Chloe

The bus was late getting to our stop, and the half-dozen other people waiting with me were restless. Three weeks before Christmas, the freezing Illinois air caused every breath I exhaled to turn into dragon-like steam. I imagined telling my future son or daughter that we were descended from dragons, and the idea made me smile a little as I touched my stomach through my thick coat.

Just two months along now, my baby was a whopping three centimeters long. Despite my circumstances, despite the fact that in about 8 hours I was going to need to spill my whole sorry story to my sisters, I was still giddy. My oldest sister Mara liked to say that I had about as much sense as a Jack in the Box, and maybe she was right, but nothing was going to stop me from being happy about having a little boy or girl as a Christmas surprise.

Anxious as I was about confronting my sisters, I also really wasn't looking forward to the six-hour trip up to White Pines, Wisconsin, but nothing could dampen my spirits—nothing, that is, until I saw the man watching me through the crowd. There was nothing obviously wrong with him. He was dressed nicely enough and wasn’t bothering anyone. It was just the way he watched me, not even bothering to hide it.

I'd been using the bus long enough that I could spot a problem, and this man, staring at me like I was a chicken dinner, was definitely going to be a problem. He grinned as if being caught staring was a good thing, and licked his lips. When I scowled, he only laughed, and just as the bus pulled up, he started towards me. The idea of being stuck in a seat with that guy all the way up to White Pines was not my idea of a good time.

I looked around desperately as the bus driver ticked our names off of his clipboard and started loading the bus. There were so many empty seats on the bus, and the creep was practically right behind me. I walked past a college couple and a pair of sisters sharing their seats, then past a mom with a cranky toddler. My eyes swept from seat to seat, searching for an escape. There! Beside a man reading a newspaper, there was an empty spot.

“Hi! Is this seat taken?”

Newspaper Guy looked up in surprise, but before he could answer, I stuck my bag under the seat and sat down.

“Thank you so much!” I chirped, and smiled as the creep skulked off to find another seat.

“It might have been taken,” my new seatmate said pointedly. “At the very least, did you miss the dozen other completely empty seats around us?”

A moment ago he’d merely been my escape route. Now I actually noticed that he wasn’t much more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight at most, with sandy blond hair and dark brown eyes. He wore a black wool coat that looked expensive, and unlike most of the men on the bus who wore jeans and boots, he wore slacks and dress shoes. I realized he looked like a man who should have had a sleek Mercedes or an Audi or something. So what was he doing on a bus to nowhere, instead of flying first class, at least?

His eyebrows arched irritably—I didn’t know eyebrows could be irritable—as he waited for me to answer him.

“Sorry about this,” I whispered. “There's a creep who looked like he wanted a seat with me, and I'm going to be on this bus for six hours. I'll get out of your hair later, all right?”

I thought, best case scenario, that my seatmate would go back to his newspaper, grudgingly letting me keep the sanctuary I had found. Instead, his dark gaze sharpened, and his frown deepened.

“What did he do?” he asked, and I blinked at the slight growl in his voice.

“Nothing much,” I hastened to add. “It's just he was staring at me, and um... he licked his lips.” When I said it like that, it seemed really minor, and for a moment, I thought he was just going to roll his eyes and kick me out of his seat to fend for myself.

Instead he nodded, eyes still narrowed. He straightened enough so he could see over the seat backs, scanning the space like some kind of hunting animal.

“The one in the Packers jacket?”

“There's like four guys getting on in Packers' jackets...”

“Brown hair, glasses, weird little beard thing?”
“Ah, yes. How can you tell?”

“He's staring hard at what he can see of you from where he's sitting. I think that's just your foot and your shoulder.”

Self-consciously, I tucked myself a little farther into my seat. It had the effect of bringing me closer to my seatmate, who was still scowling at the creep behind us.

“I'm going to go...” He started to rise, and a fast vision of a bus brawl raced through my mind.

“No, don't worry about it,” I said, reaching out and tugging his coat to hold him back. “I just want to make it to White Pines without any problems.”

He frowned at me, and then reluctantly nodded.

“Here, take the window seat,” he said gruffly, peeling his coat off. “And give me your jacket, I can stow it above.”

“Sir, yes sir,” I mumbled, but I did as he said. I did feel safer against the window, and I was more comfortable after I had taken my coat off.

“That's simply ridiculous, a grown man harassing a girl your age,” he growled, and it was such an old man thing to say, coming from such a young guy, that I laughed.

“How old do you think I am?” I asked. I might not have made the most mature first impression, but I didn't have that much of a baby face.

He looked me over, and shrugged.

“First or second year at the University of Illinois?”

I made a face.

“I graduated from college three years ago. I'm twenty-four,” I said. “Want to see my license?”

He shot me a very patient look.

“Have you thought that showing strange men proof of address and identity might be a bad idea?” he asked pointedly.

He wasn't wrong, and Mara's weary comment about common sense and Jack in the boxes ran through my head.

“I promise you, I'm twenty-four,” I said. “And my name's Chloe. There. Not even a last name in case you turn out to be a stalker or something, alright?”

I startled a surprised laugh out of him, and I immediately liked him a little better. When he smiled, it eased some of the lines around his eyes and made him seem less surly. More inviting. If I was going to be utterly honest, it sent a brief ripple of warmth through me, enough to make me want to blush a little.

Dammit, I thought. Paul broke up with me three weeks ago, this is way too soon.

Not for a rebound, a sly little voice replied, but luckily it shut up when he offered me a hand.

“Alex,” he said by way of introduction. “And it's a pleasure to meet you, Chloe.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, taking his hand, and that might have been my first mistake. The moment I touched his hand -large with long, slender fingers and a surprising hint of roughness in a man so well-dressed- a spark shot between us. It was like a shooting star, a hot yellow streak through an endless field of blue, shocking enough that I jerked my hand away, wide eyed.

At first, I thought I was just behaving like a freak, but from the startled expression on Alex's face, I could see clearly that he felt it too.

“Static electricity,” he said finally. “It's dry in here.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, but I sensed that neither of us believed it. “Are you going all the way up to White Pines too?”

Wrong question. His face closed like a door, and even in the warmth of the bus, I felt a chill. He might as well have hung a none of your business sign on his face.

“Yes, I am,” he said curtly, and returned to his newspaper.

Well, at least I didn't end up trapped in a seat with the creep, I thought. I pressed close against the window so that Alex would have plenty of room, and because in my hurry to get to the bus stop, I had forgotten to grab any of the books I was reading, I had to content myself with watching the scenery. Because it was northern Illinois, however, the scenery was mostly scrubby, flat or suburban, so instead I ended up covertly watching Alex, which was much more attractive.

He wore a plain gray sweater that looked so soft that I barely stopped myself from touching it. His shoulders were broad, and I could tell that his hips were narrow. He was lean, but there was some serious muscle on him, if his shoulders and thighs were any indication.

I sneaked another peek at him, and this time I froze because he was looking back at me, his dark eyes dancing with amusement at having caught me staring. This time I could feel a red blush creeping up my cheeks, and I felt about as old as he had thought I was.

Mumbling something about being tired, I turned around completely, curling up towards the window.

He chuckled, and the sweet dark sound sent a shiver up my spine. I closed my eyes. If I pretended to be asleep, he couldn't catch me doing anything else that embarrassing. Soon enough, reality caught up with pretense, and I was drifting off for real.

He’s so classically handsome, I thought drowsily, in that random way that happens right before sleep, and then I was gone.