ALL THE RAGE (writer: T.M. Frazier)(23)

I had the sudden urge to push him back into the pool. “I’ll clean this dump. I’ll cook, although I’m better at baking.” I stepped up behind his chair and wheeled him into the kitchen to show him how great I could be at the whole assisting him thing. “I tell you what, I’ll even make sure you don’t drown in the pool for the duration of the summer, if that helps you out any.”

“You running away from something, Rage?” Nolan asked, catching me off guard.

“No, I stopped running a long time ago.”

Nolan was quiet for a moment. I came around to the front of his chair and he extended his hand out to me. “Well, then. I guess it’s nice to meet you, Rage-not-your-real-name, germaphobe-hypochondriac with anger issues, no last name, not running from anything anymore. I’m Nolan, recently injured, ex-f*ck buddy decided to become a cum dumpster online, lost my hockey scholarship, wallowing in self pity, alcohol most certainly is a food group, Archer.”

I stared down at his hand like he was wielding a knife. Nolan reached forward like he was going to touch me and I jumped back. “Easy there, tiger,” he said, unclipping the small plastic bottle of hand sanitizer from the strap of my bag, generously applying it to his palms and between his fingers.

Why isn’t he telling me to get the f*ck out after all I’d just said? Maybe he’s more demented than I am.

Probably not.

“Let’s try this again,” Nolan said, extending his newly sanitized hand. “I’m Nolan and everything I just said before.”

My stomach flipped. I was about to change my mind and tell him to forget everything I’d just said and leave when he said, “Go ahead, shake my hand, germaphobe girl,” he challenged. Whispering, “I dare you.”

Challenge accepted.

Grabbing his outstretched hand I’d fully intending to shake it quickly and take a step back. But when my palm met the heat of his and his large fingers covered my hand, I lingered for a moment too long. I made a move to pull away, but he clutched my hand tighter, pulling me down so my nose was almost touching his. When he whispered to me again, his cool breath blew against my cheek. His words, so low and quiet they were almost inaudible.

Almost.

Lucky for me I had excellent hearing.

Unlucky more like it.

He released my hand suddenly and I stumbled back. Turning away I again moved over to the sliding glass doors and focused my attentions out the window. Nolan chuckled, following me across the room. I rubbed my thumb over my palm, which was still warm from his touch. The air conditioning must have been as broken as the rest of the house because the room grew impossibly warm.

I should probably check my temperature.

Darkness encroached on the orange sky as the moon and sun changed shifts. This is just a job. A job just like any other. You always finish your jobs. You can do this.

I wasn’t going to let anything distract me from the task at hand, not even the words Nolan whispered to me. The words that left goose-bumps scattered across my skin and my words stuck in my throat. Maybe I’d heard him wrong.

But I knew I hadn’t.

“It’s cute how you thought I was actually going to let you go.”

Smoke had been wrong about him.

Nolan Archer was anything but ordinary.





CHAPTER TEN




Rage


“That’s not a bike,” Nolan announced from the doorway of the open front door. I’d just parked Delilah next to his Jeep. I smacked a mosquito that landed on my neck and reminded myself to go buy bug spray and citronella candles and maybe some of those zapper things that make the loud noise when it electrocutes mosquitos. Mosquitos were responsible for the plague. Or maybe that was rats. Either way, the mosquitos had to go.

Yes. A zapper was a must.

“Well, it’s my version of a bike. Delilah gets me from A to B just fine,” I said, shaking the dead mosquito carcass off the palm of my hand like it was a pit-bull locked on my wrist.

“Delilah?” Nolan asked in amusement, his eyes dancing as he watched me win the battle over the blood sucker.

“Yes, Delilah. Don’t judge her, you don’t even know her. Are you some big bad bike aficionado or something?” I asked, brushing a pine needle off the back fender of my scooter.

Nolan grabbed the doorframe and lifted himself slightly out of his chair so he could reach the light switch. He pointed down to the area under the house covered with cheap wooden lattice and overgrown vines that was now bathed in light before sitting back down. “Go see for yourself,” he said smugly.

Peering through the lattice and through the spider webs that were thankfully on the other side of it, there, under the house, in a makeshift storage area, next to the molded and decrepit pool toys and rusted fishing poles was the outline of a motorcycle, covered in a grey, thin spandex type material. “Hooray for you, you have a bike.” I said, turning and walking back up the ramp. “Is that supposed to impress me? I mean, the good thing is that it looks like a Harley, so at least it’s not a * bike. But I’m letting you know right now if you’ve got a Honda or a crotch rocket under there that I can’t stay here and our deal is off.”

Nolan smiled as I pushed on his chair, rolling him farther into the house so I could make my way back inside. “Then I guess our deal is still on because that, young lady, is a Fat Boy.” He paused and looked at me like he was expecting something. “I take it from your complete lack of enthusiasm that you’re still not impressed.”