as I sank back onto the couch. I was turned on more than I had ever been and then left hanging.
One thing was for sure, tomorrow’s hookup date couldn’t come soon enough.
And this puzzle was going in the trash.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Boon
Haveyou ever had a plastic tag in an article of clothing that keeps rubbing against your skin but can’t find it? That’s how I felt the rest of Thursday and all day at school on Friday. I was irritable, temper on a short leash. But I was also restless. I knew exactly why. I could pretend that Shae Fletcher hadn’t gotten under my skin and started rubbing, an irritation that wouldn’t go away, but that would require a level of lying to myself I didn’t want to stoop to.
I tried ignoring her earlier in the week. That hadn’t worked. I’d lost sleep thinking about her and staring out at her house out my bedroom window. I tried sliding my tongue up her neck and complimenting her and that still didn’t work. I’d had to take matters into my own hands and rub one out while thinking about the way she tasted. My flesh was raw by the time I realized I needed to fuck her senseless to get her out of my head once and for all.
Except she was going on a date tonight.
With someone else.
“If you’re gonna keep pacing, get a mop and be useful,” Mom drawled from the living room.
I spun in her direction, seeing her head above the granite countertops Warrick had Emmerleigh install when he moved back to Blueball. Mom had one of those smirky smiles on her face that said she was two steps ahead of me already. I didn’t dare turn my head and give Shae’s house another glance. Instead, I left the kitchen and had a seat across from my mother.
“Just working out some stuff in my head for the team,” I said nonchalantly, leaning back in the chair and doing that breathing technique I used when heading for the plate at the end of the ninth inning and me at bat would determine if we won or lost the game.
Mom snorted haughtily, which was rich, coming from a woman with a pair of readers on top of her head, another perched on the end of her nose, and yet a third pair hanging from a beaded thing around her neck.
“Why don’t you just go over there and tell her what you need to say?”
The great thing about my mother was that she didn’t beat around the bush. She said what she meant and meant what she said. It was also the thing I liked least about her. Subtlety was not in her vocabulary.
“She’s on a date,” I groused. I meant it to sound like I didn’t care, but it came out more like a petulant eight-year-old boy who didn’t get a popsicle.
Mom looked over her glasses at me, eyes shrewd, yet warm. “Then go over there and be the friend she needs as she gets ready. Vet the guy when he comes to pick her up. Be there for her, Boon. You’ve done it all your life. Why are you hesitating now?”
Well, fuck.
I sprang to my feet. “If I’m not back in an hour, say good night to Kinsley for me.”
Mom smiled and waved me off. Damn, I loved that woman.
She was right. Why couldn’t I be over there, showing Shae that her date choice sucked? Someone should be watching out for her, and I declared myself that someone. The geese chased me as I navigated between our properties. I ended up in a flat-out run to escape their honking and flapping. I swear, they had it out for me from day one.
I knocked on her door, irritated when she didn’t answer right away. Shit! Did I miss her date in the short few minutes I was talking to Mom?
“Shae?” I called through the door. “It’s Boon.”
She still didn’t answer.
I leaped off the porch, over the railing, and into her side yard, circumventing the house and peering into each window. Few lights were on, which made me think she’d left for the night. Panic spurred me on. What if she was on a date with a psychopath right now and I’d missed the small window of time to stop this tragedy from happening? I made it around back where she had a screened-in porch that had seen better days.
