Something in the Way (Something in the Way #1)(4)

He studied me a few seconds and then nodded toward my parents’ house. “Was that your sister yesterday?”

Of course he wanted to know about Tiffany. It should’ve occurred to me earlier that she was the reason he’d talked to me, but for some reason it hadn’t. Even though I was pretty sure he was around Tiffany’s age, he seemed more mature.

I nodded. “Tiffany. She’ll probably go out with you.”

“Yeah? How do you know?”

“She goes out with lots of guys.”

His heavy black brows fell. “What do you know about who she goes out with?”

“She tells me.”

“Tells you what?”

“About who she likes and stuff.”

“And stuff.” With a grunt, he reached into his back pocket, took out another cigarette, and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it. “You should stay out of your sister’s business.”

I jutted my chin out. He sounded just like my dad, except when Dad said it, it was an order, not a suggestion. Dad made Tiffany’s business sound filthy, like I might go looking for it in the garbage cans out back.

“Look at that.” The cigarette sagged from between his lips as he glanced at my feet. “You dropped it again.”

I followed his eyes to where my bracelet had fallen in the dirt. Damn. I picked it up and tried again to get it back on.

“Come over here,” he said. “Let me do that.”

I breathed through my mouth. “What?”

“The clasp,” he said.

My heart skipped as he beckoned me. I took a few tentative steps and held out my arm, the chain dangling precariously. He moved the unlit cigarette from his mouth to behind his ear, then leaned forward and turned my forearm face-up. He could crush my wrist with one hand, I was sure of it. It took him several tries to even get the two ends between his huge fingers. He squinted, muttering under his breath. His callused palms brushed over the thin skin of my wrist until goosebumps traveled up my arm and my insides tightened up. The ends slipped from between his fingers over and over.

His knee brushed my ribs, and I flinched.

“Sorry,” he said.

I was pretty sure with a little more focus, I’d have better luck with the bracelet than he was having, but I didn’t want to stop him. An unfamiliar tingle made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It wasn’t as if I’d never had a crush. Like my friends, I blushed when a senior said hi in the hall. I got giddy when someone like Corbin Swenson, the most popular boy in school, acknowledged our table in the cafeteria. But the boys at school were just that—boys. Tiffany liked to tear out pictures of celebrities and tape them to her wall—Andrew Keegan, Luke Perry, Kurt Cobain—and this man was as wall-worthy as he was sweaty, dusty, and quiet.

He grasped me, his tanned hand covering more than half of my white forearm. “Hold still.”

Men of his age or size were never this close to me. I hadn’t moved; I was certain of it.

Finally, he got the two pieces to connect. “How’s that?”

I gave my wrist a shake to make sure the bracelet was secure. “Good, I think.”

“You walk home from school a lot?”

“What?”

He nodded at my backpack. “Didn’t you walk?”

“Today was the first time.”

He tilted his head back, looking down his nose at me. “Probably shouldn’t be walking home alone. Or at all, maybe.”

“It’s not far. I don’t have my license yet.”

He knocked the heel of his boot against the brick, looking anywhere but at me. “But you’re old enough?”

I almost asked how old he thought I was so I could tack “what about you?” on to the end, but what if he guessed too young? I suddenly regretted my t-shirt, high-necked and white cotton with a round, yellow happy face in the center. I’d bought it from a record store, so it wasn’t really childish, unless, I realized, a child was wearing it. On Tiffany, it would look cool, but I was flat-chested. Suddenly, a year seemed like a lifetime to wait for breasts.

“I’m old enough . . .” I said. He looked as though he expected me to continue. “I’m sixteen, but I have to get a certain number of behind-the-wheel hours with my parents.” Tiffany was a licensed driver and could take me, but she’d had two speeding tickets and a fender bender in the last year alone. My dad would never allow her to teach me. I shifted feet. “We started, but I haven’t had time lately.”

“You haven’t? Or your parents?”

I went to answer but stopped. Dad usually worked until past seven. Mom was probably showing houses or at some meeting. I had time now, but there were a hundred other things I should be doing, like reading from the list, studying for SATs, or volunteering. “We’ve all got stuff going on.”

“What keeps a sixteen-year-old so busy?”

“College prep,” I said in the same tone Tiff said duh. “Do you go to school?”

“At night.”

“Oh. Like community college?”

“Yeah.” He let his posture fall and laced his hands between his knees. “You sure you don’t want to get up here? That backpack’s as big as you.”

I looked around, as if someone might be watching. “I don’t think I can.”