I was amazed how fast we’d become a “we.”
“Slushies, duh,” Duke cracked a smile.
Nick reached his fist back to knuckle punch Duke, but the whole time, his eyes were on me, making my face feel incredibly hot.
3. Griff
“So, uh… what should we call you?” Nick asked them.
I shot him a look. That was the opposite of smooth. Buddy was majorly thrown off by her. I couldn’t blame him though. I kinda was too. She was beautiful. I felt my hands nervously shake when I walked up to her to take her brother’s bag from her shoulder. I mean, she probably could’ve held it, but it felt wrong to let her. She was so much smaller than I was… When I stood next to her, I think she only went up to my chest.
After she yelled at me for putting her brother in the box, I tried hard to ignore her… but I couldn’t do it. It was like a magnet was pulling me toward her, and every couple seconds, I found myself looking back in her direction… Seeing her close up only affirmed my first thoughts. She had a red-tipped nose from the cold that was lightly dotted with faint freckles that extended under her large brown eyes; her little brother on the other hand had a smattering of cute freckles all over his face. Her hair was hidden under a slouchy beanie, but from the pieces that fell around her face, you could tell it was long and in the dirty blonde territory.
I usually would’ve ignored Nick when he said we should pull over and chat with them… but in the back of my mind, I wanted to do the same thing, so it didn’t take much convincing for me to hit the brakes.
We weren’t around girls all that much. We had one year left of school and we were both completing it online. The program we signed up for was kind of a blow off. I slightly regretted not doing more research into better programs because ours was crazy boring… and well, the girl thing. The only other place we ever went was the rink for hockey, where we were surrounded by a bunch of dudes all the time. I know what you’re thinking- what about the figure skaters, bud? Well, besides the fact that our coaches always told us they were off-limits, figure skaters lived in a totally different world than us. The one time Nick tried to talk to one of them, she looked at him like he was gum stuck on the bottom of her shoe. He got shut down so hard that I felt second-hand embarrassment for him for like a whole week. Figure skaters were untouchable.
But looking at this girl with her dainty features and small stature… I could tell why guys lost their heads over girls and why coaches called them “career-enders.” She was like a fairy. She was delicate… pretty. She even smelled pretty. We didn’t have much delicateness or prettiness in our rough and tumble world.
“My name’s Savannah Callahan,” she said with a small, tight-lipped smile.
“And you, kid?” Nick nodded toward her brother.
“Duke,” he replied in a voice that told me he was trying to make it sound deeper than it actually was.
“So why were you guys walking?” Nick asked.
Nick was probably thinking the same thing I was– it didn’t seem safe for the two of them to be out walking when it was starting to get dark out. I was happy Nick asked it. He was the talker between the two of us, I was theobserver.
“We walk every day becausesomeone here…” Duke exaggerated the last two words, making it clear he was pinning it on Savannah.
I saw Savannah’s cheeks flame red in the rearview mirror, and she shoved him lightly.
“Someone here?” Nick smiled mischievously at the kid, hoping to dig the rest of that sentence out of him.
“She has a perfectly nice car to use in the garage, but she refuses to drive it.” Duke slumped in his seat and eyed Savannah warily.
Savannah sucked in a shocked breath that he spilled her dirt and shot him a mean look.
Nick laughed easily beside me. “Well, Griffy here won’t let me drive his truck anymore. A man tries one burnout, and he goes crazy.”
I sat a little straighter in my seat to look down at him, which caused him to sit up too. We were always doing that, not quite sure why. I think it had to do with the fact that as we grew up, there were times when each one of us would gain an inch on the other, then lose it. We were now the same size.
“This here’s my baby,” I explained, patting the steering wheel. “Saved up for forever to buy her and rebuilt a lot of her myself. Gotta be careful with her.”
“I just think driving is dangerous,” Savannah said curtly.
“It can be, sweetheart,” Nick said with a wink. “But danger can be fun.”
I felt a bit uneasy with his tone. He was definitely trying to move in on her with some flirting. Inside my head I screamed,don’t let him! Say something flirty to her too! Make Nick realize how much you like her!But any potential words were clogged in my throat. And the faster I tried to make my brain think of something to say, the more it shorted out.
Brain fart.
That’s what I calledit.
It happened to me on the ice sometimes too. I’d end up in a watching mode instead of attacking the puck.
I sneaked a look in the rearview mirror again, and I could tell Nick’s comments made her blush. Fuck.
