My concentration might have wavered over the years, but the same couldn’t be said for my discipline.
Until now.
If I didn’t get my hands on Clarke soon, I was going to lose it.
And I wasn’t talking about the light, covert touches we’d exchanged on the bus or the “accidental” grazing of her thigh. Those were temporary fixes, Band-Aids if you would. No, I needed a handful of Clarke Myers, and I needed it now.
“You might want to stop looking at her like that.”
I turned toward Matty, who had apparently snuck up on me sometime between me perusing the snack aisle and watching Clarke like an obsessed stalker.
We’d stopped at the gas station twenty minutes ago to “stretch our legs,” according to Coach Ward. Personally, after catching the coach eyeing the back of the bus more than once, I figured it had more to do with giving our social media director a break from her nausea.
“Not sure what you mean.”
His pointed stare told me he knew that I was full of shit.
“It’s pretty obvious,” he said.
“What is?”
“That you want to swallow her whole. You’re looking at her like she’s Little Red Riding Hood.”
I guessed that made me the Big Bad Wolf.
“I take it that things went well the other night.”
Matty didn’t have to say it. We both knew he was talking about when Clarke and I hooked up in his apartment. He’d caught me mid-changing the sheets the next morning, after I’d called her a car back to Rose City.
“We’re keeping things casual,” I told him, tucking a couple packs of turkey jerky into my shopping basket. “It’s just temporary, until the season starts.”
He scoffed before adding a handful of sunflower seeds to my basket. “Yeah, okay.”
“We both agreed. Work comes first.”
“Sure.”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Keeping things casual is one thing. Keeping things casual with a woman like that?” He nodded his head toward Clarke. “Impossible.”
She looked so out of place in a gas station convenience store, somewhere outside of the Nevada desert, and yet completelyunbothered. I couldn’t look away as she chatted up the middle-aged cashier. It was probably nothing more than casual conversation, but with Clarke, that was all it took. The cashier’s eyes lit up with genuine interest, like he was hanging on her every word, and he smiled when she tilted her head back to let out a bellowing laugh.
Forget Mary. There’s something about Clarke.
Some effortless, hypnotic air about her that never failed to make somebody’s day a little bit brighter. Or the world a little bit better.
“Just be careful.” Matty clapped me on the shoulder.
“Look, dude, you don’t need to worry. She knows exactly what she signed up for.”
He looked me dead in the eye. “She’s not the one I’m worried about,” he said cryptically. “I’ll meet you back on the bus.”
My brow furrowed in confusion and maybe a hint of annoyance. Then again, it was hard to stay annoyed at someone with that dreamy drawl. Did I have a Southern accent kink?
“I’m not buying your seeds,” I said to his already retreating form.
“I gave you my apartment,” he called back. “You owe me sunflower seeds for life.”
