Forever Now (Forever - Book 1) by Elise Sax Page B

our foreheads were touching. He closed his eyes and breathed deep.
    In. Out. In. Out.
    I didn’t know if he was trying to calm himself or trying to build his energy.
    After a few seconds his eyes flew open, and he stepped back, dropping his hands to his sides. He nodded and then faced my attackers.
    “Who’s responsible for this?” he demanded. “I want to know who I’m going to kill.”
    His threat was real. Waves of anger wafted off him. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who could feel the pure animal aggression crackling in the air like an electrical storm. Ralph shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if he was deciding which way to run. The two mean girls chewed on their lower lips and stepped backward.
    But the other two football players stood their ground. They seemed to welcome the threat of a fight, and they probably reasoned—wisely--that two beats one, especially two giant football players against one thin, yet well-defined, model.
    They were wrong.
    Cruz marched over to the biggest football player and got in his face. They were about the same height, but the other guy was much bigger than Cruz.
    “You are so dead,” he told Cruz.
    Cruz didn’t respond. His hand formed into a fist. He cocked his arm back and let it fly into the football player’s face. It landed with a crack that sent him flying backward into the Challenger. Blood shot out of his nose, as if a hose were turned on inside his brain.
    I was sure Cruz had broken his hand, but he seemed unfazed and ready to knock out the next guy in line. The girls had run off with Ralph the second their friend’s nose started to bleed, but the other guy was hopping in place, ready to fight nine rounds.
    I clutched onto Cruz’s arm. “Please,” I said. “Stop. They’re not worth it.”
    Cruz refocused his eyes, looking at me as if he had forgotten I was there and was surprised by my presence. “They’re not worth it,” he agreed. “But you are.”
    I stopped breathing. Time stood completely still. I looked around and saw everyone frozen in place: The bad guys ready to fight. Cruz, the good guy, who cared about me.
    Was that right? Did he care about me?
    I sucked in air and time moved on once more.
    “I don’t want you to get hurt,” I told Cruz. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
    I had visions of a dead and broken Cruz, of a Cruz in handcuffs on his way to jail. I couldn’t bear the thought of him hurt or in trouble. And I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone without him.
    “Please,” I repeated.
    “Are you all right?” he asked me. “Did they hurt you?”
    “No. Let’s go home.”
    Cruz nodded, and that’s when the football player sucker punched him. Cruz pushed me out of the line of fire, and he ducked in time so that the punch didn’t have much impact. Still, he would have a black eye in the morning. That was for sure.
    If I had been Cruz, I would have run away crying, but he seemed fired up by getting hit. Without skipping a beat, he stomped on the football player’s foot and punched him square in the stomach.
    Everyone had had enough after that. The guy with the nosebleed jumped into the Challenger and started it up. The other guy hopped into the passenger seat, and they peeled away from the curb, racing out of the lot with their tires squealing.
    Cruz and I stood in place and watched them go. We could hear them speeding in the distance long after we could no longer see their car.
    I took Cruz’s hand and inspected it for damage. His knuckles were cracked and dotted with blood.
    “It’s nothing, Tess.”
    “Can you move your fingers?”
    “Of course I can,” he said and opened and closed his fist several times to show me.
    I touched his cheekbone. “How about your face? Are you in one piece?”
    “He barely touched me. Don’t worry. I’ll still be beautiful.”
    He winked and smiled. I was so relieved that he was all right that I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed him tight. Just as I became