CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)(27)
I tossed my hair and crossed my arms. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop mansplaining to me like I’m five.”
Stone crossed his arms, mimicking my posture. “Then stop acting like you’re five.” He looked me up and down, frowning over what he saw. “Why the hell are you all bundled up in a black sweatshirt when it’s over a hundred degrees out?”
“I thought it might snow,” I grumbled. “Anyway, look at you. You’re running around out here half naked. Who do you think you are? Some kind of Sonoran desert version of Tarzan?”
Stone glanced down at his bare chest and cutoff shorts. “You’ve really got to get out of the habit of checking me out.”
“I’m not!”
Stone smiled. I wanted to slap him. My fists clenched at my sides, fingernails digging into my palms so hard it hurt.
Stone casually ran a hand through his hair. Like his brother, his dark sandy hair turned lighter in the summertime. “Erin, can’t you just say ‘Thank you’?” Like ‘Gosh, thank you Stone for saving my life.’”
My fists unclenched. I was being childish.
“I would have been fine,” I informed him coolly.
“Really?” Stone raised his eyebrows and zeroed in with a penetrating stare. “I’m not sure you’re ever fine, kid.”
That comment, casually tossed out of his mouth like it was nothing, knocked the wind out of me. Stone Gentry had just accidentally summed me up in one thoughtless sentence. I wasn’t someone who walked around with an arsenal of witty comebacks ready to use. I had no answer for him. So I put my head down and started to walk back in the direction I’d come from.
“Erin.”
I could hear him, right behind me, his stride much longer than mine. I quickened my pace.
“Erin, come on.”
He caught my elbow but I wrenched out of his grip and started to climb up the embankment. I’d chosen badly; it was a particularly steep spot. A layer of parched sand gave way beneath my weight and the rubber soles of my sneakers were not enough to keep me from slipping. My left knee scraped against jagged rock and I probably would have toppled the last several feet and landed in a messy heap of humiliation if Stone didn’t have quick reflexes. He caught me around the waist and helped me down gently, backing off when I scrambled away, brushing the dust off my clothes.
“You okay?” he asked and for once his voice wasn’t dripping with mocking arrogance. For some reason this sent me to the verge of tears. If Stone Gentry was going to change direction and be all sincere and nice I just couldn’t handle that right now. I took several deep breaths and noted that my scraped knee was bleeding slightly. Just a trickle. Barely more than nothing. But the sight of the blood went straight to my stomach. I bent over and promptly dry heaved into a bed of smooth river rock.
Stone was at my side instantly, pushing a bottle of water in my face. “Drink it,” he ordered.
My first instinct was to argue but in the last few minutes my instincts had not proved particularly helpful. I drank. The water was warm and tasted vaguely of tobacco.
“Thanks,” I said weakly, handing the bottle over. “I didn’t eat breakfast.”
“Just as well,” Stone said, rather good-naturedly. “You would have made a much bigger mess if you had.”
“True.” My hair was sticking to my neck. Impatiently I twisted it into a long black rope and piled it atop my head, securing the knot with an elastic band I’d absently left around my wrist. I’d been meaning to get it cut; the length was a nuisance. Conway loved my long hair though. He loved to comb it through his fingers and gather it into his fists when he gently pulled me toward him for a kiss.
Stone had left my side, either bored with dealing me or at a loss for more conversation. He stood apart, staring at a distant horizon ringed by mountains that were much farther away than they seemed.
“Thanks,” I called to him.
He didn’t turn around. “You said that already.”
“I thanked you for the water. But you were right. I should have thanked you for looking out for me when I was about to get an ankle full of snake fang.”
“Well, I have my faults, but generally I don’t enjoy watching young girls get eaten by snakes.”
I kicked a rock. “Aren’t you tired of this, Stone?”
He turned around then, eyeballing me warily. “Tired of what?”
“This back and forth, an incessant tug of war over the one thing we have in common.”
Stone said nothing. He seemed to be waiting for me to continue. So I took a deep breath and did exactly that.
“He loves both of us and we both love him. That should be enough to get us to figure out how to get along. You don’t have to like me. I’m not sure I like much about you either. But it’s not fair. It’s not fair to Conway to keep forcing him to defend one of us to the other.” My hair had come loose from its knot. I shook it out with irritation and then pushed it behind my ears. “Look, Conway told me last night wasn’t your fault with the car-“
“It was my fault,” he interrupted with a devilish grin. “Of course it was my fault. You know what I’m like, Erin. Everyone knows.”
I shook my head, feeling suddenly weary and rather miserable. “No. Actually I hardly know you at all.” This conversation had veered off into an uncomfortable place. I braced myself for a volley of Stone Gentry’s trademark sarcasm.