Forget You (2 page)

As I shifted into reverse, I sighed and
backed out of the parking space I’d been idling in for way too
long. Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention; it
was a guy dashing out of the way behind me. I’d nearly plowed him
over as he crossed behind my vehicle. I slammed on my breaks, and a
flush of heat crept across my checks as my heart palpitated
ferociously inside my chest.

“Whoa, whoa!” the guy shouted, throwing his
arms up in a what-the-fuck-are-you-thinking gesture.

Rolling down my window, I leaned out. “I’m
sorry! My bad!”

It was Soldier Boy. Awesome.

He stood behind my vehicle, dressed in black
basketball shorts with the National Guard emblem printed at the
edge and a duffle bag slung over his right shoulder. His torso—that
would be etched into my memory for weeks to come—was now covered
with a plain white long-sleeved T-shirt.

A wide smile stretched across his face. “The
girl who can handle some serious eye contact.” He pointed his
finger at me. “Hey.”

Rolling my eyes, I did a little wave of my
hand. “That would be me. Look, sorry for nearly running you over,
but I need to get going. Could you please remove yourself from
behind my vehicle? I need a wide berth to get out of this jam
thanks to the douches on either side of me.”

“Is that an order?” He grinned.

What? Was he seriously flirting with me, even
after I’d almost killed him with my Escape? A smile matching his
played across my face as a thought came to me.

“Not really.” I gradually let my foot off the
break, and locked eyes with him. “More like stating a choice.”

He chuckled and dashed out of the way. “I see
how you are,” he shouted at the back of my vehicle as I continued
out of my spot. “Can I take you to dinner sometime?”

I slammed the brake pedal all the way to the
floor, and stared at him in my rearview mirror. Obviously taking my
vehicle’s sudden jerk to a standstill as a good sign, he was at my
driver side window within seconds.

“You were almost run over by me, twice, and
yet you want to take me to dinner? You have some sort of death wish
or something, don’t you?” The words flew from my lips, twisted with
bemusement.

I shouldn’t have asked him that. I shouldn’t
have even stopped and allowed him to jog to my window. I was not
going to psychoanalyze this guy; I wasn’t. I was going to gas it,
and drive away. Nothing more, nothing less.

Soldier Boy licked his lips, and smirked.
“Hence the reason I signed up for the National Guard.”

His words kept my brake pedal pinned to the
floorboard. My eyes locked on his, and I studied the sincerity
swirling within them. That was when I noticed their color—blue. A
gray blue, rimmed and speckled with a deeper, darker shade of blue
than I’d ever seen on anyone. Cobalt would be the word to describe
it.

“So, is that a yes?” he asked, his gaze
becoming more intense.

Obviously, he knew the effect his eyes had on
a woman. He batted his thick, long lashes that framing them—lashes
I would kill for—as he continued to stare at me with an
orchestrated smile tugging at the corners of his lips just so.

“No, that’s not a yes.” I gassed it.

The fact that he had the most beautiful eyes
I’d ever seen on a man, and some twisted death wish I wanted to
analyze right down to the nitty-gritty, didn’t revoke the
characteristics I’d compiled against him, moving him onto my worthy
of dating list. Not even close.

I glanced in my rearview mirror, looking back
at him. His simple grin had turned into an intensely sexy smirk,
and he was shaking his head. As I paused at the exit of the parking
lot, I noticed his fingertips come up to his lips, and he kissed
them before making a sweeping motion as though he were blowing me a
kiss.

Seriously, dude?

Great, I’d managed to attract someone who was
the epitome of what I was striving
not
to date. He was
cocky, self-assured, had some sort of death wish—which meant he was
probably reckless—knew how to weaken a girl’s knees and wet the
sensitive area between her thighs with one calculated glance, and
blew kisses. Fan-fricking-tastic.

Rolling my eyes, I pressed my foot harder
than necessary against the gas pedal, and zoomed away, my tires
chirping on the pavement.

SAWYER

The green Ford Escape was out of my eyesight
before I took another step toward my car. Damn, that girl had been
something. She could stare a man down, and make him feel as though
she were ripping his layers away one thin slice at a time. It was
unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

And those eyes.

They’d been the color of the ocean—aquatic
blue and nearly green, but not quite. Turquoise, a bright turquoise
that reflected light back at you.

Running my hand over my mouth, I shook my
head and prayed to the powers that be that I’d get a chance to find
out her name. For now that would be enough, but only because in
order to do so, I’d have to see her again, and that was all I truly
wanted. She had been a feisty one, which was the type I liked the
most.

I sauntered to my car with thoughts of
her—whoever she was—still lingering in my head. I unlocked the
doors, and tossed my duffle bag onto the passenger seat. Once I
climbed behind the steering wheel, it hit me. This was the first
time I’d gotten into Ryker’s car without thinking of him. Gripping
the wheel tighter, my stomach knotted as the weight of that
realization pounded down on me.

It wasn’t right.

My face blanched as the possibility of what
this might mean crashed into me from all sides—his being gone was
now okay in some way. That couldn’t ever happen though; Ryker being
gone would never be okay. Pain I was supposed to feel from his
death, the loss and heartache of it, came barreling back, and with
it a slight sense of relief. Everything was right again. Things
were the way they were supposed to be; my brother’s death was still
more than a memory. It still gripped my emotions and penetrated
every cell of my body. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply,
feeling the torturous loss squeeze my lungs and force my heart to
break all over again.

A set of ocean-colored eyes flashed behind my
eyelids.

Images of the girl they belonged to rippled
through my mind, causing Ryker to leave my thoughts again, and my
internal organs to constrict for a whole new reason. Somehow this
girl—this woman—was able to make me forget.

My hands loosened their grip on the wheel. It
had been three months since Ryker’s death, and not once had I
climbed behind the wheel of his car and not thought about him.

Until she came along.

A replay of our stare down while I finished
my run with the guys played through my head. Next came her
sarcastic smirk as she nearly ran me over for a second time with
her vehicle. A slight chuckle bellowed from deep inside my chest,
and a single thought flickered through my mind—I had to know this
girl.

I had to.

My cell chirped in the front pocket on my
duffle bag. I ran my hands over my face, trying to gather myself
and shake the weird sensation coursing through my veins, before I
moved to answer it. Letting out a deep sigh seemed to help, but not
much. My phone continued to pierce the silence in the car until I
reached for it, and slid my thumb across the screen to answer
it.

“Hello?” I hadn’t looked to see who was
calling, just simply placed the phone to my ear. I couldn’t
remember the last time I’d done that.

Since Ryker’s death, I always looked. In the
beginning, it was because there was a piece of me that hoped him
being gone was a lie, and that each time my phone rang it would be
him on the other line, waiting for me to answer so he could say
“got you” and this nightmare would be over.

“Sawyer. Hey, buddy, you still coming
tonight?” Wes’s voice boomed into my ear.

I grinned at the sound of his voice. “It’s a
party for me, right?”

“Hell yeah, it is… It’s not every day a
Keeton graduates from fucking boot camp.”

Boot camp. I guess that was one thing to call
it. I’d completed basic training, which in actuality was boot camp,
weeks ago. Advanced Individual Training for my Military
Occupational Specialty was more along the lines of school, but no
matter how many times I explained this to Wes, he just didn’t get
it. To him, I’d done the unthinkable—I’d joined the military.

I chuckled at his enthusiasm. “That’s the
truth. Most of them just continue to be low lives without any life
ambitions.”

“Hey now, I’m not a low life, and I have
ambitions,” he muttered. There wasn’t a trace of hostility in his
voice. Being a light-hearted joker ran in the Keeton blood as
well.

“Name two,” I countered, grinning like a fool
while I waited to hear his answers.

“To throw my little cousin the best damn
graduation, or whatever the hell you want to call it, party
imaginable, and to see if I can get in this Mindy chick’s pants
tonight.”

I shook my head, and smirked at the phone.
“Point proven.”

At twenty-four, Wes was only a year older
than me, but from the way he acted, you couldn’t tell. He was the
type they made movies about, like the Van Wilder type who could
write on his tax occupation line “Professional College Student.”
He’d been in school since he was five, only taking breaks when
allotted by the board of education. It wasn’t that he enjoyed
homework and learning; he enjoyed the continuous supply of girls,
and the promise of a thriving social life one could only find while
in school.

Wes was one of those people you meet in life
who you know will never grow up, because behaving young is what
makes them who they are.

“What the fuck ever, man,” Wes said. He
wasn’t annoyed, but he sure was pretending to be. “It will be
better than the family thing on Sunday…way better.”

“Oh, I have no doubt.” I chuckled.

It wasn’t everyday a Keeton joined the
military or completed training. This was grounds for a Keeton throw
down; something our family prided itself on. If there was one thing
any Keeton was born knowing how to do straight out of the womb, it
was throw a party. The only issue was, the older the Keeton
throwing the party, the duller the younger ones were sure to deem
it.

“So, I need you to pick up the keg from the
store on your way over.”

“What? This is supposed to be my party, but I
still have to buy my own alcohol? That’s screwed up,” I
insisted.

“No. It’s not like that. It’s already paid
for. I just need you to get it here. Zac was going to pick it up,
but something came up last minute and he can’t get it here on
time.”

That was another thing about Wes. Not only
was he a professional college student, but he also didn’t own a
car. His outlook on it wasit saved him money and stress not owning
one. He was perfectly fine bumming rides from every person he knew
for the rest of his life.

Sometimes I wondered what he would do when
the financial aid department caught on to the fact he was a
lifetime student, and forced him to move the fuck on. Would he get
a car then, or an actual job? I doubted he’d be able to put any of
his nearly completed degrees to use anywhere. In fact, I sort of
assumed he’d either move back into his parents’ basement or become
a professional couch surfer if that ever happened.

I’d seen the
Taboo
episode on the
National Geographic Channel about couch surfing once, and instantly
had thought of Wes. They were sort of like nomads, moving from
friend to friend’s house, content to sleep on their couch instead
of having a place to call their own.

“Where’s it at?” I asked, tapping my thumb
against the steering wheel. “I’ll swing by and pick it up now, then
drop it off at your place on my way home to shower.”

“It’s down at Cheap Booze,” Wes said.
“Thanks, man.”

I hated that place. It was a freaking hole in
the wall with crusted tiled floors and the dirtiest walls I’d ever
seen in an actual establishment. The place was as ghetto as it got
in Norhurst, but it was where all the college kids flocked to for
what it advertised—cheap booze.

“No problem. See you in a few.” I hung up
after hearing a mumbled response from him.

After tossing my cell into the passenger
seat, I cranked the engine. The rumble of it vibrated through my
chest like always, and I smiled. It reminded me of all the work my
brother and I had done to get this baby purring like that.

Shifting into reverse, I eased out of the
parking space I’d been occupying and headed toward the Gareth Park
exit. Once I hit the highway, I gassed it and shifted gears as
quickly as I could to gain speed. Hearing the roar of the engine,
and seeing everything rush past me in a blur, was just as good as
sex. Adrenaline licked away at my insides, forcing a smile onto my
face. My heart pumped wildly in my chest, and my muscles tensed as
I weaved through the slight amount of traffic, avoiding a
collision. My mother would be pissed at me for driving so
recklessly, my father too, but these small moments were what I
lived for now that Ryker was gone.

These were the moments when I felt most alive
again, the moments when I missed Ryker just a little less.

Pushing the gas all the way to the
floorboard, I glanced around, searching for any state troopers who
might be lurking alongside the highway somewhere. I didn’t see any.
I never did. We had them in Norhurst, but they were never around
when I set myself free on the asphalt. Even if they were, I’d bet
they couldn’t catch me.

* * * *

I pulled up to Wes’s frat house, and made my
own parking space in the front yard. His fraternity brothers
wouldn’t like it. In fact, they’d probably ask me to move as soon
as they realized it was dead center in their yard. I would, if they
gave me their spot. There was no way I was parking a mile and a
half away, and then walking to a party being thrown in my
honor.