Luke Everett is dangerous.
He’s more dangerous than flying in a plane or jumping from a cliff into water or from a bridge attached by a giant rubber band or getting lost in the forest. Everything about him screams change and the unknown and if you let him in, your meticulously planned life will never be the same again.
But still I refuse to run away and I feel my legs running toward him faster, the muscles in my thighs hurting intensely with the kind of pain that a runner welcomes every day after that last lap. My heart is banging against my rib cage, my lungs gasping for air. But I can’t stop. I refuse to stop. I’m determined to see what’s at the finish line.
SIXTEEN
Sienna
It’s raining by the time we get to a small strip of tiny shops and a farmers’ market. It was like the sky just opened up and dumped buckets of rain on the streets, so heavy I can’t see ten feet in front of the windshield.
“How can you see where you’re driving?” I shout over the raucous pounding on the roof of the car. Both of my hands are fixed to the edges of my seat, and my head is pressed against the headrest.
“I can’t!” he says, and I swallow a lump. “I just remember where the roads curve and whatnot!”
“You better be lying!” I tell him, gripping the seat tighter. “The roads may not move, but I highly doubt the people and other cars on them stay in the same places, y’know!”
He laughs and turns right at a stop sign and pulls into a small nook that I’m not even sure is an actual parking space, and then shuts off the engine.
“Don’t worry about it! I could see just fine!” Before he even finishes the sentence, the rain just … stops, leaving his voice booming through the small, confined space inside the car. We both look at each other for a stunned second, and then laugh. God, he’s beautiful when he laughs.
We get out of the car and start to stroll down the wet street, stopping at a few places along the way as I break out my camera and get a few interesting shots of locals in their everyday life with tourists.
By the time we sit down to eat outside at a little restaurant, the clouds have moved off and the sun is shining again. The blacktop glistens with leftover moisture. I hear a constant dripping to my left, where water steadily falls from a roof into a little puddle. Voices hum all around, and there are sounds of the shuffling of shoes and the snapping of rubber against bare heels and the rolling of tiny wheels on baby strollers.
“Other than the obvious,” I say across from Luke at a small round table, “why did you move to Hawaii?” I take another bite of my food.
Luke swallows a mouthful down and then drags a napkin across his mouth.
“Seth would be to blame for that,” he says with a smirk. “I met him years ago when I came here on vacation. Been best friends ever since.” He takes another bite, holding his head over his plate in case any of it misses his mouth.
“Is he from here?” I take a quick sip of my soda.
Luke nods with food in his mouth and then he swallows. “Yeah, Seth is a local, like Alicia and Braedon.”
I pause, taking another sip, reluctant to ask my next question, but decide to anyway.
“Not to be nosy,” I speak up, trying not to be obvious as well, “but does Kendra also live with you and Seth?” God, I hope not.
He shakes his head rapidly. “Definitely not,” he says, and I quietly breathe a sigh of relief. “She used to when she and Landon were together, but after China …” He pauses briefly, almost inconspicuously, but I still make note of it. “She got a place of her own with a friend not far from Seth’s and my house.” He laughs under his breath. “She’s a good friend, but I lived with her long enough when she was with Landon. Too long. She drives me nuts sometimes. We get along a lot better now that we’re not under the same roof.”
Well, that’s a relief.