Starlee's Heart (The Wayward Sons 1)

“Just super embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed is good. Broken is bad.”

“I don’t think I’m broken.” He offers me his hand and I stare at it for a moment before he simply grabs mine and pulls me up. His skin is warm, his palms rough. We’re eye to eye. “Well, maybe my butt. Yikes.”

“Come on,” he says, helping me off the ground. The first streaks of the sunrise appear in the sky.

I follow him, thinking I’m going to the porch, but he doesn’t let go of my hand and leads me down the path.

“Where are we going?” I ask, stopping suddenly, unlinking our hands.

“To my yard. We can still catch the sunrise.” His eyes flick to mine. “If you want.”

We’re near the edge of the yards, a small cut through between the properties. I don’t even know why I hesitate. Jake’s been nothing but kind to me. All of the boys have been. And it’s a sunrise. And he came to my rescue.

All of that is logical reasoning that make sense when I think them over clearly, when I look at his handsome, eager face, but my chest tightens and he must know because he says, “We can see it from here.”

We can, sort of, but the fact that he watches it with me and doesn’t push me to leave the yard means a lot. So much that by the time the sun creeps over the mountains, and our faces are bathed in pink light, my chest has loosened and the fears from before have completely vanished.

“See you tomorrow, Starlee,” he says, headed back to this house. I wonder if he’ll get his book and what it’s called, but his broad shoulders and halo of hair vanish before I get the nerve.

10

Leelee sends me down to June Lake for a trip to the bigger grocery store. I’ve got a list filled with everything we’ll need for the next few weeks. Grocery shopping was my job at home, too. For all her quirks, Mom did encourage me on day-to-day responsibilities. I knew how to go to the bank, get gas, drive a car. I could handle customer service and get my tires rotated. I was isolated but not incapable. It was my peers she was afraid of, not the old women at the grocery store on senior Tuesday.

This store is smaller than the one at home but still larger than the little market in Lee Vines, but it’s unfamiliar so I roll my cart through the store slowly, making sure I’m getting everything on the list.

It’s in the snack aisle that I spot them. I pause my cart and take in the four familiar guys of various height and sizes picking through the bags of chips and pretzels and tossing them in a cart. They’re all dressed in T-shirts and shorts. Tennis shoes or hiking boots.

Jake faces the opposite way, lifting a case of Gatorade over his head. I can’t help but eye his muscles.

“Red or yellow?” he asks.

“Blue,” George replies.

“That wasn’t an option.”

“Someone should make a case with all the flavors,” Charlie says, spinning around. He’s got two bags of popcorn in his hands.

“Just get one of ea—,” Dexter says, lifting his eyes from the package he’s studying. He turns and spots me lingering at the opening at the end of the aisle. I panic and push the cart forward, my heart racing. Why are these boys everywhere I go? I know the area is small, but really? This small?

I quickly turn down the next aisle, pretending I didn’t see them. That’s believable, right? I’m in a hurry. Wasn’t paying attention. When I finally focus on the products in the current aisle, I realize I’m in the pet food section. We don’t have a pet. I stop, planning on turning around, when two figures appear at the end of the row. I turn and two more figures are at the other side. I’m trapped. No faking it. No pretending.

“Hey guys,” I say, giving a little wave to George and Charlie at one end and Dexter and Jake at the other. They walk toward me and every inch of my skin prickles with apprehension.

“Hey Starlee, we thought it was you,” George says. “Well, Dexter thought it was you, and then I saw your red hair just before you walked off and I don’t know anyone with hair that color and—”

“Shopping for your grandmother?” Jake cuts him off and peers into my cart.

“Yes.”

“I wondered why she didn’t email me a list this morning,” Charlie says, pushing his glasses up his nose with one hand. His phone is clutched tight in the other.

“She emails you lists?” I ask.

“Ms. Nye doesn’t like driving down the mountain, so we usually grab her stuff for her.”

“Oh,” I say, realizing how very nic