Ever: The Ever Trilogy, Book One (Volume 1) by Jessa Russo [paranormal] Read Free Book Online Page A

happen.
    “I guess it’s a step up from sopping wet and smelling like dog, huh?”
    “I kinda liked you sopping wet. And you smell nothing like dog.”
    Cue my red cheeks.
    With that comment, he shut the door, and I was in the car alone for a few seconds as he walked around to his side. I took a few deep breaths and ordered my heart to quit racing.
    Once he was inside, Toby took off his sunglasses and leaned over the center console, reaching for the glove box. I waited to see what he was doing, when his hand grazed my knee just slightly. I sucked in a quick breath at the slight touch. Reaching past me, he retrieved the case for his sunglasses. I exhaled a bit too loudly, completely unaware I’d been holding my breath, and he stopped what he was doing, turning his head sideways to look at me. That sexy half-smile was on his face again.
    With mere inches between us, I looked into his eyes for the first time. They were strikingly dark blue, almost midnight. It was such a contrast from his dirty blond hair that I wouldn’t have believed the combination would work.
    Oh, it works.
    It worked so well, in fact, I was half-tempted to smash his sunglasses into smithereens so he could never hide his eyes behind them again. But that would be weird.
    “Where to, Ever?”
    I was mesmerized looking into those eyes. I was so used to Frankie’s—so translucent and almost far away, even when they were right in front of my face. Toby held eye contact with an intensity that made lightning shoot through my body, clear down into my toes. It felt like every inch of me was alive, and the butterflies in my stomach intensified.
    Damnit, I’m holding my breath again.
    “Ever?”
    With a slight shake of my head, and a sigh I’m sure he heard, I snapped myself back into the here and now. If I kept getting dumbstruck around him, he would definitely decide there was something very wrong with me.
    “Oh, I don’t know, uh … .”
    “Well, hey, I’m new around here, right? And your friend did say you wanted to show me around a bit, right?”
    “Yeah, um, okay, let’s see … where are you from originally?”
    “Not around here.”
    “Yeah, I get that, but where exactly is ‘not around here?’”
    He was still just inches away from me, and I found it hard to focus with his face so close to mine. When he smiled, I was shocked to discover that I had a barely resistible urge to kiss him . Whoa. Slow down, Ever. I wondered where the new brazen side of me had come from all of the sudden. Especially since I didn’t even know the first thing about kissing boys.
    “Montana. I’m from Butte, Montana.”
    “Montana, huh? Okay, so no beaches. Hmm. Have you ever even seen the ocean? Like, on a vacation or something?”
    “Nope. I guess I’m pretty sad, huh?”
    “Yes!”
    He leaned back into his seat, looking at me sideways with that perpetual smirk still on his face, and I realized my blunder.
    “Oh my gosh. I mean, no! You’re not sad! It’s sad! I can’t even imagine growing up away from the ocean. Okay, we’re heading to the beach. Take Chapman up to the 55 heading west, and it will take us all the way to PCH. That’s Pacific Coast Highway, if you don’t know.”
    “Highway 1, right?”
    “Yeah. Exactly. Except we don’t really call it that. I’ll tell you where to go from there.”
    As we pulled away from our neighboring houses, a flash of something caught my eye from my living room window, but when I looked back there was nothing—or no one—there.
    Frankie.
    Toby and I talked a little on the way to the coast, and I pointed out a few key places—like all the nearest Starbucks, and my favorite little hole-in-the-wall place for breakfast burritos—but mostly we rode in silence and listened to music. His car had a place to plug in his iPod, and he handed it to me right away to scroll through. The songs were in alphabetical order, so it didn’t take me long to find out that, like Jessie and me, he also liked the Black Keys.