Page 29 of The Darkest Chase
Still, I feel like I missed out on so much else.
Running and playing with other kids. Sports and band. Going to dances to peek at boys over my fingers.
Stealing young kisses behind the bookshelves in the library.
Even dating in college. I just never learned how.
All the little social rituals that turn into flirting and dates and kisses and more still feel like a mystery.
Anytime someone tried the first half of that call with me, I panicked.
Every time, I dropped the ball awkwardly and left the guy fumbling away from me with confusion. Like he thought he’d tried to win over a girl and then realized he was actually chasing some weird, gross bug.
Miss Grey.
Does Officer Ainsley see me the same way?
He calls me Miss Grey like he’s from another time. That doesn’t stop my mind from spinning daydreams about him in a waistcoat, lurking against a window with the moonlight in his eyes and reflecting off his deadly lips.
He almost looked upset when I asked him about his teeth.
But I get it.
For him, it’s part of what singles him out and makes him so different.
Just like my asthma.
He probably got picked on as a kid for his teeth and his albino skin, the same way I did because I couldn’t run or play or fight.
When I think about him that way—the real man behind the fantasy—it stops being this taboo thrill.
It just makes me hurt for him.
It makes me want to tell him it’s okay to be different.
And he’s definitely different from what I expect tonight when I hear a faint metallic jingle and look up, realizing it’s a dog collar.
Officer Ainsley makes his way quietly along the thin strip of grassy shore, his reflection mirrored in Still Lake’s glossy surface. He’s walking a German Shepherd that looks like a small bear—an older dog, I think.
The dog moves slower and a little unevenly, but Ainsley matches the canine’s pace, stopping when the dog wants to stop.
And when I stop and get a good look at him, my breath stalls.
He’s so normal tonight.
Almost rugged in dark jeans, dark hiking boots, and a deep blue and black plaid flannel shirt, the sleeves cuffed to his elbows. The open throat shows off stark lines of collarbones.
Instead of the side-parted sweep he wore earlier today, his hair is a little messy.
He might look perfectly ghostly under the moonlight, but the way he’s dressed, the way he moves, the way he looks down at his dog with his eyes brimming with clear affection?
It reminds me he’s a man.
Not some prop for swirling hormones and juvenile fantasies.
It’s nice seeing him like this, honestly.
And there’s also something else.