Chapter 3: Where's the Fire

The force of the collision knocked Everly back a few steps. She’d never been that coordinated, so she managed to trip over her own feet and almost fell on the floor.

But she didn’t fall because the brick wall she’d just collided with happened to have arms and hands.

“Whoa! Are you all right?”

She looked up to see that the brick wall wasn’t a brick wall at all, but it was a guy. A hot guy. And his hand was around her elbow now, holding her up from hitting the linoleum. He wrapped his other hand around her waist and pulled her back up to standing. Everly’s feet were still tangled for a moment. By the time she got them sorted out, a good ten or fifteen seconds had passed since he’d asked the question, and she still hadn’t answered him.

“Sorry,” Everly muttered. She wasn’t sure if she was all right or not. She’d hit her head on his chest—she thought. Maybe it was his shoulder? Either way, it had seriously felt like she’d ran into something solid and unforgiving—not a person, but an immovable fortress.

“You should be more careful.”

Everly opened her mouth to say something else. Maybe to caution him about watching where he was going, too, but when she looked at his face, no words would come out of her mouth.

His eyes were a bright green, and they seemed to be glowing. Not like something out of a horror movie, but a soft glow that ebbed and flowed with the flicker of the fluorescent lights overhead. His hair was a dark blond, or maybe a light brown, and it was messy, but not in a bad way. It had a bit of a wave to it and fell over his forehead on one side, but not enough to cover those eyes. His teeth were perfectly white and straight, maybe even a little sharper than most people’s, and his body….

Everly closed her eyes to try and regain her composure, but holy hell, his body was like something out of a movie. Visions of a calendar one of her friends back home had gotten for Christmas one year came to mind. It had been called Colorado’s Finest Firefighters. This guy could be the cover model for that calendar. If he had a big hose.

The dirty innuendo that thought could’ve been misconstrued for made her face heat to the point where she was afraid she might catch on fire herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, opening her eyes, but trying not to look at him. “I’ve gotta go.” She skirted around him and rushed off to find her dad, hoping that they could just get their stuff and go home. Maybe she should go sit in the SUV.

“Hey, there you are,” Jim said as she caught up to him in the cleaning aisle. “What do you think? The cloth mop of the sponge mop?”

“I don’t know, Dad.”  Everly was so flustered, and she was desperately hoping that the guy didn’t come into this aisle. She just wanted to hide from him… from the world.

“What’s the matter?” Her dad sounded genuinely confused. “Your face is bright red. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, Dad. I’m fine,” she said. “I just… I’m kinda tired. Would you mind if I go sit in the car?”

“No, that’s fine,” he said, handing her the keys. “You want that?”

Everly looked down and saw that she was still holding the box of cereal. “Oh, uh… I guess.” She dropped into the cart and then carefully turned around, brushing her long, dark hair behind her ear. She headed down the aisle, careful when she got to the end to make sure that no one was coming around the corner. She didn’t need a second collision.

As she pushed through the door at the front of the building, she couldn’t help but glance back over her shoulder to see if that guy was still around. She didn’t see him anywhere. That was probably a good thing. She didn’t need to be looking at guys like that anyway.

Outside, the cool fall air brushed against her cheeks, cooling them. She was wearing a jean jacket with a built-in hoodie, something all the kids at her school in Denver loved, but she wasn’t sure how it would fit in here. Would her clothes be too trendy?

She didn’t care at the moment. She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and rushed to the SUV, unlocking it and sliding inside as fast as she could. The door shutting behind her was a relief. No hot guys were gonna be able to infiltrate her dad’s vehicle.

Taking some deep breaths, Everly tried to calm herself down. It was just a guy. It wasn’t a big deal. Granted, she’d never really had a boyfriend before. She’d gone on a few dates back in Denver, but most of the guys she hung out with were just her friends. She’d always been too busy studying or taking care of her grandma to think about dating.

Not that she should be thinking about dating this guy either. There was no way in hell a guy who looked like that would be interested in dating her.

She was pretty enough, she supposed. All of her friends always told her she had the prettiest blue eyes. Her skin had always been clear, and her hair was sort of glossy and framed her face. The dark color contrasted nicely with her lighter skin tone. She didn’t exercise much, but she also tried to eat healthy most of the time. She wasn’t tiny, but she definitely wasn’t overweight.

She was honestly just pretty average, she supposed.

Her dad said she was beautiful and looked “just like her mom.”

Everly wouldn’t know much about that. She’d only seen her mom in the few pictures her dad had kept. At least, in the last eleven years. She didn’t remember much of anything from when she was a little girl, when her mom was still around.

The sound of a motorcycle starting up behind her had her eyes fixed on the rearview mirror.

It was him—hot guy. It would figure that he would ride a motorcycle. It looked like a fairly new model, too. Jet black, like a cool guy would ride. At least he was smart enough to put on a helmet. Wouldn’t want to break that handsome head of his. She rolled he eyes at her own ridiculousness. Whatever he had bought must’ve fit in the pocket of his leather jacket because she saw no bags. And she was really looking.

Before he pulled out of the parking lot, he turned his head and looked directly into the reflection of her eyes.

Everly scrunched down in the seat, trying her best to hide from the world.

Or at least from him.