And I’m left wondering why those words didn’t sound like a threat.
They sounded like an invitation.
6
BLOSSOM
It’s well past midnight,but I can’t sleep. The woods call to me.
I slip out from under the covers in my childhood bedroom, grab a blanket off the foot of the bed, and wrap it around my shoulders as I tiptoe downstairs to keep from waking Papa. Just because I can’t get any sleep doesn’t mean he should suffer and be drowsy tomorrow.
I need to rest,I remind myself.How else am I going to beat Manny?
The memory of his face from the corn maze comes back to me, and I allow myself a grin as I shuffle through the dark kitchen. The werewolf never should have doubted my devious nature.
The night air is cool against my bare skin, smelling of freshly fallen leaves and carrying the sounds of bats chirping, bugs humming, and the occasional hoot of an owl. Papa has cushy chairs set up on the screened-in porch, but I don’t settle in one. The restless energy that has kept me awake draws me through the screen door and across the yard, toward the tree line.
Halfway there, I spy a shadowy form leaning against the thick trunk of a towering oak.
“Manny,” I greet him, knowing immediately who the nighttime visitor is. “You’re being a major creep. Do you lurk like this all the time?”
He lets out a deep, rumbling chuckle that makes me aware I’m not wearing a bra under my T-shirt. I pull my blanket tighter around my shoulders.
“What can I say? I’m a creature of the night.” The last word rides a low growl.
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
“No.” The shadows hide his eyes, but I still feel his gaze on me. “I know I can’t scare you. Not that I’d ever want to.”
I scoff, hiking the blanket higher to disguise the way my body shivers in response to him. “Why are you here? Missing your running buddy?”
The wolf tilts his head, as if confused.
I roll my eyes. “You and Heather might have thought you were being stealthy, but I always knew when she sneaked out to meet you in the woods. I used to think you were hooking up.” I fight a smile at his grimace. “But after she came out, I realized you all must have just been enjoying the night together. Going for a run.”
And damn if I wasn’t wildly jealous of them. From my window, I’d watch Heather shimmy down her trellis, dressed in black and wearing her sneakers. When she reached the ground, my sister would sprint across the yard to the edge of the forest, where a wolf awaited her.
I wanted to follow them. The need to be free in the forest was a painful song in my body.
And I wanted to have a handsome werewolf waiting for me.
I wanted Manny.
But I didn’t get to have him or to sprint through the woods with my sister at my side. Back then, Heather babied me and would have sent me back to the house like a misbehaving child. And Manny was always a surly beast to me.
No one invited me on secret nightly excursions.
So, I stayed in my room and tried to stifle my envy.
“We didn’t go running,” he says, surprising me. “Not together anyway. Heather is more of a climber. She’d scale some tall tree to study the stars, and I’d chase some unlucky rodent.”
They never ran together? Apparently, my imagination got away from me. That seems to happen a lot around Manny Ramirez.
“If you want to go for a run,” he says, “let’s go for a run.”
My body sways toward the trees, ready to take him up on his offer. My mind holds me back.
“Why? So you can prove you would’ve beaten me in the maze today if I hadn’t tied you up?”
