True Colors (The Masks #1)(17)

Damn he was hot.

Damn, why did I think that every time I saw him?

He glanced my way. “Hey, Caitlyn.”

“Hey.” I pushed a smile over my lips, knowing it probably looked weak and pathetic. I still wasn’t used to him being nice to me. Maybe I looked pale again. I bit my bottom lip.

His eyes narrowed slightly. There was that concern again.

“You want a Coke?” Digging into the cooler beside him, he pulled out an ice-cold bottle and held it out. I skipped down the stairs, a little euphoric that Eric Shore was offering me a drink. It was both unnerving and thrilling. My woes still sat heavy and present on my shoulders as I reached over the fence for the bottle, but his enigmatic smile was certainly dulling the impact. Maybe I could forget about my day for just a second.

Eric leaned against the fence, his long body looking comfortable as he took a swig of black gold.

“So, I saw you hustling away from the beach today. Everything okay?”

I so didn’t want to get into it with him. I could feel the tears brewing already.

Nodding with another plastic smile, I downed a few large mouthfuls so I didn’t have to talk. I nearly choked, but managed to gulp down the fizz before spraying it all over him. I wiped the drops from my bottom lip, feeling like an idiot.

He snickered.

Wanting to remove all heat from my blushing face, I perched my arms on the fence and cleared my throat. “You heading back to your dorm tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll probably leave in an hour or so.” He looked at his thick leather watch. It was one of those massive, chunky ones and looked so good on his wrist. He had thin leather bands sitting above it. He wore those on both wrists. Some of them had beads woven in, others were just strips of leather. I always wondered if they were a collection or if they symbolised something more.

He was looking at me, probably trying to figure out why I was staring at his styley wrists.

I scratched the corner of my mouth. “So, um, why is it that your house is only twenty minutes from campus, yet you don’t live at home? Because that tells me you don’t want to be here, but then you’re home almost every weekend. I don’t get it.”

His eyebrows dipped together as he dropped his head. After a moment’s pause he snickered and looked at me, slightly abashed. “Well, I live on campus because I can only handle so much of my mother’s steady stream of boyfriends. I come home every weekend because my half-sisters’ father got a one-year contract in Colorado and they’re missing him big time.”

Swoon!

I fought to control my quivering lips. “Wow. That’s pretty cool.”

He shrugged, taking another swig of Coke. “It’s only for a year and I feel like I owe them.”

“How so?”

“I took the year off after high school to go traveling. I spent some time with my grandpa in San Diego and then spent the rest of the time checking out national parks and just exploring.”

“Where’d you go?” I leaned forward, totally fascinated. I loved exploring!

“I went rock climbing in Utah, hiking in the Grand Canyon, checked out Mesa Verde. Spent time in Fire Valley. Then I started missing the ocean, so I came out to the coast and worked my way up to Washington State.”

I’m sure my face was beaming. I would love to do that kind of thing. Holly, Layla and I did a girls weekend in Yosemite National Park once and I loved every second of it.

“I’d love to do that one day. Just travel off with no agenda or schedule. That must have been awesome.”

“It was. One of the best years of my life actually.”

“I bet.” I grinned. “I can’t wait to get college out of the way and just be able to go, you know?”

“Why wait for college?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I want to get it done.”

“Yeah, I get that. Although I don’t mind being a year older than all the other freshmen. It’s not too bad.”

So he was twenty. For some reason that just made him even more attractive.

“What do you want to do at college?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. I thought I’d take a bunch of different classes and see what inspires me.”

“You going to UCLA?”

“Most likely, all my brothers and sisters went there.”

“It’s a good school.” He shrugs. “I like it anyway.”

“Have you figured out your major yet?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “I like a psychology class I’m taking. That could be cool.”

I raised my eyebrows. Psychology. Maybe he could become my therapist. I certainly needed one! Rubbing my forehead with a wince, my day suddenly slammed back into me, stealing my smile and all the niceness of this heavenly moment.

“Hey.” Eric nudged my arm with his bottle. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Just a bad weekend, I guess.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.” I licked my lips and spun the bottle in my hands. I was too afraid to look at him. I didn’t know what I’d see. Annoyance at not opening up to him maybe? Or sweetness. That would just make me cry. I kept my eyes on the bottle, just waiting for him to say something.

“Okay, well, can I give you some advice then?”