Such a Rush

Then the pit bull jumped up and barked ferociously again, and Grayson appeared through the palm trees.

His shades glinted in the late-afternoon sun as he crossed the dirt yard without hesitation and climbed right up the cement-block steps. He stood in front of me on the top step, looking down at me, perspiration darkening the blond curls that peeked from underneath his cowboy hat. He said sternly, “We have to talk. Let me in.”

“No.”

He sighed impatiently, his hand making a fist and releasing. “Okay, Leah. Why won’t you let me in your house?”

“Because it’s not a house,” I snapped. “It’s a trailer.”

“It’s temporary.” His voice was soothing as he stepped closer to me. I looked way up at him, but all I saw was my reflection.

“Eighteen years isn’t temporary.” I meant to say this sarcastically, but it came out hoarse, and I found myself backing through the open doorway as he leaned even closer.

“It’s temporary from now on.” He took another step forward, forcing me to take another step inside. “Let me in, Leah.”

“Why? So you can search for beer again? There isn’t any. If there had been, my mom would have taken it. That’s probably the first thing she checked.”

“No,” he said. “This is important.”

“Let me guess.” I tried to sound cocky, but my heartbeat sped along and I sounded breathless as I said, “You’ve come to tell me that my fake relationship with you has screwed up my fake relationship with Alec, and I should keep my hands off you from now on. Well, sorry, but my mother is headed to Sava

“I don’t care what you think.” Grayson took another step toward me. We were both inside the trailer now. He kicked the door closed with a flimsy metal crash and kept walking toward me. I kept backing up until I felt the hard kitchen counter behind me.

“I just want to know where Alec went,” Grayson said.

“Now?”

“Tonight. Are you two going out? I went in the office to write your check and cash it. When I came out, he and Molly were both gone, and he’s not answering his cell.”

“He said he was going out with his recruiter.”

“His recruiter!” Grayson ripped off his shades and his hat, tossed them both on the counter, and ran his fingers back through his damp curls. “Goddamn it, Leah. Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Because I’m not your brother’s keeper!” I exclaimed. “He said he was going out with his recruiter, Grayson. He didn’t say he was signing up for a six-year stint tonight. And I did tell him what a bad idea I thought that would be.”

Grayson shook his head at me, jaw set, nostrils flared, eyes hard, like this was all my fault. “There are two possibilities, and both of them are awful. The first is that he’s lying to you. He doesn’t want to spend time with you, and he’s made an excuse so he won’t have to go out with you again. Maybe he even has a date with somebody else, like a girl we went to middle school with that he ran into at that party.”

“Why is that so awful? I don’t like him romantically either.”

“It’s your job to make him like you, Leah. Have you completely forgotten about that?”

“Not anymore,” I protested, “because I—”

He put his hands on either side of me on the counter, leaning close and boxing me in. He interrupted, “The other possibility is that he wasn’t lying. He really is meeting his recruiter. On a Thursday night on spring break in Heaven Beach. Which means they’ve gotten to be buddies. The recruiter will pal around with him to draw him in, and the next thing you know, Alec has signed his life away. Alec can do that, you know, anytime he wants to!”

“Yes, I know!” I was so exasperated with Grayson. I wished he could hear himself. “It’s his life and his decision, and it’s none of your business!”

“How dare you say that,” Grayson said. It was such a fu

I swallowed. “None.”

“How many dead brothers do you have?”

I squinted to keep from tearing up, then put my hands up on his shoulders, lightly, tentatively. “Grayson. Just because he joins the military doesn’t mean he’s going to die. The Admiral spent his entire career in the Navy, probably the first twenty years of that flying, and he never got wounded. Your dad never got wounded.”

My words slowed to a halt as I heard how ridiculous they sounded. Grayson didn’t need multiple friends and family members to die to make him fear for Alec’s life. Jake was enough.

I’d realized this and I didn’t need Grayson’s lecture, but he was so upset that I let him give it to me anyway. “Alec’s already a pilot, Leah.”

“Okay.”

“The second he graduates from college, they’re going to send him to flight school. Hell, if he signs up for the reserves and there’s a military emergency, they’ll pluck him out of college and send him to flight school. It could happen this summer, Leah. It could happen in June. He’ll be number one on that flight line. You’re thinking that maybe he’ll dodge a bullet, literally. I’m thinking that flying an airplane while people are shooting at you is never a good idea. In June he could be dead.”

“I told him what I thought.” I patted Grayson’s shoulders once more and moved my hands together to his chest, placing my fingers gently on his neck. “You told him what you thought. I don’t know where he went, and that’s all we can do right now.”

His hard gray eyes started to soften, and his body moved in, caging me more tightly against the countertop. “To answer your question, yeah, you screwed up your fake relationship with Alec today. Why did you tell your mom that you were dating me instead of him?”

I knew what was coming. My heart beat faster in anticipation, as if a plane were rounding from the taxiway to the runway and revving its engines, readying for takeoff.

“That started a long time ago,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to give her all my money. I told her that part of the time I was at the airport, I was actually spending time with my boyfriend, not working.”

He put his hand up to my cheek. The broad pad of his thumb stroked across my lips. The engine revved so high that the roar filled my ears. “And why was I the boyfriend you picked?”

“It’s easier to remember your lies if they’re close to the truth,” I whispered. “Wishful thinking.”

He kissed me. So softly, gently, slowly.

I heard my own gasp, felt myself warming, sensed the trailer going darker around him as he leaned in until his forehead touched mine. He had backed me against the counter. I had no way to escape him, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to anymore.

His voice sent shivers up my arms and his lips brushed my cheek as he spoke. “If I remember right, last night when we were interrupted at the beach, you had this hand here.” He found my hand pushing weakly against his T-shirt and placed it on his hip. “And this hand here.” He pulled my other hand to his other hip and slid my fingers into his waistband. “Then I did this.” He moved one arm around my shoulders. “And I wanted to do this.” His other hand moved down to my hip, the warmth of his palm soaking through the thin material of my shorts.

He pressed his lips to mine and paused. Maybe he was waiting to see whether I would push him away. Maybe, like me, he savored that precarious moment perched at the top of a climb. We could have fallen backward to Earth, pretending we’d been teasing each other and it was all a mean-spirited joke. Or we could have continued forward and pitched over into a weightless and euphoric free fall. In that moment of decision, his warm hands on my skin and the cold air around me confused my body. Electricity surged through my middle. The only sounds were the low hum of the refrigerator and Grayson sighing sexily.