AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you mind?” I ask while reaching up to push the light away.
Gentle fingers grip my chin and lift it, followed by a sudden intake of breath. “Lyla?”
“Yeah?”
“Let me, um – I’ll go find Laurel,” he says.
“No!” I reach out blindly and grab onto the smooth leather of his cut, mostly because I don’t want him to leave me alone in case there was someone following me but also because Laurel won’t be any help to me.
“No?”
“No. She’ll think I made it all up.”
“Made up what? Falling?”
Great, I guess he didn’t see me running like a fool away from a dark ghost, which means it must have all been in my head.
But I could’ve sworn I saw him, heard his footsteps and my name…
“I just want to go home,” I tell the guy.
“I should get someone – your dad or your grandmother?”
I shake my head emphatically. “Can you just help me up?”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, the spotlight is gone. He grabs me underneath my arms and hefts me up against the front of his body without even a single grunt of struggle. I soon realize why. The top of my head only comes up to his barrel chest. He’s so much wider than me that I feel dainty. Safe from my imagination or something else…
I wrap my arms around him in a hug. “Thank you,” I tell his pecs.
“Do you want me to carry you back to the party?”
“No. I just need to find my phone…”
The crunch of gravel has us both turning our heads toward the entrance gate.
Oh, god. He’s back?
A man with hair so light it shines in the darkness, along with the light of a flashlight or his phone, comes strolling through the parking lot.
“Bear?” he whispers. Then louder, “Bear?”
“Over here!” the man holding me up – Bear, apparently – calls back. As the blond comes toward us, the Bear guy asks, “What took you so long?”
“Sorry. Long line.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, but we should go…” He trails off, shining his light on us. “Holy shit. Is that Laurel?”
“No, it’s Laurel’s sister.”
“Um, okay. Why are you making out with your ex-wife’s sister?”
“Ex-wife?” I say in confusion at the same time the Bear guy says, “We’re not making out. Lyla took a tumble.”
“What do you mean she took a tumble?”
“She fell down!”
