I took a slight step back and looked up to see that I’d smacked right into the chest of a guy wearing a flannel shirt. He looked down at me with wide green eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and took another step back. “I didn’t see you there.”
But really, I didn’t know how I hadn’t noticed this guy before. I mean, if I thought I stood out here, how had I not noticed someone like him in a place like this? While the current fashion statement in the club involved ink and an abundance of black, this guy wore a green flannel shirt, light blue jeans, and a large bronze antiquey-looking belt buckle that resembled a Texas marshal’s star. He had wavy hair the color of milk chocolate that stuck out from under the edges of his blue baseball cap, and his tan face was completely free of weird markings or bad facial hair, unlike most of the guys here. I looked down, expecting him to be wearing cowboy boots, but instead he had on a pair of gray Nike running shoes—otherwise, he would have looked like he’d sauntered right in here off a ranch or farm or something.
He gave me a friendly smile—making his tanned, chiseled cheeks dimple—and he wrapped his warm fingers around my elbow. “A pretty girl like you should be more careful in a place like this,” he said, and pulled me farther away from the fight that brewed behind me.
“Yeah. Um. I know. Sorry.”
His large, callused hand was still on my elbow. His words—pretty girl like you—finally sank into my brain. I bit my lip as heat rushed into my cheeks. I wanted to excuse myself and run off to hide in the bathroom or something.
The guy’s smile widened, and it struck me that there was something about him—perhaps the shape of his mouth, or the tone of his voice—that seemed inexplicably, yet comfortingly, familiar. Like the first wafting scent of warm caramel-apple pie on Thanksgiving Day after a full year of not having tasted it. I realized then that for the same reason this guy stood out like a sore thumb in this place, he was probably the only person here I’d actually feel safe asking about Jude. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
He let go of my elbow. His green eyes flicked in the direction of the shouting gamers only a few yards away and then rested back on my face. “Sure thing, love.”
“Have you … Ahh!” I clasped my hands over my ears as a burst of pain exploded in my eardrums and my hearing magnified ten times. The vibration of the blaring music was excruciating, but mixed with the chorus of shouting players and the sound effects from several different video games going on all at once, it was downright nauseating. “Never mind.” I winced and backed away.
“Are you okay?” The sound of his voice so close made my eardrums throb even more.
I waved him off and retreated to an empty corner. I took in ten deep breaths and concentrated on filtering the barrage of sounds like Daniel had tried to teach me. After a long moment, I was finally able to separate the music blasting from the stereo system from the beeping and wails of the video games, and then the lower noises of human conversation. People discussing their strategy for taking on the next level of a game, a guy trying to convince a girl named Veronica to go home with him, the guys at the gaming station I’d been near still shouting at one another, someone else asking where he could “score some smack.”
And then suddenly the shrill sound of a female voice shouting: “Stop it! Leave me alone!”
I whirled toward the voice, knowing instantly it wasn’t just a sound effect from one of the games. I’d been distracted and taken my eye off April, and now she wasn’t sitting at the Wi-Fi bar anymore. She was standing, trying to push away a guy in a leather jacket who had her by the wrist. Another guy stood behind her, his fingers in her hair. April tried to turn around to push that guy away, but the one in the leather jacket pulled her in tight against him. She shrieked. The noise sliced into my ears.
My legs ached with power, and I bolted across the room in a matter of seconds.