Torn (11 page)

“You have to be super fit for
baseball, huh?”

“It helps,” he nodded, tipping
his head back to drizzle some water onto his lips before licking them. I
stared, wondering why I found the sight of his neck and exposed throat such a turn-on.
“I have some equipment in my garage and use the backyard to do circuit
training. I’m in pretty good shape.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, remembering his
half-naked body in the auto shop. He was in amazing shape. I blushed as he
chuckled, obviously reading my mind.

“Come on, another hour’s ride and
we can stop to eat at a section that has a good view of the lake.”

“Eat? I only brought an apple
with me.”

“I’ve got some stuff for us both.
Ready?”

“As long as you have a mask and
an oxygen tank in that magic backpack of yours too, then yeah, I’m ready,” I
quipped, making him let out that deep and sexy laugh of his. I giggled in
response, a pathetic girly noise that made me scrunch up my face in
embarrassment as I set off ahead of him. It made me work harder to prove I
wasn’t a flake, and we reached the spot he’d suggested in well under an hour. He
skidded to a halt beside me, looking suitably impressed. We leaned our bikes up
against a big boulder, which he easily scaled, and he bent down to hold out his
hand for me to grab. With my shorter stature, there was no way I was going to
scramble up there unaided, so I accepted his hand and laughed as he virtually
lifted me straight up and set me down next to him. The strength in his biceps
was amazing.

“Wow, great view,” I murmured,
soaking it up.

“Hmmm,” he responded, and the
rumbling noise coming from his chest made me look up, only to find him watching
me. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Me too,” he confirmed, the heat
in his green eyes telling me that he wasn’t just talking about food.
Did he
really react to me the way I did when I looked at him?
It hardly seemed
possible. We sat down next to each other and he pulled out some cartons of
apple juice from his backpack, followed by some wrapped-up subs. “Sorry it’s
not a fancy picnic or anything, and I didn’t know what you liked, so I went
with cheese and lettuce. I’m afraid they’re pretty hot from being in my backpack
all morning.”

“They’re great, really, thank you.”
I flashed him a reassuring smile. He seemed kind of nervous, like he was
worried about disappointing me, which seemed out of character for someone who
came across as confident as he did. We sat in silence again, drinking in the
view as we hastily ate. It was a comfortable silence though, the kind I had
with my parents or Liam, like there was no need to just fill the air with
random conversations for the sake of it. I liked that. Nate finished eating first
and stuck a straw in my juice carton before offering it to me. “I was really
sorry to hear about what happened to your dad.” I offered him a gentle smile,
wanting him to know I was being sincere. It worried me that he shouldered all
of that responsibility and no one took care of him.

“Thanks.” He frowned for a
moment, as if I’d taken him by surprise with the fact that I knew. “Josh told
you?”

“Yes. If you don’t already know,
he thinks the world of you.”

“Huh. Sometimes I wonder if he
does. I ride him and Billy kinda hard about their schoolwork. But they don't
have a dad to fall back on if they don’t get good grades and a decent job. If I
get drafted by a major league team and offered a decent contract, I could help
both of them out, but if I don’t … my salary won’t be enough to cover all of
us. I don’t want to see them living off welfare, or worse.”

“They respect you, Nate. Both of
them look up to you. I can tell by the way they talk about you and look at you.
You’re a father figure to them. I think it’s amazing what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t do anything special,”
he shrugged. “They needed me and I was there.” He stared out over the lake, his
eyes fixed on some distant point as he struggled to accept the compliment.

“You did plenty. Many guys wouldn’t
have taken on the role of a father at your age, not while holding down a job
and attending university
and
playing baseball. You’re kind of a
superhero in my eyes, and it’s not easy to impress my pops either.”

“A superhero, eh?” He snapped out
of his melancholy and gave me a wide smile. “
And
your dad approves of me?”

“I wouldn’t go
that
far,”
I laughed. “He doesn’t know you, but he let me come out with you for the day,
so you must have said something right, as that speaks volumes.”

“Was he tough on you with other
guys coming to take you out?”

“Other than my best friend, Liam,
no guys have been to my house to take me out,” I responded, dropping my chin to
my chest, embarrassed to admit it. I didn’t want to give Nate any excuse to run
from me, even if I wasn’t sure about dating him. I just needed more time before
I made up my mind. “You’re a first.”

“Tell me about this Liam,” he
demanded, sounding jealous, which I quite liked. I was also grateful for him
not focusing on the fact that I wasn’t exactly desirable, since I hadn’t had a lot
of guys beating down my door to take me out. I filled him in on my best friend,
including the fact that he was gay, which seemed to appease Nate’s jealousy
somewhat. He tucked the garbage into his backpack and helped me up. “Coyote,”
he stated in a low tone, his eyes fixed on a spot in the distance.

“Where?” I asked quietly, trying
to follow his eye-line but not seeing anything against the reddish-orange
desert landscape in front of me. It sure wasn’t lush and green around here,
like San Francisco. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“Here, stand in front of me,” he
ordered, so I did as I was told. My breath hitched as Nate tucked in behind me,
placing one hand on my stomach as he rested his chin on my shoulder and pointed
with his other hand. I had to force myself to look for the coyote, rather than
close my eyes and enjoy him being so close to me, holding me. “Right there, by
the tall cactus. See him?”

“I do,” I whispered in wonder, as
I followed his directions to find the animal sniffing the air around him, like
he was trying to decide which way to go to find his prey. I’d expected
something a little more majestic, like a wolf with a beautiful coat. In reality,
he was quite scrawny, with rusty colored legs, a short gray coat, and a dirty
white underbelly and throat. But he was still my first coyote. He turned and
looked in our direction, sizing us up, then decided we weren’t a threat, or
thankfully his next meal, and scurried off with his tail wedged firmly between
his back legs. “Wow.”

“Give me an answer, Sky,” Nate
breathed in my ear. He didn’t release his hold on me and wrapped his other arm
around my waist to pull me into a firm embrace, my back to his chest, which felt
so welcome. So wanted. So needed. “Go out with me.”

“Nate,” I sighed, a war waging
between my sensible head and my need for more of him.

“You obviously find me
attractive. We’ve had a great day, we get along well, why are you resisting?”

“I already told you, my studies
are important.”

“So are mine. If I can keep up my
grades on top of everything else I do, I don’t accept that excuse from you.”

“I don’t know you well enough,” I
protested. “I know your reputation. Maybe I just need more time to get to know
you, to trust that you won’t hurt me.”

“I’ve never intentionally hurt a
woman, Sky. It’s not in my genes to do it. So, it’s not a flat-out no, it’s a
maybe?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, not wanting
to close the door on this possibility quite yet. “I guess it’s a maybe.”

“I can live with maybe,” he
replied. He pressed his lips gently to my temple, making me close my eyes as I
quivered to feel his lingering touch. “God, I can’t wait to kiss you properly,”
he murmured, making my stomach somersault. I’d been fantasizing about the very
same thing since I’d met him. “Don’t make me wait too long. Come on, I’d better
get you back or your dad will never let me take you out for real one day. Plus,
I have some chores to do at home, some studying, and I need to check on my ma.”

“Is she ill?” I asked, not
wanting to let on that Josh had filled me in on what was obviously sensitive
and private information. Nate removed his arms from around me, and I missed the
closeness immediately.

“Kind of. She’s an alcoholic who
refuses treatment. Started when my dad died and hasn’t stopped since,” he
stated, sadness saturating his voice. I spun around to face him and he shrugged
with a tight-lipped smile. “Before you ask, I’ve tried keeping the house free
of alcohol, but that doesn’t work. She just sneaks out to try and get more on
credit. It’s the only time she leaves the house and Christ knows what trouble
she could get into when unsupervised.”

“I’m so sorry, Nate.”

“It is what it is. She’s an adult
so I can’t force her to go to rehab. I moved her money into a joint savings account
with me. It pays us an income, but we can’t touch the capital. Otherwise, if
she had access to it, she’d fritter it all away. All I can do is let her enjoy
the one thing that makes her happy, even if it’s slowly killing her. I just
need to make sure I’m there as much as possible to watch out for her and make
sure she doesn’t hurt herself, or anyone else, while she’s drunk.” I put both of
my small hands on his wide chest and stood on my tiptoes to kiss him on the
cheek. “What was that for?” he asked, looking surprised as I settled back down
on my heels.

“You’re amazing, looking out for
all these other people. I’m not sure if anyone ever takes the time to tell you
that, but you are.”

“I’ve been told I’m amazing in
bed, if that counts,” he grinned with a wink, breaking the moment, as if he
wasn’t used to getting a sincere compliment and needed some levity to ease the
situation.

“I don’t doubt it. From what I
heard from your four admirers last week, it sounds like you get plenty of
practice.” The thought made me shudder. I didn’t like thinking of him with
other women.

“Not lately, I’ve been positively
saintly,” he laughed, leaping off the rock and turning to lift his arms to help
me down. I shrugged on my backpack and took both of his hands, and he
controlled my descent as I slid down, his body to the front and the boulder
behind me. My feet connected with the rubble terrain with a thud. Damn it, I
was trapped, with the hottest man alive pressed up against me, and I was sure
that wasn’t a banana that I could suddenly feel pressed against my stomach. The
thought that he was hard, down there, made me physically tremble against him. I
was eye level with his throat, and I could see his chest was rising and falling
as rapidly as mine was. I could hear his deep breathing, feel his fingers
curled around my bare upper arms, my skin burning from where they radiated
heat. My body was aching to feel them move across my skin. To touch my painful
nipples, to skim my waist as he … “Sky,” he rasped. “You’re really testing my
patience. There’s only so long a guy like me can hold back.”

“I won’t be rushed into something
I’m not ready for, Nate.”
Did I really just say that?
After the dirty thoughts
I’d just been having? “We’ve only known each other for three days,” I reminded
him.

“I’ve known women for less than
three hours before we fucked,” he stated with a touch of pride, like that was
supposed to impress me. It did the complete opposite, and I shoved him hard,
catching him by surprise and forcing him to stumble backward.

“Well, stop pestering me then and
go hit on one of them. I’m sure there are more than enough who are willing to
spread their legs for you without you going to all this effort and ‘testing
your patience.’”

“Sky,” he called, as I grabbed my
bike and wheeled it over the rough ground toward the road.

“Don’t, Nate. Two minutes ago, I
thought you were amazing, and with one sentence you just completely obliterated
that feeling and made me think of you as a sex-obsessed, arrogant jerk, only
out for his next score.”

“I’m twenty, Sky,” he yelled as I
mounted my bike. “Like most guys my age, in fact scratch that, like
most
guys period, I’m sex-obsessed. It’s pretty much all we think about when we’re
not distracted with other things.”

“Fine, but you’re still an
arrogant jerk,” I shot back over my shoulder, as I headed out on my bike and
turned right.

“Wrong way,” he yelled, making me
brake and check the road was clear before I did a U-turn and biked over to the
other side. “I’m sorry, ok?”

“Whatever,” I tossed back,
furious with him. We’d been having a really nice day. I’d stood up for him with
Pops, I was even starting to believe he wasn’t the kind of guy Rosie had warned
me about, that maybe he was just misunderstood, and he had to go and shatter
that illusion. He was a shark and I was just a tiny fish that was about to be
swallowed whole by him.
What was I thinking, coming out with him for the
day?
That we could just be friends? A guy like Nate wasn’t friends with a
girl, unless he was getting some kind of sexual action in return. Something I
wasn’t ready to offer. I pedaled furiously, releasing some of my anger on the charcoal
road that I was eating up with my tires. My lungs were burning, the sun was out
in full force now, and I hadn’t taken the time to stop and refill my water
bottle before I’d stormed off to make sure he knew how upset I was.