Just Us

Eight

Chapter eight
Corey

She's blushing and I feel the familiar warmth crawl up my neck. I can't believe I just said that. Her arm is still tight around my waist as we inch closer towards wherever she's leading me.

Isla smells like vanilla and I'm trying to keep that out of my mind because she's hurt and needs help and I shouldn't be thinking about anything else. But it doesn't help that his entire leg is pressed up on mine.

I'm wishing I had worn my shorts instead of my sweats because then I'd be able to feel her skin against mine but I shouldn't be thinking about this. She's hurt.

Isla may be tall but her body is petite and I thought I had broken her. When she was on the ground, I realised just how small she was. Her waist fit perfectly in my hands, both my hands enough to cover her entire waistline.

My hands are on the curve of her petite waist right now, and so are my eyes.

Damn it. Eyes up.

I pull my arm higher so they're on her shoulders instead and with that, she leans onto me further. I don't know if that's better or worse.

"It's right over there," she points to a street of houses.

FallHill and WoodsField were very different but I didn't notice just how different until now.

"Which one?" I ask and she points out the third house. It's huge and an off-white colour, with a well-maintained lawn, little flowers dotting it, and a white picket fence around it. A typical, whole family's home.

We reach her house and she ducks violently and I gasp. "What wrong?" I hold onto her because I don't know if she's falling or hiding.

"My dad's in the backyard." She says, shielding herself with my body, "he's not supposed to be outside," she mumbles to herself.

I don't get what's happening and she looks up at me, sensing the confusion. "I'm not supposed to be out," a guilty smile wiping across her pink lips.

"How're you going to go back in then?" I ask her, looking at a man's head bob out from the backyard every few seconds. He still hasn't seen us since his back is faced towards us. It looked like he was getting something repaired back there, but I couldn't tell what.

"Hm," she hums to herself as she goes deep in thought. Her eyes flicker to a window on the second level at the side of her home, hidden from the backyard and she's frowning. Was she actually thinking of climbing it?

"Your leg's hurt. You can't possibly think of climbing up there right now." And she looks at me with narrowed eyes.

It lights up the next moment, "I know!" She points towards the garage, the door lifted only slightly.

"The garage?" I ask and she nods.

"We have to hurry though, I don't want him to see us."

And I take in the situation. We're going to need a full minute to inch over to the garage and her dad's going to notice us since I'm not easy to miss. I don't mean because I was just that attractive since it wouldn't matter to her dad anyway but I was practically a building in comparison to most.

Without much thought, my arm sweeps her off her feet with one swift motion. An arm under her legs and another around her waist.

I hear a soft squeak come out of her and her tiny hands grip my arm, hard.

"You see how fast that was?" I say as I make it under the garage door. "Should've carried you from the start."

There's only silence coming from her and I look down and she's staring up at me with wide, doe eyes. I feel my heart stutter just a little. "Uh— where do I—" I'm trying to find a place to put her down and I realise this was no garage.

It was a studio of some kind and there was a couch right by a window, a knitted blanket draped over it. "Is here good?" I ask and all she does is nod, her eyes not leaving mine.

And now I can't seem to peel my eyes away from hers either. I bend over, placing her on the couch and her grip on my arm tightens. I put her down and she's so close to me, we're breathing the same air.

Fire, that's what her touch felt like on my skin and-

Shit. Did she just look at my lips?

The same look from when I ran into her washes over her face and her eyes are fixed onto my lips again and now I'm looking at hers even though I shouldn't be.

"Thank you," she manages to say but it's only a whisper.

She wets her lips with her tongue and I have to pull away because the thoughts in my mind are nowhere near appropriate.

I clear my throat, hoping that the heat in my body would subside. I finally move away from her and she releases her grip on my arm, sitting up.

"Is this an art studio?" I start speaking because I need to talk about something, anything to stop thinking about her lips or how they'd feel against my own. My hands reach for the back of my neck as I rest it there, not sure where to rest it after having touched her.

They felt weird and numb and I didn't know what to do with them.

"It's going to be. It's not done yet." She tells me from the little corner.

At first, I was using the art as an excuse to walk away from her but soon, the drawings pull me in and I'm genuinely interested in them. I walk towards the shelves and catch more drawings, very few paintings. "And all of this, it's your stuff?"

"Yeah," I glance back at her and her fingers are toying with her knitted blanket. She looks nervous or embarrassed. She didn't have to feel either way because they were amazing.

"They're beautiful."

"They're okay," her voice is soft and she's not looking at me anymore. There's a shift in her character and I can't put my finger on it. Was me being in here making her feel uncomfortable?

"I better get going," I say and the moment she's quiet, I turn to leave but not before telling her, "you should ice that." I point to her ankle even though she still isn't looking at me.

Before I had the chance to slip out from under the garage door, it starts lifting and I panic.

"Oh, Isla, sweetie. I didn't know you were in here." Her father sees her first and I don't move, hoping I could disappear into the wall.

He turns slowly, sensing my presence and he's close to jumping. "And I didn't know you had a friend over." His eyes are wide. I notice they're the same brown eyes as Isla as I look back at her. It was a colour that resembled autumn leaves. She stares at him as he studies my form intently and I can't tell if I should be running away.

"Hi, I'm Corey." I introduce myself instead. Otherwise, I'd be staring at the father of the girl I almost kissed in complete silence.