“What do you want?” I’m careful to look at him with suspicion rather than awe.
His dimple reappears with his hasty laugh and he shakes his head, then looks away again. “Um,” he says with a nervous stutter that doesn’t match his confident persona in the least. His eyes dart around the parking lot like he’s looking for an escape, and he sighs before locking eyes with me again. His multitude of reactions confuses the hell out of me. He seems close to disgusted by my presence one minute, to practically running me down the next. I’m usually pretty good at reading people, but if I had to make an assumption about Holder based on the last two minutes alone, I’d have to say he suffers from split-personality disorder. His sudden shifts between flippant and intense are unnerving.
“This might sound lame,” he says. “But you look really familiar. Do you mind if I ask what your name is?”
Disappointment sets in as soon as the pick-up line escapes his lips. He’s one of those guys. You know. The incredibly gorgeous guys who can have anyone, anytime, anywhere and they know it? The guys that, all they have to do is flash a crooked smile or a dimple and ask a girl her name and she melts until she’s on her knees in front of him? The guys that spend their Saturday nights climbing through windows?
I’m highly disappointed. I roll my eyes and reach behind me, pulling on the door handle to my car. “I’ve got a boyfriend,” I lie. I spin around and open the door, then climb inside. When I reach to pull the door shut, I’m met with resistance when it refuses to budge. I look up to see his hand grasping the top of the car door, holding it open. There’s a hard desperation in his eyes that sends chills down my arms.
He looks at me and I get chills? Who the hell am I?
“Your name. That’s all I want.”
I debate on whether or not I should explain to him that my name isn’t going to help him in his stalking endeavors. I’m more than likely the only seventeen-year-old left in America without an online presence. With my grip still on the door handle, I discharge a warning shot with my glare. “Do you mind?” I say sharply, my eyes darting to the hand that’s preventing me from shutting my door. My eyes trail from his hand to the tattoo written in small script across his forearm.
Hopeless
I can’t help but laugh internally. I am obviously the target of Karma’s retaliation today. I’m finally introduced to the one guy that I find attractive, and he’s a high school dropout with the word hopeless tattooed on himself.
Now I’m irritated. I pull on the door one more time, but he doesn’t budge.
“Your name. Please.”
The desperate look in his eyes when he says please prompts a surprisingly sympathetic reaction from me, way out of left field.
“Sky,” I say abruptly, suddenly feeling compassion for the pain that is clearly masked behind those blue eyes of his. The ease at which I give in to his request based off of one look leaves me disappointed in myself. I let go of the door and crank my car.
“Sky,” he repeats to himself. He ponders this for a second, then shakes his head like I got the answer to his question wrong. “Are you sure?” He cocks his head at me.
Am I sure? Does he think I’m Shayna/Shayla and don’t even know my own name? I roll my eyes and shift in my seat, pulling my ID from my pocket. I hold it up to his face.
“Pretty sure I know my own name.” I begin to pull the ID back when he releases my door and grabs the ID out of my hand, bringing it in closer for inspection. He eyes it for a few seconds, then flicks it over in his fingers and hands it back to me.
“Sorry.” He takes a step away from my car. “My mistake.”
His expression is glossed over with hardness now and he watches me as I put my ID back into my pocket. I stare at him for a second, waiting for something more, but he just works his jaw back and forth while I put my seatbelt on.
He’s giving up on asking me out that easily? Seriously? I put my fingers on the door handle, expecting him to hold the door open again in order to spit out another lame pickup line. When that doesn’t happen and he steps back even further as I shut my door, eeriness consumes me. If he really didn’t follow me out here to ask me out, what the hell was this all about?
He runs his hand through his hair and mutters to himself, but I can’t hear what he says through the closed window. I throw the car in reverse and keep my eyes on him as I back out of the parking lot. He remains motionless, staring at me the entire time I pull away. When I’m heading in the opposite direction, I adjust the rearview mirror to get a last glance at him before exiting the parking lot. I watch as he turns to walk away, smashing his fist into the hood of a car.