The dogs barked like mad, nearly deafening me in the enclosed space of the cab. I turned the truck off and freed them from their harnesses, and they shot out of the backseat to race circles around him.
“Nice to see you too, Jack!” I yelled over the racket.
He totally ignored me. “Do you want some…TREATS?”
The dogs fell over each other in their excitement.
I rolled my eyes and went around to the passenger side to join the fray. Jack and I were just pulling apart from a hug when a set of lights flashed through the trees, followed by the sound of tires crunching over gravel.
“That’ll be Ben,” Jack said. “New neighbor just down the hill. He bought the old Reynolds farmstead and is fixing it up. He’s from out west and doesn’t know anyone, so I figured I’d invite him over to meet you. You’re close in age. Maybe you can introduce him to the other youngins in town.”
I glanced toward the vehicle – a lifted Jeep – as it rolled to a stop and the lights cut out. “Sure. They could use some fresh meat. Gossip is running dry with everyone shut up from the storms.”
Jack snorted. “Well, go easy on him. Like I said, he’s new, and not used to small-town life. I think you’ll like him, though. He’s artsy-fartsy like yourself.”
I grinned. To Jack, artsy-fartsy could mean a couple of things: Ben was either an artist or a craftsman, or identified as a liberal. Which was funny, because while Jack identified as an independent, his political views were pretty “artsy-fartsy” by today’s standards.
Jack reached down to ruffle Sam’s ears. “Why don’t you wait here and introduce yourself? I’ll go get these monsters a treat and try to calm them down so they don’t maul the poor bastard as soon as they see him.”
It was my turn to snort. “Good luck with that.”
He disappeared inside the house with the dogs while I readied myself to play the part of Ambassador to the Youngins. I even prepared a brief speech:“Hi, I’m Ella. Welcome to the middle of absolutely nowhere. Next town is forty minutes thataway. Good news! They have a Walmart there. Oh, and did I mention that I’m one of only fifteen people near your approximate age in this area? Hope you like us, otherwise you’re shit out of luck.”
The vehicle door opened, and my nice, witty speech went up in flames, because a very broad shadow stepped out from it. Not down from it, like any normal-sized human would from a jacked-uppedfour-by-four, outfrom it. Like the Jeep had to be lifted to reach a height more comfortable for the driver.
He shut the door and ambled into the halo of golden porchlight, and my brain short-circuited for a second. Because I knew who he was: Benjamin Kakoa.BenjaminfreakingKakoa. Walking up to me. In my once-removed (possibly?) great uncle’s driveway.
To be clear, I didn’t know him,know him. I just recognized his face. And his hair. From television. And print ads. And the packaging my running shoes came in. Because he was a famous person. A very famous person.
Two years ago, he’d starred in sports gear commercials and repped luxury watch brands and had even been plastered across magazine pages in shampoo ads. He’d been one of the biggest football stars in the country. And then his older brother, Zach Kakoa, also a football pro, had suffered a seizure while home visiting family in their native Hawaii. He’d been driving at the time. With his wife and son in the car. Tragically, all three had succumbed to their injuries in the resulting crash.
Their deaths had shocked the sporting world, but that was nothing compared to what followed. During Zach’s autopsy, the coroner found significant scarring from past traumatic brain injuries, causedby his years of contact on the field. She ruled that these TBIs had been the cause of the seizure.
Ben quit the US Football League the day the findings were released. He was one of many young men who realized the money they were being paid wasn’t worth the true cost to themselves. But that wasn’t all Ben did. He became a vocal advocate for better safety gear in football, tougher rules that would help protect the players, and higher fines for illegal, dangerous tackles.
Instead of appearing in commercials for luxury brands, he now starred in PSAs paid for by his parents, who were the beneficiaries of Zach’s life insurance policy. They had joined the fight alongside Ben, dedicating Zach’s money to furthering the scientific study of brain injuries.
The last article I’d read about him said that he was out on the west coast battling the juggernaut that was the USFL. So what the hell was he doing in East Nowhere, Maine?
He strode closer, and my brain short-circuited for an entirely different reason this time, because, and I didn’t know how it was possible, he was somehow better looking in real life. I mean, he looked like a football player, sure – well over six feet tall, abnormally wide shoulders, long, heavily muscled arms and legs, an obscenely broad chest – but his face.
Yea gods.
It was his face that landed him those advertising contracts. His father was of Hawaiian and Samoan descent, and his mother was Swedish and Brazilian. He had light brown skin, pale green eyes, impeccable bone structure, arched brows, and a thick head of riotous curls that fell to his shoulders. In all the pictures and videos I’d seen him in, his face had been shaved clean. He wore a short, neatly trimmed beard now.
I needed to snap out of it and greet him, but the sight of him made me worry that if I opened my mouth, all that would come out was a lust-filled,“Hrrrrrrnnnnnn.” It had been way too long since I’d had sex, and I was starting to develop some troubling symptoms of my unintended abstinence.
No way in hell could I introduce him to anyone in town. First off, the last thing this place needed was to be invaded by a horde of paparazzi. Secondly, the women wouldmurdereach other over him.
Ben extended a hand toward me. “Hi. You’re Ella, right? Jack’s told me all about you.” His voice was also different from the videos: smoother, less stilted, maybe even a little deeper.
I put my hand in his. He had a firm grip, and though he was no doubt trying to be gentle, my knuckle joints still ground together. Thankfully, it was just the right amount of discomfort to jar me out of my lusty thoughts. “I am,” I told him. “And you must be the artsy-fartsy Ben that Jack said I would get along with.”
He released my hand and glanced toward the house. “Artsy-fartsy, huh?”
“I’m guessing you don’t consider yourself an artist?”
“I’m getting pretty good at woodworking, does that count?” he asked. A smile spread over his full lips as he turned back to me.
