Tony

 

 

 

 

“WEIRD DAY, YESTERDAY, huh?” I said in a low voice as I walked the bungee gnome through the woods toward my car. I just had to say something. She was too silent, and it made me feel uncomfortable.

She tilted her head, arching one eyebrow.

I slowed down a little, because she was limping badly with her injured leg and I didn’t want to give her any more trouble. “First I made you cry, then I rescued you from the river…”

At that she laughed out loud. “You didn’t rescue me! I was sitting in water that barely reached my chest.”

“Yeah, but you’re tiny,” I taunted her, feeling strangely attracted to the sound of her laughter. “The current could have easily swept you away.”

“Shut up!” She swatted my arm and pulled a face, but a quick smile tugged at her lips. Did that make us friends?

Suddenly, I remembered I didn’t care for another Summers in my circle of friends and tamped down at the stupid happiness in my chest that had started to grow since I had first seen her this morning.

Three trees farther down the path, Sam cleared her throat. “Tony, can I ask you something?”

I liked that she’d called me Tony instead of Anthony, but at the same time I wondered if it had been a mistake to tell her to do so. It meant I’d already let her into the friend zone, and to shove her out again was going to be a hard job. “What’s up?”

“It certainly wasn’t just the spilled water that pissed you off. Will you tell me why you’ve hated me from the beginning?”

I sighed and deliberated how much of the truth I could tell her and still be safe. None, I eventually decided, so the only thing she got out of me was a tight smile. “No.”

“Must be something terrible if it made you turn me into a witch,” she muttered.

Thank God, she had no idea what else I’d turned her into. “Don’t look so frustrated, bungee. Too much info will just give you a headache.”

“Bungee?”

I stiffened. “What?”

“You just called me ‘bungee’.” Her eyes narrowed as she stopped and folded her arms over her chest. “What is that? A new insult?”

My breath turned to ice in my lungs. I couldn’t really have just called her that out loud. What the hell was wrong with me?

“And here I thought we were past all that crap,” she grumbled and limped on, leaving me behind. “My bad.”

I caught up with her fast. “It wasn’t an insult, Summers.” Pulling the hood of my sweatshirt—which Sam was still wearing and which looked annoyingly hot on her—up and over her eyes, I gave her a playful shove against her shoulder. Not a hard one, just a gentle push, but she stumbled anyway and whined.

“Oh shit!” Reaching for her arm, I steadied her.

Soft laughter disrupted her whining. What—she was fucking with me? That little troll! Oh well, I probably deserved that for everything I’d done to her. Most of all for making her cry. But still. I pulled her closer to my side with a firm grip on her upper arm and snarled a threat in her ear. “I should dump you in that brook again, wench.”

“Have more clothes to share?” she asked, her tone teasingly sweet.

I couldn’t stop myself from imagining her in my white muscle shirt instead of that hoodie. Shaking the riveting thought out of my mind, I let go of her arm.