Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1) by S.T. Bende Read Free Book Online Page B

something to offend you, did I?” You know, because you never finished asking me out . I stared
at the twigs beneath my feet as I ran.
    “What? No. Nothing like that. I just had
some… some personal stuff I needed to deal with.” Tyr didn’t offer
anything more, and despite my excellent opening, he didn’t
ask any follow-up questions about any perfectly good first-date
suggestions. With a silent sigh, I tabled my disappointment and
resolved to live in the moment. Running through ancient redwoods
with a superhero clone was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime
experience… even if it did require bludgeoning my instinct to
analyze Tyr’s intentions and predict his future behavior. Old
habits died hard with me.
    We fell into a companionable silence as we
made our way through the forest. The only sounds were the morning
birds, the occasional falling pinecone, and our soft footsteps.
After another mile, we reached the end of the trail. Tyr continued
onto the pavement, and I followed.
    “You and Brynn live this way.” He nodded.
    “Yep. Where’s your place?” I jogged beside
him.
    “I’ll run you home.” That didn’t answer my
question, but his smile made me forget what I’d asked. The early
morning sun filtered through the trees to hit the planes of his
face, illuminating his spectacular features in an almost ethereal
way. A light sheen lined his brow, and his eyes sparkled against
softly tanned skin. His hood was still pulled over his hair, and I
wondered if he had bed head underneath that fabric. Stop,
Mia . No need to put Tyr and bed in the same
sentence. Nothing was going to happen between us. Not even
dinner.
    “Turn right up here.”
    “I know where you are.” Tyr jogged the three
blocks to my house, and I tagged alongside him. He was probably
being nice to me because he felt bad about the other night, but I
didn’t care. It was good to have company.
    Especially such attractive company.
    “Here we are.” I stopped when we got to the
front of the little house. Tyr slowed next to me.
    “It’s nice.” He kept his eyes on mine.
    “Thanks for crashing my run. Even though you
were bossy about it.”
    Tyr adjusted the hood of his sweatshirt with
a chuckle. “Do you run every day?”
    “Most weekdays. I swim alternate days, and I
take weekends off.”
    “That’s quite an exercise plan. You don’t do
anything halfway, do you?”
    “I try not to,” I answered honestly.
    “Hmm. Are you going to run in the forest
again?”
    “I’m planning to.” The corners of my eyes
crinkled. “Unless a certain bossy-pants is thinking of interfering
with my trail run again.”
    “It’s really not a good idea to take the
Woodside Trail,” Tyr stressed.
    “So you mentioned.” I reached up to adjust my
ponytail. “Maybe you should come keep tabs on me again, to make
sure I follow your approved routes.”
    Tyr’s eyes widened a smidge. A half-smile
broke out across his spectacular face as he took a step backwards.
“Maybe I should. Six-thirty Wednesday morning. This yard. I’ll be
the one in the hoodie.”
    My breath hitched. Tyr wanted to see me
again. Was he just obsessively controlling and wanted to make sure
I did what he wanted? Or was he archaically chivalrous, and wanted
to make sure I didn’t get hurt? Or, and this was a big or ,
did he actually want to spend time with me? I didn’t want to get my
hopes up unnecessarily, but if I had any chance at a shot with this
guy, I sure as the dickens didn’t want to miss it.
    “I’ll be here,” I squeaked.
    “Great. See you then.” Tyr opened his mouth
as if he wanted to say something more, but instead he turned on one
heel and raced down the street. He rounded the corner before I
could even say goodbye.
    We were seriously going to have to work on
that boy’s manners.

CHAPTER
FOUR
     
     
    MY FIRST OFFICIAL COLLEGE class was
one of my general education classes—an Art History course called
World Myth in Art. According to the syllabus, we’d start the