Page 19 of Scars of the Sun
After parking amongst the five or so cars and settling my helmet on the seat, I was already pulling my board from the straps that secured it to my backpack by the time I made my way inside. Someone was playing Arch Enemy on a bluetooth speaker, and the sound of boards kicking off into the air and slamming back down helped the rest of my tension from work bleed away.
I dropped my stuff near a free stretch of fence and rolled to the bowl. Some kids were already taking turns dropping in, and once I had an opening, I let myself tip down the steep incline and glide into its depths.
Time slipped away, my worries crumbled and fell, and it was just me and the board. I spent some time grinding one of the rails, laughing along with the companionable hollers when I landed a kick flip.
People came and went, and a little while after I discarded my shirt on top of my backpack, Tyler showed with his board and waved me over.
He pulled two Tecates out of his backpack that he’d dropped next to mine. I accepted the one he thrust toward me and popped the can open. The cold, hoppy taste slid comfortably against the loose calm I was already feeling. Goosebumps prickled my heated skin that’d become a little damp from me working my body with no break since I’d gotten here.
Tyler’s sharp elbowing at my side had my eyes flying open, not sure when I’d closed them, and his babyface filled my field of vision. He was scrubbed clean from work, probably, and it always weirded me out to see him without his usual get up. To make him look less soft. Older.
“You left with her the other night, right?” His eyes cut somewhere over my shoulder, and like a fucking Pavlovian bell, my body heated from the inside like a rolling fire. My tongue licked droplets of beer off my lips, testing, hoping, that some lingering taste of Ramona was still there. The bar in my tongue clicked against my teeth in a gesture that I would never fucking admit was nerves.
Annoyed with myself and excitement shooting all the way down to the ends of my fingers and toes, I didn’t even bother acting nonchalant. What would be the point?
I turned, and, sure enough, Ramona was sitting on one of the concrete ledges that’d been waxed and grinded on thousands of times over.
She was in a delicious pair of denim shorts and a white sweatshirt that made her light brown skin look even deeper. A long, black plait sprouted from the back of her scalp, fell down her neck, and bounced softly against her chest while she laced up her hot pink skates.
“Yeah. I gave her a ride back home.” My voice was steadier than I felt, watching the meditative way Ramona secured her laces and lifted her over-ear headphones into position like she always did.
Tyler said something else, but I was drinking in the sight of those long, brown legs straightening as she stood and began to roll over to the flat area that wasn’t much a favorite for everyone else here. At first, I thought she hadn’t noticed me, very brazenly, staring at her as she rolled around. She circled her shoulders, rolled one-footed while shaking out each leg, and when she’d apparently warmed up enough, she pulled her phone from her back pocket. After tapping on the screen a few times, she cut those honey eyes to me as she stuffed her phone back in her jeans.
I grinned and swept my stare down to the quad wheels under her feet and back up to her face. Now that she was back in front of me, no longer a crystalized version in my memory, I felt my usual bravado slip into place. I made no mistake in my perusal of her body. The cute little furrow between her brows just before she twirled and began skating in rhythmic loops and bounces made my mouth water. What an intriguing minx she was.
“So, did you hit it? Is that why you didn’t come back after you left with her?” Tyler’s voice filtered back into my awareness while I watched Ramona dance to whatever music was playing from her headphones. If I’d really been concentrating, I’d have probably been able to discern what it was, but the forms of her arms and legs making fluid shapes out of the song she listened to, and Tyler’s presence pressing against my side, were stealing all of my attention.
It took me about ten seconds longer to process his question than it normally would’ve, but when I did, I didn’t even bother keeping the venom out of my words. “Why the fuck does it matter?”
I looked back at him, but he was just drinking his beer and watching Ramona, interest clear in his stare. Just to make it worse, he answered with eyes still glued on her, “I mean, I usually prefer dick, but she’s hot as fuck.”
I had to breathe through the possessive wrath that crashed into me and almost took him out at the same time. My hand crumpled the aluminum of my half-empty beer, and moisture spurted around my fingertips where my claws had sprung out to sink into the can. “Shit,” I muttered and willed the razor-sharp points to retract.
This wasn’t me—I didn’t dream up ways I could murder one of the few friends I’d made in town just because he expressed interest in the same piece of ass I couldn’t go more then five minutes without thinking about. Sex was fun, and combine that with my commitment to put down roots a total of nowhere, there was no room for certain stuck-up girls with wolf shifter blood and the most enticing scent I’d ever encountered.
I plugged the opening on the top of the can with my thumb and turned it sideways so I could shotgun the rest of the beer through the holes I’d made. No use wasting a good Tecate when it was so hard to find in this town.
The fizzy cold shot down my throat, cooling off the instinct to shift and maul the shit out of Tyler’s face and throat. It didn’t, however, douse the flare of possessiveness and desire I felt while I watched Ramona wind and spin on her toes, arms outstretched and braid swaying. Her black lashes fluttered against her cheekbones, and it reminded me of how prettily she’d held me in her mouth and tasted. Choked.
After I’d downed the whole thing and crushed the can the rest of the way, I shoved the empty into Tyler’s chest and caught his surprised startle. “Don’t touch her.” I knew that I was being an asshole to the first person that’d been nice to me when I moved to town, but as I started rolling over to Ramona, Icouldn’t make myself care. I wasn’t a stupid dog that had trouble sharing, but the thought of Ramona leaning in and trusting someone else made me want to roar.
The closer I got, the more I recognized the music sound coming from her headphones. It was a deep, groovy sound that just emphasized the buttery way she moved and bopped on her skates.
On my board, I circled her imaginary dance floor while she did some intricate repetitive crossing pattern with her feet. Her gaze rested on a fixed point on the ground in front of her, but every few seconds, she’d look up at me with a wary expression and flick her eyes back to the ground again. As I made another revolution around her, I sniffed the air, but there was no fear.
“Working on something new?” I asked, letting my board screech as I pivoted to keep circling her. She was chewing on her lip, continuing the pattern over and over. It lacked the fluidity of her other movements, and every so often, she’d lose the rhythm, pause, and start over.
After a few seconds of her flying through the movement, she lost pace again. This time, though, she huffed and made a quick spin with a jarring stop, as if it was its own gesture of irritation. “I was.”
A warm tug pulled at the middle of my chest, and I brought myself to a stop, facing her. Ramona managed to cock a hip, thigh muscle flexing with the movement, and her eyes were challenging.
“Am I bothering you, Princess?”
She flicked her braid over her shoulder and tugged at the cuffs of her sleeves. Like she’d done when she walked in on me and Alex.
She lifted her chin, just a little bit. “No. What’s up, Río?”Damn.
I stepped off my board and crossed the few steps to her. Ramona didn’t look away as I approached, but she did that tugging at her sweatshirt again.