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“Don’t worry. I was excellent at the high jump.” He takes a few more steps back and stares the fence down, concentrating so hard that a muscle in his unshaven jaw ticks.
Have I mentioned that I’d like to stroke that bristly beard like one would pet a hedgehog? No? Well, I would.
“This isn’t a benign bar,” I protest. “You catch yourself on that, and it’s—razor-sharp to the tune of skin shredding—game over.”
He shrugs and gives me two thumbs up before charging forward. “I lied,” he yells. “I never did high jump in high school. I was mostly home schoooooooooooooolllllllleeeeeddddd.” That last syllable is dragged out as his booted feet launch him off the ground. He goes sailing through the air, and for a minute, I think he’s going to defy gravity and make it. It looks good, but then his back foot doesn’t arch quite enough, and the tip of his toe catches on the top strand of barbed wire.
I let out a gasp, clapping my hands over my mouth immediately. I think he’s going to get hung up and come crashing down and have to face those sharp barbs, but his boots magically spring free. Atlas not-so-magically comes down hard, his momentum off for the landing. But he sticks it, alright. Right on his face.
“Oomph!” he grunts as his body connects with a plush carpet of wildflowers that aren’t quite plush enough to cushion the blow of a burly, six-foot-two or three body going down with full momentum.
I rush to his side and loom over him. He turns onto his back, clutching at his sides and grunting as he tries to get the air back into his lungs. His face is red, but I can tell he’s just winded and not seriously hurt because, on the grimace scale, his scrunched-up frown is only around a two-point-six out of ten.
“Were you really homeschooled?” I should offer a hand, but I don’t know if that’s just going to add insult to injury.
He grunts, then shifts to his side. “I was.” Once he slowly gets to his knees, he gives me a sheepish look. “I feel quite stupid now that I just did that.”
I repress a laugh, but I can’t help a small smirk. “Maybe you should crawl under or through it. Or over, if you could step on the top part and use the post to climb it. It looks sturdy. I don’t think that would damage it.”
“Guess I’m not as superhuman as I thought.”
“I think it was just a minor miscalculation with your back foot. It was still pretty impressive.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. That fence is what? Five feet tall? I can’t believe you jumped that the way you did.”
“Well then. If I impressed you before I fell on my face, then it was all worth it.”
The easy way he can grin at himself after that makes me suddenly quite hot and wet in the panties. I think Atlas notices because his eyes flash, and when I glance down at his jeans, there’s suddenly a bit of a bulge where there wasn’t a bulge before. You know, in the crotch region. My stomach flip flops, and I do nothing and say nothing. I’m frozen, and my mouth is bone dry, while my panties are the opposite. My nipples are sharp little points again, piercing through my shirt and screaming, “Look at me, look at me!”
I’m a little scared by the forces sweeping through me because I have no experience with too much or too extra, or whatever the popular thing to say is right now. I do know opening myself up this way makes me vulnerable for a huge takedown, but I also know Atlas would never hurt me.
“I’m into you,” I whisper so roughly that my voice sounds like my throat has barbed wire constricted around it. Honestly, that’s what my chest feels like, too, because this is a serious risk. “I mean, I…I think you’re really great. And I kind of…I guess I kind of like you?”
“Is that a question?” he asks with a laugh.
“No!” I’m horrified. Leave it to me to botch this so badly that it is likely beyond repair. “No, it’s not a question. No question mark. That was a statement of fact.”
“Oh.” His eyes are twinkling like the stars that I now realize are coming out in full. “Oh, I see.”
I wait for him to tell me he likes me too. That he’s into me too. That…that…something. But he doesn’t say anything, and my heart tumbles straight into the abyss of despair. That’s alright. It’s fine. I can pick myself up from this humiliation, disappointment, and crushing sadness. I’ll channel all of it and turn it into that book I keep meaning to sit down and start. To be fair, there was a drywaller at my house for the past few days, and it’s really hard to concentrate when there are people walking around banging and sanding and creating lots of dust and smells.
