Yes, and over the years she had seen pictures of him at various stages of growth and accomplishments, but who can keep up with all that growing and changing? She was too busy with her own hormones and accolades to worry about Eric’s, the boy who tormented her and she loved to torment back.
Eric had moved to Georgia, now the plates make sense, with his mother after his dad and mom had divorced. Even when it had come time to say goodbye to him, which was actually at this very airport, she had stuck out her tongue in defiance. No hugging. No tears. Not even a handshake. Not that seven-year-olds are known for shaking hands, but they could have done something. He could have done something. They never even touched…of course, there was that time out by the green shed when they were playing double-dare, but she didn’t want to think about that now. She was too busy hugging a childhood memory.
Oh wait, she suddenly remembered that they did hold hands in the airport, for a moment, but that didn’t count. They were merely both playing with his ticket when their hands touched. A natural accident.
She had been silly with joy when he moved away. At least for the first few weeks. Then she had missed their arguments and missed having him around to play with. She’d gotten used to all that bickering, all that toy-throwing. She had even tried to convince her mom to let Eric come and live with them, but Eric’s mom wouldn’t let him even fly out to visit his dad.
Mya didn’t know what to say, something that absolutely, positively never happened to her. Even when she was born, her mother said she came out of the womb mumbling and cooing. Yet there she was in the arms of Eric Baldini, who, for some odd reason, made her pulse quicken, and for a brief moment, seemed enormously sexy.
How odd.
“I…I need my shoes,” she mumbled once he let go of their embrace.
He leaned over and her world spun a little as she watched him. Almost as if she’d just been passionately kissed. She took a step back and tripped over her own feet and fell down again, hard on the cement. Now her butt hurt and the fall caused her to bite her own lip. This falling thing was getting entirely too wacky.
When she looked up at him, the rain had completely stopped and the sun surrounded his body, making him appear almost angelic. She half expected to hear birds chirping and a choir singing, but instead a cop said, “There’s no loitering. You’ll have to move on.”
Eric held out his hand. This time she took it. He held her shoes in his other hand. “We better get out of here before he has us towed away. You’re bleeding.” He touched her lip and a tingle shot through her. She sucked her bottom lip inside her mouth and tasted her own salty blood.
“Is it bad?” she asked looking into his eyes.
“No. It stopped.” He smiled. Definitely less nerdy when he smiled. He’d actually grown up into a really handsome man.
Who knew?
“Where’s your stuff?” he asked looking back toward the doors.
An absolute terror swept over her as she slipped her soaking wet shoes on her soaking wet feet. “You don’t actually expect me to get in that thing with that crazed dog and that obnoxious smell do you? And just what is that smell, anyway?”
He opened his mouth.
She held up her hand. “Wait. I don’t want to know. The dog is bad enough.”
“Voodoo? He’s a puppy dog once you get to know him.”
The sun was beginning to dry her clothes, but she had to admit, she was still cold and getting very tired. All she wanted was to go home to Mom’s.
“My mother actually sent you to pick me up?”
He nodded, grinning.
“My mother, who knows I have an unnatural fear of animals with teeth larger than mine, and hate dirt of any kind…that mother sent you?”
“Technically, my dad asked me, but he was calling on behalf of your mom.”
So, they were both in on this little deal. Already they’re trying to fix us up.
Mya thought about her options.
There weren’t any.
Not really. She had no choice but to take a ride from a cute nerd, to whom she was strangely attracted, and had once thrown an entire box of crayons at, hitting him squarely in the head (she wondered if he remembered that). And who came with a man-eating bear of a dog inside a beat-up van.
It could be worse. It could still be raining.
WHEN ERIC’S DAD HAD PHONED HIM to pick up Mya, he pictured a completely different woman standing outside of baggage claim. He honestly believed she would be rather large. She’d been a chubby little girl who stuffed food in her mouth all day long, had short curly hair—Rita always seemed to cut Mya’s hair in strange ultra-short styles—and weird glasses. Mya had worn glasses back then and whenever they’d fight, he would call her Four Eyes, of course.
But the girl in the floral dress with the strawberry hair down to her tiny waist, and a face that could bring the dead to life, wasn’t exactly what he was prepared for. Nor was he prepared for her fear of dogs. Not that most grown men hadn’t walked the other way when Voodoo was around, but her fear was borderline hysteria.
He opened the back of his van and tried to secure Voodoo in his cage, while Mya waited with her luggage on the sidewalk.
“This won’t take but a minute,” Eric told her, but the dog was ornery and wanted to give Mya a friendly welcome nudge. Mya stood as far away as she could. “He wants to say hello,” Eric told her.
“Hi,” she said, waving from her safe vantage point.
“I think he wants to smell you before you get in the van.”
Mya’s left eyebrow went up. He suddenly remembered how she could move each eyebrow independently. When they were about five or six, he thought she was an interplanetary alien because of it, but then he was a big fan of Star Wars.
“You can still do that.”
“Do what?”
“That thing you do with your eyebrows.” He tried to move his eyebrows independently, but couldn’t.
“You remember that?”
“Yeah. It’s not like it’s a common thing.”
“What else do you remember?”
“That you liked peas and spinach. What kind of kid likes peas and spinach?”
“You used to snitch butter out of the fridge and chew on your dad’s vitamin E caps and make yummy sounds.”
“I had a thing for oil.”
It started to rain again, and she still wasn’t in the van.
“You have to let him smell your hand or he’s going to be restless the whole way.”
“Aren’t there enough smells in that van already? Why does he need mine?”
“Dogs like to know who’s around them.”
Mya slowly made her way up to the open door with her hand held out, but he could tell that she was ready to pull it back at any moment. He took hold of it, and she moved up closer. He liked the feel of her skin next to his.
Calm down. There’s no hope here. She’s way out of your league.
Voodoo stuck his nose up to their hands and took a couple long sniffs, but to Eric’s surprise, Mya didn’t pull back like he had expected. Instead, they stood there for an awkward moment holding hands…just like they did the day that he left when they were seven.
AFTER THE SMELL INTRODUCTION with Voodoo, a black pit-bull–bulldog mix with a head the size of a beach ball and teeth way too big to think about, and he was safely inside his black metal