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She rubbed at her neck, very aware of her pulse, of the weight of his gaze. She shrugged again and plucked some clover to start a chain. “I don’t know. Depends whether Quinn gets ‘Rafe’ to ask her.”
“You’re not going with that Chris guy?”
“No! Chris and I—we’re just—” She stopped herself. They were just what? Friends? Were they even that?
“We’re not going,” she said. “We’re not even—I mean, I never really spoke to Chris until last week.”
Hunter was watching her now. “So how’d you get mixed up in his mess?”
God, she wished she knew. If she could go back to Wednesday night, the night Tyler and Seth had been kicking his ass, she’d—
She’d do the exact same thing. Even knowing what she knew now.
“Quinn said you saved his life,” Hunter said.
Had Quinn said that? She couldn’t remember. “I was leaving school late one night. Those guys, Tyler and Seth, the ones with the gun?” When he nodded, she continued, “They were beating Chris up in the parking lot. There was no one else around, and my cell phone was dead.”
“Did they come after you?”
“No.” She hesitated. “I chased them off.”
“How?” His voice was even.
“First with my car. I just kind of ... um, drove at them.” She had to be blushing. Her face felt like it was on fire. “But then they came back, and one of them grabbed me, so I did some self-defense stuff, and they bolted.”
Now he smiled. “Some ‘self-defense stuff’?”
“Don’t tease me! It’s true.”
“Okay.” He sobered. “Show me.”
Like she needed to make a bigger fool of herself. “No. It’s silly.”
“Silly? You chased off two big guys. I’d like to see this ‘self-defense stuff.’ Maybe I could use your techniques.”
“I’d just taken a class the school offered,” she said. “It was fresh in my mind. I couldn’t do it again.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Ugh. She folded her fingers the way Paul had told her, and did a halfhearted swing.
Hunter caught her wrist. “Stand up. Show me. For real.”
His eyes held that challenge again, like they had in the car. She pushed to her feet and stepped off the blanket, feeling the sun on her face. When Hunter joined her, Casper shifted forward to nose at the abandoned box of potato wedges.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.
Hunter grinned. “Now that’s funny.”
Oh, he wanted to get cocky about it? She didn’t even warn him, just folded her fingers and swung.
He caught her hand. He was quicker than she’d expected. Stronger.
It stole her breath for a second.
“Not like that,” he said. He gently pried her fingers loose and refolded them, making her thumb more prominent. “Like this. Do it again.”
Holy crap. “You know about this stuff?”
