'Oh, okay. Personally, I would stay away. He just seems a little…dangerous. And you seem so nice.' She smiled at my reflection, then fluffed her short, blond curls with her hands.
'Thanks for the, uh…heads up.' I didn't know what else to say, so I left for the group.
I had a hard time focusing on our studies because I paid more attention to the interactions among our team members. Everyone's body language seemed cool toward Tristan. They didn't sit too close to him and held their bodies turned slightly away. They talked to him and laughed at his jokes, but not quite as warmly as they did with each other. Do the others feel the same way Carlie does?
I studied Tristan, trying to look at him with a fresh perspective, trying to see what they might see. But I saw and felt nothing…except his beauty, his laughter, the lovely sound of his voice, the kind tone it held when he spoke to any of us, the intelligent remarks he made when we actually discussed the exam, the sparkle in his eyes when he smiled…. He caught me looking at him and winked. And, yeah, there's that—the way my brain went pleasantly woozy when he winked.
I barely remembered leaving the study group and driving home, still pondering Carlie's remarks and everyone's behavior toward Tristan. Carlie thought there was something dangerous about him and she hardly knew him. Mom took one look at him and didn't like him. Am I missing something?
I knew I couldn't concentrate on studying or writing when I arrived home, so I went for a walk. I meandered along the streets without paying attention to where I went, wondering why I just couldn't sense what everyone else seemed to notice. Are my alarms broken? Or is everyone else just wrong about him? I decided I had to believe my own intuition, my own sixth sense. It had always been right before.
A familiar voice brought me out of my internal wanderings. His voice. I looked up and, with mild shock, found myself at the city park, bordering the north end of the Cape's beach. It was a small park, with a playground to my left and the beach just a few yards beyond it, a parking lot that could hold about twenty cars to my right and basketball and tennis courts straight ahead. An old, large banyan tree and pine and palm trees shaded the area where I stood, sunlight filtering through their leaves. A group of guys played basketball, talking smack to each other, and Tristan was in the group. I hid behind the banyan tree and watched.
I quickly realized there was only one other person on Tristan's team and, to my surprise, it was Owen. I shouldn't have been too surprised—half of the Cape's young set was probably on that court. Although the teams weren't even, two against five, it was obvious Tristan and Owen were winning. They were good. Really good.
I watched for about five minutes when the game ended. When no one on the other team wanted to play another game, Tristan and Owen decided to play each other. Before they started, Tristan took off his shirt and tossed it to the side of the court. Oh. My! Naturally, I continued watching.
It said a lot about Tristan's playing ability that it drew my attention away from his perfect chest and six-pack abs. Now that no one else was around—or so they thought, they still hadn't noticed me—Tristan and Owen really got into the game. They seemed to be trying to one-up each other as they sped up and down the court, now talking smack to each other. They were even better than they let on when playing the other team. And Tristan was noticeably better than Owen. It was unreal watching him. He was always at the other end of the court faster than seemed possible. His shots often made the ball a blur. And when he jumped…it was inhumanly possible for anyone to jump that high or that far. Sometimes Owen did something nearly as incredible.
Owen made a three-pointer and Tristan grabbed the ball and shot it from under Owen's basket, the one closest to me. I watched with amazement as the ball sailed across the court and swished into the opposite net.
Then they both froze with their backs to me.
The ball bounced toward the side of the court. They ignored it as they turned in my direction, both in a guarded stance. Oops . I hadn't realized I'd been creeping closer, watching them in awe and now I was caught. When they saw me, they both looked like they'd been caught doing something wrong.
Tristan was the first to relax. A warm grin lit his face.
'Alexis,' he said, walking over to the chain-link fence surrounding the court.
I felt myself relax, too. I had frozen when they had. Since they knew I was there now, I took a few steps closer.
'Hey, Tristan, Owen,' I said, feeling awkward.
'What's up?' Owen asked, now at the fence, too.
'Um, nothing. I was just taking a walk and saw you guys playing.' I felt like an idiot now, like I'd been caught spying or stalking.
'Been watching long?' Owen asked. He glanced sideways at Tristan. Something in his tone made me feel even guiltier.
'No, not really.'
'Oh, too bad. 'Cause I was just smokin' Tristan here,' he said with a laugh, his tone lighter now.
'Ha! In your dreams, ya scrawny scarecrow,' Tristan teased. I couldn't help my smile. Although his sleeveless shirt proved Owen wasn't exactly scrawny, his blond hair stuck out everywhere, so he did look kind of like a scarecrow.
'C'mon, moose!' Owen ran for the ball and dribbled it between his legs. 'We got a game to finish.'
'You'll stay?' Tristan asked me.
'I should be heading home. It's a long way back….'
'Please?' He smiled. 'You can watch me make hay of the scarecrow.'
I laughed. 'All right, for a while, I guess.'
I sat on a small stand of bleachers and watched as they finished their game. It wasn't nearly as fascinating as it had been earlier; they seemed to be holding back now. When Tristan hit forty points, their cut-off, I hopped off the bleachers, waved at them and headed for the beach, the quicker way home. As I stepped onto the sand, I glanced over my shoulder. They both walked in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot.
'You filthy slut!' a gruff voice snarled, catching my attention.
A man dressed in grease-stained jeans and a t-shirt, a younger woman in a bikini and a small girl, also in a swimsuit, were coming off the beach. The man's hand gripped the woman's upper arm as he dragged her toward the parking lot. Loaded with a bag and beach chair, she obviously had a hard time keeping up. The little girl, maybe six or seven, ran after them, stopping frequently to pick up the plastic sand toys she kept dropping.
'Please, honey,' the woman begged, 'you're hurting me.'
'Good! You deserve it! You need to get some damn clothes on!'
'But we're at the beach .'
'Doesn't mean you need to be flauntin' all ya got!'
I watched the ground as they crossed my path. Though they were in public, I felt like an intruder. I pretended not to notice the squabble as it heated up behind me. I picked up my pace a bit, but the voices only became louder.
'Shut the hell up, bitch!' the man yelled.
'Daddy, no !'
I automatically turned at the girl's scream. The woman lay on the ground, staring wide-eyed at the man, who held his fist in the air. The little girl dropped her toys and ran at the man. And as soon as she was within arm's reach of her dad, the woman was suddenly between them, taking the blow.
The anger built inside me as I watched with horror.
'Daddy, stop it!' The little girl tried to grab her dad's muscular arm.
'Don't hurt her, Phil,' the woman begged from the ground. 'Please don't hurt her.'
Phil raised his hand again. I don't know who he meant it for, but his intentions didn't matter. As he swung, his daughter threw herself at him, taking the smack in the shoulder. She crumpled to the ground next to her mother.
The anger within me surged to rage. Without thinking it through, I stomped toward them, intent on giving this human debris a dose of his own medicine. I was mad enough. Madder than I'd even been with James. I knew I could do it—I knew I could knock the crap right out of him. And I wasn't scared. If he hurt me, I'd heal anyway. Unless he broke a bone . I wasn't so sure about that. But I didn't care at the moment.
A few yards away, I stopped, about to warn him to back off. But I suddenly couldn't bring myself to do it. I just stared at him wide-eyed as he turned his dark eyes on me. Bad, bad, BAD! My sixth sense screamed.
'What are you staring at?' he snarled, turning toward me. 'You don't wanna get involved, missy!'
