Running Back

“Kilkarten’s special.”

“Huh.” He leaned back, but kept his gaze trained on my face. Butterflies started fluttering around my ribcage. “You know, I don’t think that’s it.”

I tilted my head and he leaned close to my ear, close enough that I could feel his breath. “Admit it. You’re just here because you like me.”

“What?” I sat straight up.

He laughed. “What’s that look of alarm? Struck too close to home?”

I scowled at him. “I don’t like you.”

“You sure of that? Or you have a boyfriend?”

I wanted to lie and say yes, but the word wouldn’t come, and his smile broadened. But he released me from his gaze right before I could no longer breathe. “Don’t tell Rachael. She’d never admit it, but she likes to matchmake. See that girl over there?”

I followed his nod, feeling the slightest tinge of pink dusting my cheeks. “Yeah.”

“That’s Olivia Perez. Rachael met her at a farmer’s market. Or something. She’s been trying to set her up with Dylan for two weeks. Only,” he said, lowering his voice, “Rachael doesn’t know that Dylan’s been lusting after her friend Eva for months. Which he’ll never admit, ’cause she’s crazy about her boyfriend.”

My eyes skipped to all the involved players, feeling like I was watching a play.

“Rach’s real project is Abe. Abe seems like he’d be easy to set up—he’s friendly, eager to make Rachael happy, good guy all around, but he never stays interested in anyone too long.”

“Maybe he’s secretly in love with Rachael.”

He smiled at me. His gaze was direct and disarming, and my whole body flushed. “You know, I thought that too, but it’s much more of a sibling thing. No, I think there’s some girl from his past—which is funny, because Abe’s the least burdened person I’ve ever met.”

I studied Abe. He gestured wildly in the air as he told some story, and it made me laugh.

“You have a pretty laugh.”

My eyes flew to Mike’s. I could feel my heart in my chest, in my head, a giant beat that thrummed all through my body. Mike reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, his hand lingering on my jaw line. Heat pooled in my skin beneath his fingers and my breaths shortened. His thumb stroked the sensitive spot behind my ear. “Pretty eyes too. Like...like storm clouds.”

I jerked away from him, thrown out of the mad spell. “Don’t talk about my eyes.”

I’d stunned him. Even with my head floating somewhere above me body, I could tell that. People usually reveled in or laughed at cheesy lines about eyes. They didn’t get angry.

He laughed it off. “All right. So what is it about Kilkarten? It has to be something more than just research.”

How could I describe it? The green hills, the water, the sun spread across all of it... The draw of being somewhere else, somewhere beautiful and peaceful and not here, not with my parents and their vicious, vitriolic hatred.

I turned my glass in my hands. “Have you heard of the Iverni? And Ptolemy?”

He shook his head.

“Ptolemy was a second century Alexandrian who wrote about Ireland. Ivernis was one of the few cities he named, and the whole island used to be called after the people who lived there. Iouernia—The Fertile Land. Pytheas, a Greek explorer, visited even earlier and called it Ierne.” There were barely any sources about Ireland and the ancient Mediterranean, but they gave rise to a contentious debate about whether Ireland and Rome had contact and trade. If the site I’d located was from the turn of the millennia, so many answers could be buried there. “I’m positive that the city of Ivernis is under Kilkarten. And I need to prove it this summer, while funding still exists. My advisor, Jeremy, can’t get any more money—he’s been unsuccessful for too long, and now most of academia’s decided he’s on a wild goose chase. Half mad with obsession to find a lost city. He’s not, of course. But I’m afraid that this might be our last chance to find Ivernis.”

Mike smiled slightly. “So you want to save your falsely ridiculed advisor. I definitely saw this miniseries on Netflix.”

I glared. “Don’t make fun. It’s all real. I’ve done the research, and the way the land was shaped, two thousands ago, made it perfect for Ivernis. The sources Jeremy’s dug up, notes in the margins of illuminated manuscripts about geography and location—we’re right. We’ve found it.”

“So it’s for fame and glory.”

I shook my head. “It’s for discovery. For knowledge. What greater motivator is there?”

He studied me. “Do you really believe that?”

I nodded emphatically. “That harbor can tell us things about a period of history, about a people, that we barely know anything about. I could bring that era back to life. Life from death. If that’s not magic, what is?”

He stared at me for a long, long moment. I had nothing left to say.

He stood abruptly. “I have to go.”

“Mike,” Rachael called out from across the room, and we both turned. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you get Natalie a cab?”

Apparently that was finally too much. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

And then Ryan Carter was there, drying his hands on a dishtowel, looking weirdly domestic and also like he would demolish anyone who hurt Rachael.

We took the elevator in silence. He walked out of the building ahead of me, and I had to hurry to catch up. I reached for his arm, hesitated, and then my hand fell away. Still, I couldn’t stop the words. “Mike, if you sign the papers, I will do anything.”

He slowed to a stop, and I stepped in front of him, beseeching him with my eyes and voice. He didn’t look away. “Please.”

His half-lidded gaze made me swallow. My toes curled in my boots while heat curled in my stomach. With his head tilted down like that, and standing so close, he took up my entire view. I could feel each breath he took, feel the heat in the tightly corded arm under my fingers.

And then he drew back. “Don’t ever promise anything.” He shook his head.

My shoulders tightened and I nodded, and then walked on. But everything moved too fast—the world, the lights—and I tripped and the sidewalk flew up toward my face.

Fingers wrapped around my arm and hauled me upright and against a warm, broad chest. “You’re drunk.”

Unable to deny it, I studied the way his head remained in focus while the world behind him danced. “Alcohol turns reality into avant-guard art.”

“Yes, and bad eyesight turns the world into an Impressionist painting,” he said. “Now what am I supposed to do with you?”

“You’re right!” I examined his eyes for a telltale ring of blue around his pupils. “Do you wear contacts?”

Then the warmth of his eyes distracted me, the way they weren’t really brown, but had depths that shone in the light. You couldn’t tell how long and curled his lashes were from far away, but this close I could see their bright shimmer in the lamplight. My throat worked and my tongue darted out to wet my lips.

He set me back. “Let’s get you a cab.”

“A cab?” My eyes widened to saucers, and I shook my head decisively. “I don’t believe in cabs. They’re for parents and rich people.”

“And drunks. Come on.”

I nodded, and then watched as he started away. I tilted my head back. In Ecuador, you could see the stars almost every night, scattered across the domed sky, but here everything was just a grayed out blackish-blur. I heard a sigh and found Mike back before me. He took my hand and tugged, so I obediently followed him. “Natalie. Look at me. Where do you live?”

I laughed. Who knew? In my parents’ house. At Cam’s. In the field. At Kilkarten. I wanted to live at Kilkarten. “Who cares?”

“I’m not taking you to my place,” he warned.