Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(102)
The sun gleamed off his naked back, his head invisible beneath the hood. Tattoos covered his arms, and part of his back, but didn’t take away from the smooth, bronzed perfection that was his body. I gave myself a good mental shake.
“Doesn’t the man own a damn shirt?” I muttered with a huff.
“Dear God, I hope not,” Ella said on a sigh, fanning herself with her hand. Colt stood up at that moment, wiping his hands on a towel hooked through one of the belt loops on his jeans that hung dangerously low on his narrow hips. He ran his hand through his messy, dark hair, completely unaware that he was being gawked at by two girls. “That man is so hot it hurts to look at him sometimes.”
“How has he been the last two years?” I asked, trying my best to hide my genuine concern. I really didn’t know him at all, but I’d lived beside him for so long it kind of felt like I did. When we were really young he used to say hi to me, and then as we got older it had just been a nod in my direction. I always wondered if that was because I never said hi back and he had just given up, or if he had just gotten too cool to say hello to the weird art girl that lived next door.
By the last year that I was here before leaving for school, it had turned into nothing at all. I would see him out of the corner of my eye when I’d get home and walk up the path to my front door. I knew he’d see me too, but he’d just stopped acknowledging me all together. It had hurt. I don’t know why, considering he owed me nothing.
“He runs with a pretty bad crowd,” Ella was saying. “Reagan and all the girls flirt with him endlessly, it’s kind of disgusting.” I turned my head to look at her. “No, don’t worry, I never flirted with him. One, I know he’s your soul mate and I would never do that to you. And two, he kind of scares me.”
Another boy walked out of the garage, his voice calling out to Colt and causing him to turn so I could finally see his face. It was still perfect. The same sharp lines that made my fingers itch to paint him. The same perfect lips that begged me to capture them on canvas. And the same haunting grey eyes that were almost silver. The ones that I had seen in my dreams more times than I could count.
“Now that one I am definitely not scared of,” Ella said, growling. Wait. Did she just growl?
“What are you? A cougar now?”
She laughed. “That, my absent friend, is Colt’s best friend, Rannon. Also known as my future husband.” I observed the other boy, taking in his bleached out hair that was almost white, the contrast to his golden skin making it actually look good. It was shaved short on the sides but longer on the top, swept back off his face. Clearly it was a styled look and yet he carried it off as though he couldn’t care less how he looked. His face was all angles from what I could see, but I could definitely understand why Ella was attracted to him.
“Is that right?”
“Yup!” she said happily. “Isn’t it perfect? We’re going to marry BFFs.”
“Your craziness has developed tenfold since I’ve been away.”
“I know.” She laughed again.
I watched the two boys as they talked, gesturing to the car’s engine now and again. I could just make out the silver gleam of the lip ring at the corner of Colt’s mouth. It should have been a travesty, piercing something that perfect, but somehow the jewellery just made it better.
“So this Rannon guy, you talk to him at all at school?”
She snorted. “As if. Like I said, your man down there scares me, and so do most of his friends. But I still think he’s the one. I just have to work up the courage to make him realize I exist.”
“Well don’t ask me for any advice with that one,” I muttered, watching them outside. “I’m pretty sure I’m the choir you’re preaching to.”
“Maybe that should be our goal this summer,” Ella said, clapping her hands. “Operation ‘Make the Bad Boys Notice Us’.”
“Uh, no. I’m still the freak, remember? Just because you’ve become Miss Popular, doesn’t mean I have. If he hooks up with those kinds of girls, there’s no way he’d give me the time of day.”
“Pffff, girl please. You are a hundred times prettier than Reagan and her zombie posse.”
I self-consciously pulled at the ends of my plain brown hair that I hadn’t cut in years and probably should have because all it did was hang in waves down my back. Everyone always said I had nice eyes, but I always found them dull. They weren’t the bright, vibrant green of fresh grass or an emerald like I would have wanted. No, they were too pale to be beautiful. And I always hated the smattering of freckles across my nose that seemed to pop out more in the summer when I’d been in the sun too much.
“Stop it,” Ella said, smacking my hand. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, and trust me you’re gorgeous. Guys always notice you. You just don’t notice them back.”
I snorted, biting back my response of ‘you have to say that, you’re my best friend’ because I knew that would only piss her off more. The boys were both bent over the engine now. We watched them in rapt silence. It occurred to me that what we were doing was seriously creepy and probably illegal in most places, but I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away.
Suddenly Miley Cyrus’ voice filled my bedroom, her song Can’t Stop blaring. I looked around frantically like an atom bomb was about to go off as Ella walked calmly over to her purse and pulled out her phone. She looked over at my stunned face.