Page 2 of Crashed (Driven 3)
His green eyes consume me.
Anxiety dissipates when a slow smile curls up the corner of his little mouth smudged with dirt, a lone dimple winking at its side.
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” he says, straightening his back some, trying to act like the big kid he wants to be.
“That’s a good rule. Did your mom teach you that?”
Why does he seem so familiar?
He shrugs nonchalantly. His gaze runs over every inch of me and then comes back to meet mine. They flicker to something over my shoulder, but for some fucking reason I can’t seem to drag my eyes from him to look. It’s not just that he’s the cutest fucking kid I’ve ever seen … No, it’s like he has this pull on me that I can’t seem to break.
A little line creases his forehead as he looks down and picks at another superhero Band-Aid barely covering the large scrape on his knee.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
Shut the fuck up! I want to yell at the demons in my head. They have no right to be here … no reason to swarm around this sweet looking little boy, and yet they keep swirling like a merry-go-round. Like my car should be around the track right now. So why am I taking a step toward this polarizing little boy instead of preparing for the ration of shit Becks is going to spew at me, and by the looks of my car, that I obviously deserve?
And yet I still can’t resist.
I take another step toward him, slow and deliberate in my motions, like I am with the boys at The House.
The boys.
Rylee.
I need to see her.
Don’t want to be alone anymore.
I need to feel her.
Don’t want to be broken anymore.
Why am I swimming in a sea of confusion? And yet I take another step through the fog toward this unexpected ray of light.
Be my spark.
“That’s a pretty bad owie you got there …”
He snorts. It’s so fucking adorable to see this little kid with such a serious face, nose scattered with freckles scrunched up, looking at me like I’m missing something.
“Thanks, Captain Obvious!”
And a smart-ass mouth on him too. My type of kid. I stifle a chuckle as he glances back over my shoulder again for the third time. I start to turn to see what he’s looking at when his voice stops me. “Are you okay?”
Huh? “What do you mean?”
“Are you okay?” he asks again. “You seem kind of broken.”
“What are you talking about?” I take another step toward him. My fleetin
g thoughts mixed with the somberness of his tone and the concern etched on his face is starting to unnerve me.
“Well, you look broken to me,” he whispers as his Band-Aid wrapped finger flips the propeller again—thwack, thwack, thwack—before motioning up and down my body.
Anxiety creeps up my spine until I look down at my race suit to find it intact, my hands patting up and down to calm the feeling. “No.” The words rush out. “I’m okay, buddy. See? Nothing’s wrong,” I say, sighing a quick breath of relief. The little fucker scared me for a second.
“No, silly,” he says with a roll of his eyes and a huff of breath before pointing over my shoulder. “Look. You’re broken.”
