Seven Years

began to get stiff. The cicadas in the neighboring trees were chanting up a song that lulled me into a state of relaxation.

I jerked back to alertness when thunder rolled in the distance. No, not thunder, but an engine. It sounded like King Kong roaring as the car increased in speed and a cloud of dust appeared on the other side of the cemetery, moving around the winding road.

Down below, the dog perked his head up and grew skittish, pacing frantically in a circle. The car ate up the road in my direction and I waved to get their attention. The dog suddenly hauled ass and relief swam through me.

The engine cut off and heavy footsteps crunched across the gravel road, treading over the soft grass until Austin came into view.

For a fleeting moment, I wanted to stay up in the tree. There he was, looking sexy as hell with his shaggy brown hair, all disheveled with bedhead. His black T-shirt was thrown over a pair of jeans.

Thrown. Wrinkled and untidy, like a man who had been pulled out of bed and barely had time to zip up his pants. I even glanced down at his zipper before giving myself a mental slap.

Austin’s style had always been casual and cool. Back in the day, it was all about muscle shirts and jeans that were shredded at the knees. Now he filled out his clothes like a man, and they wore him more than he wore them. There I was, sitting in a tree wearing flip-flops, black jogging shorts, and a pink tank top. Not to mention I was wearing a ponytail and sans makeup.

Perfect.

Austin scanned his eyes around the cemetery. “Where did he go?”

“Who?”

He slowly looked up. “The wolf.”

“The dog,” I corrected. “I don’t know. To take a piss, I guess.”

After a quick glance over his shoulder, Austin rubbed his jaw and then looked up at me again. “Climb down. I got you.”

Well, getting up a tree is a piece of cake. But I can testify to the fact that going down is no easy feat. Now I knew why cats got stuck in them and needed a fireman to come to their rescue. Of course, having seen some of the sexy local firemen in their gear, I’d pretend to be stuck in a tree too. Damn, that story would have totally made Naya’s day.

As I swiveled, my shoe fell off and I froze. “I can’t.”

“You will. Sit on the branch and put your feet on the one below it.”

My legs were locked up and stiff, and what scared me was the branch below was farther down than I thought. I’d have to let go of the trunk and sit down, but as I did this, I wobbled. “I’m going to fall,” I warned.

“Then I’ll catch you,” he said, not attempting to conceal his soft laugh.

Screw it, I thought. I spun around, lowered my legs, gripped the branch, dangled in midair, and slipped.

I squeezed my eyes shut and Austin caught me from behind.

His right arm tightened around my stomach and it punched the air out of my lungs. My legs were shaky and he held me for a minute before I noticed my tank top had slid out of place. As he let go, I quickly pulled it down and wiped pieces of bark off my shorts.

“How long were you up there?”

I picked a leaf out of my hair and turned around. “Long enough that I have to pee.”

He spun on his heel to give me privacy. I walked over to Naya’s phone and stuffed it in my pocket, then limped toward the car and grabbed my shoe.

“I’m not sure what kind of girl you think I am, Austin, but I’m not going to pee in a graveyard.”

“I seem to remember you having no problem reliving yourself behind a church.” Austin looked away, no doubt to hide his smile.

“Hey, you said you’d never bring that up again. That was supposed to go to the grave.”

Then I looked around at where we were and snorted.

The back of my arm burned and my joints were stiff. Austin jogged up beside me and pulled a piece of bark from my hair.

“What were you doing out here?” he asked.

“Making sure I didn’t leave a mess behind.”

“I cleaned that up,” Austin replied matter-of-factly.

I broke my stride and studied his thick brows that framed the clearest eyes I’d ever seen. “Why did you let me drive home drunk? I could have been killed.”

He folded his arms and I stole a glimpse of his tats. They disappeared beneath the sleeves of his shirt.

“I didn’t. You think I’d let you drive off in that condition?” He huffed with irritation and shook his head. “I didn’t want to rifle through your purse to find out where you lived, so I left you in front of your mom’s house.”

“How did you get back home?”

“Meet foot one and foot two,” he said, pointing down at his shoes. “Let’s go somewhere with air conditioning.”

“I have to do laundry. You get one rinse and spin to tell your story and then I have errands to run.”

Without another word, we got in our separate cars and he followed me to the Laundromat. Austin said he’d join me in a minute and took off toward a convenience store across the street where I sometimes grabbed a hot dog and soda. The laundry bags weighed a ton, but the handles at the top allowed me to drag them across the polished floor. I put in the first load and pumped a few coins into the washer.

Minutes passed and I hopped up on one of the machines to read a magazine.

“Let me see your arm,” Austin said, coming up on my left. He held a bottle of peroxide in one hand and a box of bandages in the other.

“Huh?” I spun my left arm around but couldn’t see anything.

“Your arm is bleeding, Sherlock. Lift it up and let me have a look.” He set the supplies down and raised my left arm over my head. That’s when I could see the scrape on my upper arm. It was deep and pretty gnarly- looking.

“So, are you going to tell me your life story, or are you stalling again?” I prodded.

“Christ,” he said under his breath.

“What?”

He shook his head. “I forgot to buy cotton balls.” He set the brown bottle of peroxide on the washer.

Before I could make a suggestion, Austin peeled off his shirt, wadded it into a ball, and doused it with peroxide.

I was pretty sure I would never buy another cotton ball again if this was the alternative solution.

Austin brushed my long hair away from my shoulder and eased between my legs. While he dabbed at my cut with his T-shirt, I got a bird’s-eye view of his torso. He smelled musky and everything about his body was different from the man I remembered. Not bulgy steroid-looking arms like Beckett, but solid. Then there was that sexy six-pack down below, and I tried not to look because I felt Austin watching me out of the corner of his eye. I lifted my gaze and focused on his tattoos instead.

Nope, that wasn’t helping either.

They weren’t so much on his bicep as they were on his shoulders, with tribal patterns sharpening down his upper arms and branching onto part of his chest. The last time I’d seen him, he was twenty-three and leaner. Austin was always tough by nature, just not in stature. He had always been the guy you didn’t want to mess with, and his nose was slightly crooked from one of his many fights.

Time had changed him, and in all the right ways.

“So?” I pressed.

“Is this where we’re having the talk?” he asked, dropping his arms and tearing the wrapper from a bandage. His blue eyes flashed to mine as a warning. If I said yes, there was no going back. We were going to have some kind of important talk in a Laundromat.

I’d never seen Austin wear jewelry or watches, so I leaned in and admired his necklace again.

He grinned and looked down. “You like it? It’s a family heirloom—a talisman that brings good fortune. My dad gave it to me about a month ago.”