Something that looked like a pair of eyes glinted back at me.
“Sugar!” I dropped the phone and the light turned off.
In the darkness, I heard heavy breathing. As I reached for my phone, fumbling around in the dirt and dried leaves, I swear I could also hear something slobbering and licking its lips.
I pulled my purse strap high on my shoulder and started marching with determination—the way you’re supposed to move when creeps take notice of you in the city. There was no busy street to cross, or crowded restaurant to run into for help, so I stepped up to a jog.
The slobbering, heavy-breathing, eye-glinting creature padded out onto the forest path behind me.
I dared not look back, but set off at a full-on gallop. Branches smacked me in the face as I wobbled left and right on the narrow path.
“Don’t run!” called out a man’s voice from behind me.
Don’t run? That’s exactly what a Forest Folk creature would say right before he catches you!
I ran faster.
“Don’t run!” he repeated.
Something was at my heels, biting my legs through my jeans and nipping my ass. A branch struck me in the face and I faltered, just as something struck my back and threw me down.
I landed hard on the ground, the breath knocked out of me. With weight on my back, I covered my neck with my hands in self-defense.
“Cujo, heel!” yelled the male voice.
With a sad-sounding yipe, the beast scrambled off my back.
I jumped up and whirled around.
“Peaches!”
“You!”
Adrian Storm stood three feet away from me, his blond hair disheveled and his face shining with sweat in the moonlight. A skinny German Shepherd sat next to him, tongue lolling out.
“Your insane dog tried to kill me,” I said. “Why isn’t he on a leash? And his name is Cujo? Are you f**king kidding me?”
“He’s old and toothless. His bark is much worse than his bite.”
I rubbed my ass, now damp from the dog’s slobber. “He shouldn’t be biting people AT ALL!”
“He’s retired, but the old police dog training kicks in when he sees people running.”
My adrenaline was still in my blood, making my heart pound and dialing up my voice to shouting-level. “I’d be SO MAD if your dog wasn’t so DAMN CUTE!”
Cujo cocked his head to the side, his big tongue dangling.
“He’s my dad’s dog.”
Adrian’s father was a police officer in town, so that actually explained a lot.
“That’s NICE. How is YOUR DAD?” My adrenaline was still disrupting my volume control.
Adrian stepped closer, Cujo at his side and calm.
“Are you on drugs?”
“No.”
“You seem shaken up. I can see your arms trembling, and you’re yelling. Why were you running?”
I stared up at Adrian Storm’s handsome Nordic face, those chiseled cheekbones fierce in the wan moonlight. Teenaged me wasn’t stupid. He was a good-looking boy, scrawny or bulked up.
“I’m feeling much better now,” I said.
“Why did you run?”
“I can’t say, because you’ll never stop laughing.”
“Try me.”
“I thought you were Forest Folk, coming to cannibalize me, starting with my toes.”
He leaned down, bringing the tip of his nose to mine as he stared into my eyes.
“Did you eat any mushrooms? Perhaps little brown ones?”
I pushed him away, laughing. “I’m not high. I’m just… looking for higher ground to use my cell phone. And the highway. It’s this direction, right?”
“This direction? No, you’re headed straight for the Forest Folk lair.”
I punched him in the chest right over the band logo, and he didn’t flinch. It was like punching a brick wall of cuteness.
He laughed at my feeble efforts.
I yelled, “Shut the porch door, and stop telling lies!”
He licked his lips. “They start with the toes, but first they… tickle you!” He darted forward, jabbing at my sides with his fingers.
I screamed, and Cujo reacted by barking and knocking me to the ground again.
After a few choice words, Adrian got Cujo off me again and helped me to my feet.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “Are you stalking that actor who’s staying by the lake?”
“No!” I pretended to be fascinated by the twigs nesting in my hair. “I’m out here for other, completely unrelated reasons.”
Adrian grinned. Even without the lip ring, his smile brought back memories. All those long nights in the computer lab, and me being his you’re-a-girl buddy, answering his many hypothetical questions about asking out Chantalle Hart.
Unlike me, Chantalle Hart was a fun girl, who had fun with all the popular boys at Beaverdale High, the only high school in our little town. Chantalle was the one who taught me how to give a blowjob—using a banana from my lunch. She oozed sex appeal. So much so, that when she did the banana demonstration, I felt a strange tingling sensation in my panties, and wondered if I was a lesbian. For about two days, I was excited about maybe being a lesbian, and getting to join the Theater Appreciation Rocking Thespians, or TARTs, who were the de facto g*y and lesbian alliance.
Then I also got those same tingles the next few times I ate a banana, so I realized it was the banana part of the equation that had gotten me excited.
But I digress.
Alone in the woods with my former crush, Adrian Storm, I pulled some twigs out of my hair and lied about why I was there. “I went for a hike and lost track of the time.”
“Of course. Let me walk you back to your car.”
“I don’t have a car, but you can walk me up to the road, if that’s okay with Cujo. Or if you have your car here, you could just drop me off in town.”
“I can do that.” He waved me on ahead of him, along the trail. “And I do know why you’re out here, but don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Okay,” I said cautiously.
“But if you get a big pay check for your work, maybe throw a bit my way.”
I shot him a dirty look. What exactly did he think I was doing out there? I didn’t want to know.
We walked in silence up to a cleared space for parking. The only vehicle in the lot was an expensive-looking, canary yellow sports car.
“I thought you were broke,” I said.
“I am. And cars like this are partly the reason why.” He opened the passenger door and folded the seat forward so Cujo could amble up into the back and sit on his towel. “Get in and enjoy it with me before the repo men track me down.”