Had he felt it too? Had he noticed me staring at his mouth? Did he care?
I raised an eyebrow and waited for him to kick into gear because what else could I do? Walk back up to him and shake him? If I did that I ran the danger of doing something silly and I didn’t need to do silly things. Not now.
“Right. First up is Nim. He’d ordered two boxes. Then Martha’s with one. And Carson’s Grill, also one.”
“Perfect,” I said and picked up a box.
I spun around and headed toward Nimit’s Essentials, ignoring Dare’s complaints about not walking too far away from him and needing his help to carry it.
I was no weakling. I could do this. It was an easy job. Dare had no idea how hard it was to carry a twenty-pound bag of flour without breaking it, so I wasn’t too worried about carrying a box.
Yet the closer I got to the waterfront, to the remnants of my truck, to civilization, the wheezier I got. I tried to push through it, to ignore it, but by the time I reached Nim’s store I was gasping for air. It wasn’t the weight that got me, it was my own fear of being so exposed.
Dare caught up with me with his own box and immediately opened the door, disposing of his box before taking mine. I took an instinctive step back and looked around me feeling even more vulnerable than before.
I watched the people walking around and searched their faces, looking for any malice.
“Zach? What’s up?” Dare asked.
I snapped my attention back to him and dismissed his concern with a smile.
“Sorry. I was daydreaming for a second. I’ll go get the next delivery,” I said but I didn’t manage to make it two steps away from him and Nim’s front door when Dare pulled me back.
“Why don’t I do the carrying and you do the following?” he said.
I shook my head.
“You’ve just gotten better from a nasty virus. I’m not going to let you do all the heavy lifting.”
He didn’t reply. He just raised his eyebrow as if he was challenging me to stop him and I pouted.
“I’m not a princess, you know,” I mumbled a few minutes later when we were walking toward Martha’s store, me empty-handed, of course.
“Never said you were.” He smirked.
“No, because you won’t let me carry anything. I’m just saying. I’m not weak.”
He stopped.
“And you think princesses are weak? That’s not very feminist of you.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes.
“That’s not what I meant,” I groaned. “I’m just saying…I can do my share of work.”
Dare shrugged and picked up the pace again.
“I know you can. You have been for the past week. So, think of this as your vacation.”
I wanted to bite back, to retort with something clever or cute, but I caught something from the corner of my eye, and I didn’t have the energy to think of anything beyond finding out what that something was.
I had hoped being indoors would help, but even when we walked into Martha’s I felt unsettled. I couldn’t see who was behind every row of the store, or how many people could see me from outside, if anyone was staring.
God. Keep it together, Zach. Keep it the fuck together.
I couldn’t let Dare see me like that. Hell, I couldn’t let myselfbelike that. This was what I wanted. I’d wanted to come here, back to where the people were. Back to my old life.
I can’t help it that my old life is haunted by Victor though.
