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I find a decent parking spot and make my way towards my math class—just thinking about this class makes me groan inwardly. I can’t wait to finish math and never have to do it again. I mean, I have a calculator on my phone for a reason. I’m walking on the sidewalk and I glance down at my phone for just a moment when I feel something crash into me and before I know it, I’m falling towards the ground.
But before I can hit the hard concrete, I’m yanked to the side and twisted slightly so that I’m falling on top of a person instead.
“Coño!” Shit. I curse.
“I’m so sorry,” I hear a guy yelling as I’m struggling to grasp what just happened.
“What the hell?” I groan, pushing myself up on his chest and look down at the guy who just knocked me over. His hands are on my arms as if to hold me in place and I’m half sprawled on top of him. I shake his hands off and he immediately lets go and moves to sit up. We untangle ourselves from each other and make our way to our feet. I straighten out my top and smooth my hands down my high waisted jeans before looking at the guy standing in front of me. He’s fairly tall, lean and wiry, but muscular. His light blond hair is piled messily into a bun on his head but I’m guessing our fall loosened the pieces now hanging around his face. His fierce blue eyes and facial expressions are etched in concern as he repeatedly apologizes.
“It’s fine, God. Just stop talking,” I say, holding my hands up to silence him.
His mouth closes immediately, his eyes still wide and focused on my face. He stares at me a few more moments before opening his mouth again and saying quietly, “I’m so sorry.”
I rub my hand over my forehead, then move to tuck a few stray curls back into my own messy knot on top of my head. “Do you often run people over this early in the morning?”
“Never,” he swears. “I’ve never run over anyone before. Ever. Well actually that’s not true. I ran over my little cousin once but that was like three years ago and she was fine. Didn’t even bleed.” He bends down to pick up the damned skateboard. He straightens and looks down at me. I take a minute to run my eyes down his frame, seeing a white T-shirt promoting what I think is a band I’ve never heard of paired with black skinny jeans and some of those checkered black and white sneakers. He plucks a wireless headphone out of his ear and tucks it away in his pocket.
“I’m Hayden,” he says, shifting the skateboard to his other hand so he can hold out a large calloused and mildly scraped hand out to me. I stare at it before looking back up at him.
“I don’t touch people I don’t know,” I say dismissively before picking my bag off the ground.
“That’s a great practice to have honestly,” he says before lowering his hand and moving to grip the skateboard with both hands. I notice his forearms are scraped pretty badly.
“Did that just happen?” I ask him, nodding my chin towards the angry red marks across his lightly tanned skin.
“Huh?” he asks, following my eyesight and bringing his arm up to inspect the damage. “Oh damn, would you look at that?” He turns his arm every way it could possibly bend before finally lowering it and turning to me. “Not too bad. It could have been worse. Just glad you’re okay, I tried to take the brunt of the fall but it was hard to do that mid tumble, you know?”
I look at him, realizing that he did indeed try to grab me and twist me so that he landed on the hard ground instead of me. “Thanks,” I say finally. He smiles wide, and I immediately notice a tiny chip in one of his incisors—almost unnoticeable—that actually makes him look incredibly endearing. He’s cute. Attractive.
“It was the least I could do, since I did run into you. . .quite fast and hard,” he says, the smile remaining firmly in place.
I nod. “True.” Taking a step back I say, “Well. I’m probably late for my class now. But thanks for an exciting morning, Hayden.” At the sound of his name, his smile grows a fraction and his mouth parts slightly. My eyes focus on that smile while I walk backwards a few steps before turning around and walking away.
“You never told me your name,” I hear him call after me.
I raise a hand and wave lazily, “Bye, Hayden.” I don’t turn around again but damn, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to.
FOUR
NOW, SUMMER
I jump slightly at the sound of a door closing, and I look up from my desk to see one of my coworkers entering our department carrying two boxes of paperwork. Another girl jumps up to help her, grabbing the box on top. I mentally curse myself for zoning out during work.
“Ana, I have the briefs from Cahill. He asked me to bring them to you,” she says as I stand and walk towards her.
“Thanks, Ebony,” I say, taking the box from her. She smiles before turning and leaving our department floor.
I take the box back to my desk and set it down.
“Have you applied for the promotion yet, Ana?” a deep, smooth voice asks and I turn my head towards him. Evan walks over and sits on the edge of my desk. He smiles at me and I do my best to return it. His dark brown skin glows against his bright white smile. His hazel eyes filled with warmth and kindness, and I can see the underlying concern and compassion he tries to hide in them. Evan is my closest work friend. We started at our marketing firm at the same time as office interns, moved up to assistants, and we’ve both worked our way up to marketing specialists.
“No,” I say with a sigh.
“Ana,” he scolds.
“I know, I know,” I say, walking around my desk and dropping back into my chair.
“If Deb gets the job and becomes our boss, I’m going to murder you,” he says.
