He turned his head, already smiling. “I’m trying to quit it,” he was saying. “But Rosie makes the best bacon in the whole—”
Our eyes met, the frozen moment clashed, and if I hadn’t already set the plates of food down, I would have dropped them. Levi Cole. As I lived and breathed.
4
Hide and Secrets
My heart kicked in my chest, before it jumped into an all-out sprint. Could he see how nervous I was? How freaked out?
Could he see the panic bubbling inside of me, about to spill everywhere?
Goddamn, his eyes. Impossibly green. Too green. Not hidden well enough beneath thick black lashes.
“Ruby Dawson?” He laughed, his eyebrows scrunched over his nose. “Is that you?”
I took a step back, my feet readying to run. “Levi.”
His mouth split in that wide, confident grin I remembered from my childhood. “Hi.” His gaze dropped, sweeping the length of me. “Wow, you look… You haven’t changed.”
And just like that, my hackles rose. The fear washed away by the poignant irritation that had existed between us since childhood. I let my eyes travel over him in retaliation.
He was sitting down so it was hard to take in his full measure, but what I did see, only further annoyed me. Time had been kind to him. Too kind.
In high school he’d been one of the school’s best athletes, not to mention the wealthiest kid in the county. He’d been tall and lean, his muscles sharply cut against his long limbs. And his clothes were always the favorite brands worn by our generation. He’d walked around school like a Hollister ad. I always expected beach volleyball games to break out in his presence. Or cliff jumping off gigantic waterfalls that didn’t exist in all of Nebraska.
It was like wherever he was, Jeeps full of teenagers would arrive with all the makings for beach bonfires and s’mores.
Now, seven years later, he’d changed. But not in a fair way.
His lean build had filled out, bulking out his arms and legs, making him tall and decidedly muscly. His hair had been long and floppy in high school, now it was shaved close to his head, a little longer on top. His clothes were not obvious or designer-y. He wore faded jeans and a navy-blue t-shirt with some kind of brewery logo on it. But they fit him perfectly—at least the t-shirt that clung to his arms and broad torso. His tanned arms, corded and practically rippling, exposed indecently.
Not that forearms and the beginning section of biceps were indecent per se. And yet, his were somehow. On him it was too much skin. I shifted back and forth on my feet, hot and uncomfortable and wishing there was a rock to crawl under.
God, why couldn’t he have come home with warts and looking haggard?
That would have at least made up for the hell he put me through in high school.
You haven’t changed. Really? I hadn’t seen him in seven years and that’s what he says to me?
I had a baby while he was gone. My hips were at least three times wider than the last time he saw me. And my boobs! Also bigger.
I licked dry lips and gave him a sugary smile. “Neither have you.”
He leaned back in the booth, all casual and cocky, the same kid that thought he was king of this town. “Now why does that sound like an insult coming from you?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. Haven’t seen you in forever, Levi. I have no reason to insult you.”
“I’d believe that coming from anybody but you, Little Ruby Dawson,” he said, unable to resist a smirk.
A shiver rolled down my spine and I recognized it as rage. This was the nickname he’d given me in high school. It didn’t sound that insulting, until one realized that he’d started calling me it our freshman year of high school when the drama department had been performing Annie. It had been his way of calling me Little Orphan Annie.
It got even worse when he started asking if he could by my Daddy Warbucks. Not that he was actually interested in me. He just liked to tease me. And at that time, coming from someone as popular as Levi Cole, those kinds of comments were enough to make me want to forsake high school until the end of time.
Or at least run away from Clark City and never come back.
It would take a lot more than Annie jokes to get under my skin these days though. “Can I get you anything else, Levi?”
My job. I had to do my job. That’s all. I just had to finish helping Levi get settled and I could escape to the kitchen and wait out him finishing his breakfast in peace.
