Her warm hands were now pressed against my chest, their pressure causing me to inhale sharply. My eyes fell to hers. They were pleading.

I heard “fuck this” and then heavy footsteps thumping against the pavement, the sound growing gradually more distant. My eyes, though, they never left hers.

After what felt like forever, she looked away.

I blinked for what seemed like the first time.

She suddenly noticed that her hands were still on my chest. “Shit. I’m sorry,” she said, pulling them away and hiding them behind her back.

I swallowed. It was thick and embarrassingly loud, louder than the beating of my heart in my eardrums. “Are you okay?” I asked her. Bending slightly, I finally relaxed enough to catch my breath.

“Yeah, are you?”

Straightening, I studied her warily. She was a mess. Scraped knees. Disheveled hair. Shoe missing. I looked away when I caught sight of her purple bra, openly exposed from her torn top.

She cleared her throat.

I returned my gaze to her once she’d crossed her arms over her chest, hiding herself. She bit the corner of her lip, but everything else was still. There was no movement, not until she slowly raised her hand and wiped her cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.

My eyebrows bunched. It’d been a while since I’d heard such genuine sincerity. “It’s no problem. Really.”

She tried to smile and then adjusted her top while taking off her remaining shoe. Then she just stood there, barefoot and shivering. One arm at her side, holding her one and only heel, the other covering her breast. “Well, thanks for saving me.” She laughed softly, jerking her head toward the path behind us. “I better get going.”

I nodded, chewing on my thumb. Then some sense kicked in, and I stepped in front of her, blocking her from walking away. “You shouldn’t be walking anywhere alone, especially—” I cut myself off. “Dressed like that” was definitely the wrong thing to say. Instead, I opted for “especially this late at night.”

Her smile was tight. “I’ll be fine,” she assured me, looking around at the darkness surrounding us.

She shivered again.

I pulled out my shirt, which I’d tucked into my shorts’ waistband, and handed it to her. “It’s probably wet—from my sweat—and it might smell a little funky, but you’ll be warmer.”

Her face relaxed, and her lips curled up. “Thank you, Blake.”

“You’re welcome, umm . . . ?”

She paused, searching my face. “Abby.”

“Abby.” I nodded in confirmation. “At least let me walk you wherever you need to go.”

She seemed to hesitate before nodding slowly. “I need to find my purse and my phone.” She studied me for a moment. “I don’t suppose you’re hiding a phone anywhere on you I can use for light?”

I looked down at my running shorts and sneakers. “No. But it’s in my car . . .” I pointed in the direction of the parking lot. “We can grab it and come back.”

She cursed under her breath. “It’s okay. I don’t think we’ll be able to find our way back here. Not when it’s this dark. I’ll come back in the morning or something.”

I smiled. Knowing that park as well as I did had its perks. “I know where we are. It’s fine.”

Grimacing, she asked, “Are you sure? You’re not . . . on your way somewhere?”

My laughter echoed through the still air. “Yes, Abby, I’m sure. Where would I be going dressed like this?”

She smiled then. Amusement danced in her eyes. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “To kill someone?”

“What?” I asked, surprised at her sharp wit. I turned and began moving toward the lot.

When she caught up to me, she continued. “Think about it. How many times do you hear on the news about dead bodies being found in parks? You know who always finds them? Joggers.”

I turned to her, tilting my head slightly, trying to work out whether she was serious or not. She tried to hide her smile before adding, “It seems a little suspicious to me—you joggers always being first on the scene and all. My theory is that you’re all a bunch of murderers, and you get away with it, using the jogger clause. Makes me wonder if you have some underground club where you compare notes and brag about pulling off these murders.”

I threw back my head and laughed. “That’s one amazing theory.”

“Well,” she said, nudging my side with her elbow, “at least when you murder me, you’ll know that I was onto you, buddy.”

“Yet, here you are—walking with me in pitch-black darkness, at two in the morning, to a more-than-likely abandoned parking lot, under the impression I’m going to get you back to your necessities. You’re not even slightly afraid of what might happen to you?” All joking aside, she had to be a little worried. Surely.

The air around us turned thick. “No, Blake. I know I’m safe with you.”

She said my name as if it had a different meaning.

We walked the rest of the way to my car in silence.

CHAPTER TWO

I opened the car door, pulled out a bottle of water, and handed it to her. She thanked me before gulping half of it down in one swig. Searching through my gym bag in the backseat, I found a sweatshirt for me, then handed her my letterman jacket. I watched as she shrugged it on. It looked huge on her, bigger than it did on Hannah. With her fingers curled around the edge of the sleeves, she slowly worked each of the buttons from the bottom up. It hung lower than the skirt she wore, almost down to her knees. “What?” Her voice pulled me from my thoughts.