Summer Sunsets by Maria Rachel Hooley

into the hallway, I notice the guy is
shorter than I am and he’s rubbing Skye’s wrist. The thinning hair
on the top of his head is a clue that he’s about twice her age,
meaning he has no business even coming around her. Skye’s eyes are
closed, and her face is a pasty white. She’s breathing
fast.
    “ Get your damned hand off,”
I tell him, standing so close he actually bumps his head on the
hall shelf as he whirls to face me. He’s cocky, all right, from a
distance, but when he realizes I’m taller and pissed as hell, his
hand drops, and his shoulders slump slightly.
    “ I didn’t mean nothing,” he
says, averting his gaze.
    “ She didn’t ask you to touch
her.” I snap and look past him to Skye. Her eyes are closed, and I
figure she’s fighting to keep her breathing normal.
    “ She didn’t tell me not
to.”
    I step closer, my chest and
back taut with fury. “She shouldn’t have to. I could plow my fist
into your face with the excuse you didn’t tell me not
to.”
    He scoots away. I step
toward Skye and gently touch her shoulder. She jumps, and her
eyelids flutter open.
    “ Hey there. You okay?” I
whisper, my free hand curled into a fist I would love to slam
across that jerk’s face—not that I believe it would help. Some
people are beyond that, really, they are.
    “ I’m sorry,” she whispers,
averting her gaze.
    “ For what? Attracting a jerk
who should know better? How’s that your fault, exactly?”
    Without warning, she slips
forward and embraces me, resting her head against my chest. I’m
sure she can hear the rapid pounding of my heart, and I’m willing
to bet she’ll think that has to do with almost getting into a
fight, but it’s about being so furious with that jerk I can’t see
straight. Yet the moment she folds into me, all I can think about
is holding onto her for as long as I can, so I gently wrap my arms
around her and lean my head atop hers.
    I don’t know how long we
linger like that—long enough for a biker to need to get past us to
get to the restrooms, and I figure whether I want to stay like this
all day or not doesn’t matter. We’re going to have to hit the road,
so I slowly withdraw and look at her. Her gaze is fixed on the
floor, and I know she’s probably lost in some memory, a place she’s
been a thousand times before that never gets easier. I reach up and
slowly brush the hair from her eyes.
    “ You okay now?” I
ask.
    She nods slowly and looks
up. “I’ll be fine, Devin. I always am.”
    Except that one time, I want to add but don’t. That it’s unspoken
doesn’t mean we don’t both feel it. Not all scars are visible. Some
are so bad they don’t have to be. Trust me on that one.
    I nod toward the register.
“We should probably hit the road. It’s gonna be late before we get
home as it is.”
    “ Yeah,” she agrees weakly.
“You’re right. You’re always right, Devin.”
    Without waiting for my
answer, she heads towards the register to pay for the gas while I
grab the two waters I’d put to the side before following her. She’s
already paid for the gas and slipped out the door as I step up to
pay, and even though I would have pumped the gas for her, she’s
already got it started by the time I get there. Too late as usual,
it seems.
    Call me suspicious, but I’m
looking around for the jerk I came so close to punching out. Yeah,
doing so might have gotten me into trouble, but Skye would
definitely have been worth it. Nobody should treat her that way.
Nobody.
    Luckily, the charmer is
nowhere to be seen. I’m not sure Skye has completely let go of what
happened, so rather than getting into my truck, I lean against the
driver’s door of her car, holding both bottles of water. More than
once, her hair falls into her face, and I watch her long, slender
fingers brush it aside. While she isn’t meeting my gaze, she does
seem to be functioning okay. I wait until she’s finished putting
the gas in her car before I hand her the water.
    “