several times that I understood completely and was fine with the late cancel ation.
Mom and Dad are out with friends. “Wel , Esther, it’s just you and me tonight,” I tel her, scratching gently behind her floppy spaniel ears, which are the only spaniel component on her. The rest of her is a curious mix of—as far as we can tel —golden retriever, shepherd, and possibly dachshund.
She’s a true mutt. “Let’s make sandwiches.” I pul ingredients out of the fridge and pantry, and rol slices of deli turkey for her. Her tail tick-tocks gently side to side as I set the plate in front of her. “Need a pickle with that? No?” I ask as she gingerly lifts each rol and gobbles it down.
She lies next to me on the sofa (an Esther no-no she gets away with when we’re alone) while I eat my pita sandwich and scrol through network TV options. Nothing looks interesting, so I browse the pay-per-view selections.
I’m in the mood for something cute. No slashers, no thril ers, no buddy flicks. No historical drama or redemption-through-pain-and-or-suffering films. Especial y nothing that says profoundly moving or grab a hankie! in the description.
“Here we go, Esther: ‘Trey begins his senior year at a new school with girls swooning for him, and jocks as friends. Things get complicated when he fal s for quiet, bookish Amanda, who becomes a social pariah after she rats out the footbal players’ cheating ring, half the first string fails English, and the team loses the big championship game.’”
Esther turns on her side and lays her head on my leg. “I think we have a winner.” I click buy , press the play button and grab a handful of popcorn, thinking that I should be sad that Nick had to bail on me. That I didn’t have time to make plans with anyone else. That I’m spending my Saturday night alone. But I’m fine. I’m more than fine.
The movie is everything I hoped for. Until about ten minutes in… when one of the random jocks turns out to be Reid. I gasp, and Esther raises her head sharply and looks at me, and then swivels around, looking for the unknown menace.
I should have looked up his filmography on IMDb last night. Al I real y know of him are his last two, more major roles. This movie is almost three years old.
His role is minor, and he spends most of his onscreen time in the background, but once I recognize him, I’m either watching him or waiting for him to show up again. The movie is an hour and fifty-seven minutes long, but it takes me nearly twice that to get al the way through it because I’m rewinding and replaying every moment he’s onscreen.
In one party scene, several couples are in various states of making out. I spot Reid on the left side of the screen, sitting in a chair, kissing one of the cheerleader characters, who’s straddling him. Their mouths are fused, but I watch his hands—gripping her arms, sliding down to the smal of her back, holding her like he held me when I fel on him. I rewind the scene and watch it a third time.
“Oh, fudge,” I whisper, and Esther looks at me and sighs.
Chapter 17
REID
Olaf is a beast.
I don’t think my trainer expected me to stil be in decent shape, though I told him I’d been working construction for Habitat. Not a fan of bodybuilding through natural means, he employs weights, pul eys, rubber bands and medicine bal s to shape his clients. As far as Olaf is concerned, exercise is not painting, digging fence posts or swinging a sledgehammer to break up a 200 pound boulder. Exercise is done indoors, while a guy who could break you in two over his rock-hard quadriceps provides motivation like,
“What do you want to be when you grow up? A girl ?” I think I pissed him off, flaunting my organical y maintained muscle tone. I should have feigned weakness.
Once he saw that I was primed for what he had planned, he stepped up the pain factor by several notches in what I can only assume was an attempt to kil me, so he could resuscitate me and kil
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