Into Your Arms (Squad Stories #1)(14)

"You know nothing about me, Rhett Miller," I say, my voice gasping a little bit. I should just stop talking to him. There is no way for this conversation to end well.

"I don't know a whole lot about you, Freya Carmichael, but I'd like to. If you'd let me." If I'd let him. I don't want Rhett to get to know me. I don't want to get to know him. I don't want any of this. I just want everyone to leave me alone. Just let me go to school, let me cheer, and leave me alone.

"Okay, fine. That's fine. I'll just shut up." I risk a glance at him, and he gives me a grin that's so boyish and sweet that I nearly go flying and end up just stumbling a little. In true fashion, Rhett catches my arm and helps me stay upright. I mumble a thank you and he nods.

We continue running together, and he keeps pace with me, even up the killer hill at the very end that makes me want to lie down and die every time I run it. He doesn't say anything else, just sort of lumbers along beside me, a large and annoying presence. When we finally get back to the field house, I lean over, my hands on my knees to calm my heart rate.

"Here," a deep voice says and a bottle of water appears in front of me. I look over and glare.

"Where did you get that?" He just continues to hold the bottle out to me. The sun is almost completely up, and the light is really doing him a lot of favors. The slight sheen of sweat on his forehead glows, and his hair is all tossed around from the run. His eyes are bright, and I'm trying to not think about any of it.

I take the bottle from him. It's cold, and I realize he must have gotten it from the machine just inside the door of the field house while I was dying from the run.



       
         
       
        

"Thanks," I say, and unscrew the cap. I almost consider pouring the water over my head, but I resist. Good thing Rhett has already seen me at my sweatiest. Not that I care if he sees me when I'm not looking my best, of course.

I drain half the bottle as he watches.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

He just smirks and shakes his head.

"You are so irritating," I say, turning my back on him and guzzling down the rest of the water. I really need a shower and a nap right now.

"I'm hungry. You wanna go get some pancakes?" I swivel back around slowly.

"Huh?"

"Do you wanna go get some pancakes? Or French toast? Or eggs Benedict?" He wipes some sweat off his forehead with his shirt and I try (and fail) not to look at the little slice of abs that he reveals when he lifts his shirt. I should be used to seeing him without a shirt by now. He takes it off all the time during practice. Sometimes, I think, just to torture me. I mean, if his bod wasn't enough, those damn tattoos.

I've gotten a good look at them by now and figured out they're all nature related. Clouds and oceans and trees. His body is like a giant tribute to Ansel Adams or something. I wonder if any of it has some personal significance. They must, right? Most people don't permanently ink their body with pictures that aren't significant. But I'd rather eat my cheer shoes after a three-hour practice than ask him.

"Pancakes?" I say as if I've never heard the word before.

"Yeah, pancakes. Don't you crave carbs after a run?" Well, yeah, I do, but I'd rather enjoy them in the privacy of my own home, at my own table with my own syrup. The real stuff. Not that watered-down crap they serve. Even when I'd been living in Texas, I'd always had to get authentic maple syrup. Now that I'm in Maine, it's a lot easier, which is one of the only itty-bitty perks of living here. I haven't been through the winter yet, so I'll probably take that back in the middle of January.

I narrow my eyes at him and am about to say no when my traitorous stomach growls. He laughs, a deep, rich sound that makes tingles break out in my body.

"I'll take that as a yes?" he says, walking backward to the parking lot, tilting his head to the side. I'm about to tell him that I'm not going to eat with him when another word comes out of my mouth.

"Fine."

Wait, what? That's the opposite of what I meant to say. Literally. But then my feet are carrying me toward him, and the next thing I know I'm sitting in Rhett Miller's truck and he's humming along with the radio as we head toward a diner just off campus.

I'd figured he would drive a truck, as a lot of guys in Maine have a tendency to do, but I didn't expect it to be so clean and smell fresh. Like pine instead of stale cigarettes and old fast-food grease. I keep expecting to find something about Rhett that totally turns me off, but it hasn't happened yet and that's really pissing me off. I just end up cataloging his many attractive qualities and wanting to punch myself in the brain.