The Secret (North Woods University 3)

The words echoed through me and just like they did that night, they soothe some of the crippling fear wreaking havoc on me.

Before I can revel in his touch, he drops his hand and I almost wince at the loss of contact. What the heck is wrong with me? I’m alone in a house with a guy I barely know, and he’s touching me. If he was any other man, I would already be on the ground suffering a full-blown panic attack, but he isn’t just anybody.

He’s my knight, the only person I know who can calm me down, who can keep me from spiraling out of control. He holds my demons at bay when they are seconds from dragging me down. It’s like he knows me, even though we’ve only met that one time before.

Now the only question is… why? Why does he care, why does he try? Everyone else, including my father, overlooks me, sees me as an inconvenience, but not Clark, at least not yet anyway.

I don’t understand how he has this weird control over my emotions, how I feel safe with this stranger when I haven’t felt safe with anyone in years. And then there is a whole other set of questions burning inside my head, like why is he being so nice to me? What is he expecting of me? I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, because this is all too good to be true.

We start walking through the house, me following closely behind Clark, watching, and listening as he randomly points out rooms. By the time we make it to the basement which Clark calls his cave, I have been shown eight bedrooms, an office which I’m told never to go into, a pool, and a kitchen that surprisingly seems pretty standard minus the chandelier and white marble. The house is massive, about twice as large as the one I was living in back home with my father.

“Let’s order some pizza and watch a movie,” he suggests, pulling his phone out of his well-worn jeans. I force myself to look away. Yes, he’s attractive, ungodly attractive, but that doesn’t change anything. Nothing will come from this, whatever it is. I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me and it’s going to stay this way.

“Anything you want or don’t like?” he asks while dialing the number. I can feel his eyes on me, the heat of his stare piercing through my skin. He sinks down onto the couch with the phone to his ear.

“I’ll eat whatever, I’m not picky,” I respond, picking a spot on the sectional a little ways away from him. I listen to him make the call, ordering two large pizzas. I wonder how much he thinks I’m going to eat. Or maybe I’m underestimating how much he is going to eat? I recall seeing the baseball trophies in his room when he opened the door and showed me it earlier. I can’t imagine he would eat that much pizza if he was playing? Then again, I know nothing about sports or the people who play them. If anything, I try my best to avoid all of them, sports and people included.

Hanging up the phone, he turns to me and asks, “What kind of movies do you like to watch?” The question catches me off guard and I shrug, watching as he grabs the remote from the cushion separating us.

“I’ll watch whatever,” I murmur, settling into the overly cushioned couch. I try to make myself look like I belong here, but it’s hard. This is a new place, new environment with new people and I’m not quite comfortable with it yet.

“So you don’t care about what you eat, and you don’t have any opinions on what you watch?” he questions me, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. Already I don’t like the way he calls me out on my shit. I’m used to being seen and not heard, used to walking through life, never fully living for the day and I get the feeling Clark isn’t going to let me do that here.

“I’ll tell you what… I’ll pick out three movies and you make the final decision. Sound good?”

I blink slowly, trying to figure out what the hell he’s doing. Without waiting for my answer, he gets up and grabs a huge DVD case, one that can hold at least two hundred disks. He folds open the black case, flips through it for a few seconds and pulls out three disks.

He puts them down on the couch right in front of where I’m sitting. I look down and inspect the three movies. Forrest Gump, Cast Away, and The Green Mile.

“Do you have a Tom Hanks fetish or something?” I ask.

Clark grins and, Jesus, that smile is breathtaking. “She speaks,” he teases, two dimples appearing. “For a little while there I was worried I had said something, and yes if you must know I love Tom Hanks.”