offered.
Mya could barely see him. Her bangs covered her eyes, but from what little she could make out, he looked somewhat familiar. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to figure out where she’d met him before.
“Me? A threat? To whom?” she asked.
“To me?”
“To you! Somehow I think it’s the other way around.”
“Why? I wasn’t the one who was peeking in windows. They have laws for that you know.”
He had a point, but Mya was never going to admit she was actually looking for her mother in that junk heap.
The rain eased to a drizzle, and when Mya finally got a good look at him he was almost cute, with golden-chestnut hair—somewhat curly—and piercing gray-green eyes and a slight grin on his lips. He had a fairly large nose with a slight roundness to the tip, but it fit his boyish face, and if he were cleaned up, he might actually be handsome…in that nerdy, street vendor sort of way. The man desperately needed a shave. Not that facial hair was bad. As a matter of fact, it was coming back in, but it had to be kept neat under the chin. His wasn’t. And his hair could have used a trim, much too long, with ringlets surrounding his face and ears. Of course, he had an amazing build under that wrinkled blue parka he wore, but who’s looking.
SO THE GUY was a hot nerd. It’s not like she was going to start dancing around a pole or anything. Oh wait, she didn’t have a pole…yet.
“I wasn’t peeking in your window,” Mya corrected.
“Oh?” He stood there staring at her from his six-foot-something vantage point, his arms folded up tight across his chest. Glaring.
All right, so she had a thing for tall guys, seeing as how she was a mighty five foot five, but they had to be tall, cool guys, and this one totally lacked the cool part. He would simply never do.
She immediately stopped herself from staring. “Well, all right. Maybe I was, but not the way you mean. I was merely trying to see who was inside.”
“And the reason being?”
Did he ever stop with the questions?
He was enough to infuriate her normally calm disposition. She folded her arms across her chest as well.
“You have my name taped to your window. I suspect you were mistakenly sent here by my mother.”
“Holy shit! Mya? Mya Strano? It’s me. Eric. Franko’s son. Eric Baldini. Don’t you remember me?”
That evil little boy had grown up, and now he drove a piece of junk and owned a killer dog and as incredible as it seemed, he was there to give her a ride home.
Holy shit!
2
SO THERE THEY STOOD , arms locked around each other like they were old friends, buddies, soul mates or even lovers. To the world humming around them they were just another kissing couple at the airport, with one of them either going or coming.
However, Mya had a different take on the whole thing. Hers was more of the startled variety. One of those times when out of a crowd of people a stranger calls out your name and you try your best to recognize this person who says he or she knows you.
Okay, it wasn’t quite like that, but it should have been for all the contact they’d had over the years. Let’s see, the last real memory Mya had of Eric, they were seven years old and he had just thrown a huge bucket of water over her sand castle, completely destroying it, on a beach in Malibu. Of course, she had retaliated by wrecking his sand castle by simply bulldozing over it with her sweet little feet.
Yes, and over the years she had seen pictures of him at various stages of growth and accomplishments, but who can keep up with all that growing and changing? She was too busy with her own hormones and accolades to worry about Eric’s, the boy who tormented her and she loved to torment back.
Eric had moved to Georgia, now the plates make sense, with his mother after his dad and mom had divorced. Even when it had come time to say goodbye to him, which was actually at this very airport, she had stuck out her tongue in defiance. No hugging. No tears. Not even a handshake. Not that seven-year-olds are known for shaking hands, but they could have done something. He could have done something. They never even touched…of course, there was that time out by the green shed when they were playing double-dare, but she didn’t want to think about that now. She was too busy hugging a childhood memory.
Oh wait, she suddenly remembered that they did hold hands in the airport, for a moment, but that didn’t count. They were merely both playing with his ticket when their hands touched. A natural accident.
She had been silly with joy when he moved away. At least for the first few weeks. Then she had missed their arguments and missed having him around to play with. She’d gotten used to all that bickering, all that toy-throwing. She had even tried to convince her mom to let Eric come and live with them, but Eric’s mom wouldn’t let him even fly out to visit his dad.
Mya didn’t know what to say, something that absolutely, positively never happened to her. Even when she was born, her mother said she came out of the womb mumbling and cooing. Yet there she was in the arms of Eric Baldini, who, for some odd reason, made her pulse quicken, and for a brief moment, seemed enormously sexy.
How odd.
“I…I need my shoes,” she mumbled once he let go of their embrace.
He leaned over and her world spun a little as she watched him. Almost as if she’d just been passionately kissed. She took a step back and tripped over her own feet and fell down again, hard on the cement. Now her butt hurt and the fall caused her to bite her own lip. This falling thing was getting entirely too wacky.
When she looked up at him, the rain had completely stopped and the sun surrounded his body, making him appear almost angelic. She half expected to hear birds chirping and a choir singing, but instead a cop said, “There’s no loitering. You’ll have to move on.”
Eric held out his hand. This time she took it. He held her shoes in his other hand. “We better get out of here before he has us towed away. You’re bleeding.” He touched her lip and a tingle shot through her. She sucked her bottom lip inside her mouth and tasted her own salty blood.
“Is it bad?” she asked looking into his eyes.
“No. It stopped.” He smiled. Definitely less nerdy when he smiled. He’d actually grown up into a really handsome man.
Who knew?
“Where’s your stuff?” he asked looking back toward the doors.
An absolute terror swept over her as she slipped her soaking wet shoes on her soaking wet feet. “You don’t actually expect me to get in that thing with that crazed dog and that obnoxious smell do you? And just what is that smell, anyway?”
He opened his mouth.
She held up her hand. “Wait. I don’t want to know. The dog is bad enough.”
“Voodoo? He’s a puppy dog once you get to know him.”
The
