Demanding Ransom (6 page)

Mikey mutes the football game blasting
throughout the house, and I hear the front door click open. After a murmured
exchange, Mikey bellows, “It’s for you, Mags!” down the length of the hall.

Cora texted ten minutes ago saying she’ll head
over in three hours, so I can’t imagine she switched plans without updating me.
She texts me when she changes her nail polish color. If she decided to show up
earlier, I’m sure I’d get a text detailing her change in agenda.

I slam the lid to the washer and pull at my
ponytail to tighten the rubber band. I probably should have streaked some
makeup across my face this morning, but I never have company. Brian was the
only one to ever show up unannounced, and he’s seen me in a lot less flattering
instances than today’s.

Like when we decided to test out the college
scene last spring and snuck into a party at the frat house Brian hoped to rush
in the fall. I’d never had anything to drink before that night and haven’t had
the stomach for anything since. I didn’t know that the apparent goal was to get
the underclass girls completely wasted. And since I wasn’t even an
underclassman, more like an
under
-underclassmen,
I think that rule was doubled for me. At least the two-day headache and
eight-hour toilet bowl worship seemed to indicate that to be the case.

Brian was a great boyfriend at the time. He did
the whole holding my hair back thing while I purged my body of the ten shots of
liquid that had tasted like motor oil and gasoline going down, and just about
the same coming back up. He was sympathetic: stroking my back to work out the
kinks earned from hunching over the toilet for so long, placing the damp cloth
on my forehead when I started to sweat profusely, and helping me stretch out on
the cool tile floor to lower my feverish body temperature. Brian was always
such a caretaker. Unfortunately, while he did a decent job taking care of my
stomach that night, my heart was one thing he was much less cautious with.

When he slept with his organic chemistry lab
partner the first week into college, he’d shattered it completely. Like the
past three years together were an obvious exchange for a one-night stand with
the beautifully blonde sorority pledge. She hooked up with his frat brother the
next day, so it didn’t last between them, but I don’t think that’s what he
wanted, anyway. I just think he didn’t want me anymore.

“Maggie!” Mikey shouts again, this time above
the blast of helmets and pads crashing against one another, the television’s
volume cranked to full power.

“Coming!”

I jog down the hall toward the entryway and
pull on the front door, half expecting to see Cora, half deluding myself into
believing it might actually be Brian, but completely unprepared for the
tattoo-clad, motorcycle-helmet wearing body standing before me.

Ran.

He lifts his helmet off and shakes out his
hair, tucking the helmet under the crook of his arm at the same time he thrusts
a bouquet of yellow gerbera daisies my direction.

“Ran?” I mutter, completely baffled by his
presence—albeit incredibly attractive presence—on my doorstep.
“What are you doing here?”

“I owed you a gift.” Ran waves the flowers
toward me. “You gave me another compliment the other night in the ambulance,”
he smirks, making my already unsteady knees soften. “And like before, this one
can double as makeshift room décor, too.”

I pull the flowers from his hand, still
speechless, because searching for some sort of appropriate reply is a more
daunting task than the research paper I need to complete this weekend.

“Can I come in?” He looks past me toward the
living room where Mikey is perched at the very edge of the couch, his hands
held to his mouth as his knees bounce nervously up and down, counting down the
last seconds of the game on the big screen.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” I slide to the right, but
Ran is already in the entryway. “I don’t remember giving you a compliment that
night. I just remember saying that I couldn’t wait to get out of the
ambulance.”

Ran shakes his head and purses his lips. “Nope.
You did,” he replies confidently. “You said ‘You guys did a good job with my
leg.’ Since it was only half a compliment and I had to share it with Trav, you
just got daisies.” He settles his helmet onto the rustic wooden bench next to
the front door that is usually littered with Mikey’s football gear. “If you had
phrased it like this, ‘Ran, you are my hero for saving my life,’ you would have
gotten roses.”

I want to hold it in because I don’t like the
idea of giving him the satisfaction, but a snort of a laugh flies out of me.

“Gesundheit.”

“I didn’t sneeze, I laughed.”

Ran cocks his head. “You laugh through your nose?”

“Only when I’m trying not to.” My cheeks
radiate about 104 degrees and I tuck my chin into the scarf twisted around my
neck, wishing I could disappear into its fabric. Why does he make me so
nervous?

“It’s not nice to laugh at someone who brings
you a gift,” Ran reprimands, looking past me again, this time down the hall.
“Let’s go put these in your room.” He scoops the bouquet out of my hands and
pushes past me, but I grab his elbow, making him spin on his heels so we’re
face to face. The act surges a frigid chill throughout my entire nervous
system, and I’m pretty certain my heart ceases beating the second his eyes lock
with mine. I drop my hand quickly and shove it into my pocket.

“I don’t know if you should be in my room.”

“Maggie,” he says, a mocking note held in his
tone. “I’ve been in your room before.” Ran rolls his eyes at me dramatically.
“And
that
was in the middle of the
night. It’s eleven in the morning now, a much more acceptable time for
visitors.”

I follow him down the hall to my bedroom like a
scolded puppy with her tail between her legs. Seriously, who is this guy?

“You need a vase.” He surveys my room, but
there’s nothing remotely close to a vase in it. His eyes falter when they catch
my packed suitcase situated at the foot of my bed instead. “What’s that?” Ran
drops the flowers down to this side and a canary yellow petal slips onto the
floor.

“I’m heading back to school this afternoon.”

“What?” he blurts. He reclaims his composure
and continues, “You’re leaving town today?” His voice cracks slightly.

I nod, not sure why any of this matters to him.
“Yes, my roommate is picking me up after lunch.”

“So you don’t have lunch plans then.” Ran pulls
a random beer stein that once belonged to my grandpa from a shelf on the wall
and shoves the daisies into it, stuffing them into place. They look absolutely
ridiculous, but so did the balloons, and so does his face right now as he steps
back, admiring his absurd floral arrangement proudly.

“No, I guess not.”

“Well.” He grabs me by the hand and takes two
longs strides toward the door. His fingers are warm and interlock perfectly
with mine. “You do now.”

Ran drags me at arm’s length behind him back to
the entryway but stops short when he sees his helmet on the bench. “Crap,” he
breathes, stroking his jaw with his one free hand. Man, he’s got a nice
jawline—perfectly square and angular. The tight ball of muscle pulses at
the back of it as he clenches his teeth. “Your car’s totaled from the accident,
yeah?”

I nod.

“And you don’t happen to have a helmet lying
around, do you?”

I shake my head.

“Mikey,” Ran calls over his shoulder. “You have
a ride we can borrow?”

“TOUCHDOWN!” Mikey screams and launches into
the air, catapulting over to us. He picks Ran up by his waist and twirls him
around a few times before depositing him back on the floor. Mikey’s incredibly
strong, because Ran is just an inch or so shorter, and probably close to the
same weight, yet he lifts him like he’s a ragdoll. “Sorry man, but did you
see
that?”

“No.” Ran smoothes his ruffled shirt with his
palms. “But because you just spun me around like we were competing in Dancing
with the Stars, you owe me your vehicle for the afternoon.”

“Fair enough.” Mikey quirks his head and pulls
his keys out of his pocket to chuck them toward Ran. “But I’m meeting Eric at
the pool hall in an hour and now have no way of getting there.”

“Now you do.” Ran sweeps the helmet off the
bench and situates it onto Mikey’s head, paying careful attention to the scar
that snakes down the back of it. “Have fun.”

“
No
,”
I pull the helmet off, probably a little too roughly. “Mikey doesn’t have a
death wish.”

Snatching the helmet from my grip, Mikey
retorts, “You’re right, I don’t. But I did stare death in the face last month
and won. And I’m totally willing to kick its ass again…on the back of that
sweet bike parked in our driveway.”

“You’re an idiot, Mikey,” I sneer, binding my
arms tightly over my chest. What is it with guys and their need to push the
limits of their mortality? “And so are you, Ran.” I throw him a cutting glare.

“Shoot, Maggie,” Ran says. “That insult just
deducted one of your compliments. You were
so
close to licking my lips.”

Mikey raises his hands up and backs away from
us, the keys to Ran’s motorcycle dangling in his palm. “I don’t even
want
to know what that is about,” he
asserts. “I’ll be back by 1:00.”

“The throttle sticks a bit,” Ran instructs, and
it sounds like he’s speaking in some guy code Mikey appears to understand. “I
lubed the cable this morning, so she shouldn’t give you a hard time.”

“I’ll try to return her in one piece.”

I’m pretty sure my jaw’s unhinged and my
mouth’s hanging open, because when I swallow it’s so dry that it mimics the
feeling of sandpaper running up and down my throat. Scrape, scrape,
scrape—an unbelievably uncomfortable feeling. Just one of the many I seem
to experience each time I’m in Ran’s presence.

“Ready?” He pivots my direction.

My head bobbles unsteadily on my shoulders and
Ran must mistake that for a nod because he slinks his fingers through mine and
then we’re out the door to the garage.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“What do you like to drink?” Ran grabs two cups
from the counter and stands in front of the soda machine, surveying the eight
different beverage options before him. “Let me guess. Not Mountain Dew; you
probably think that looks like toxic slime. And it’s evident you could
definitely use some caffeine in your life, so I’m guessing no on the Caffeine
Free Pepsi. I bet you’re a Dr. Pepper drinker, no?”

I make a loud buzzer noise, indicating his
fail. “Diet Coke.”

“Diet Coke? Really?” He says it like it should
reveal something monumental about me, like he’s uncovered some hidden secret
just by discovering my soda preference. “You don’t strike me as a Diet Coke
type of girl.”

“You think what I like to drink sheds light on
who I actually am?”

I take our tray of food to a booth at the back
of the burger joint. A young mom pushing a stroller and grasping the hand of a
toddler just vacated the seat, and the oversized wheel of the jogger lodges
between two chairs in front of her. Ran slides the table barricading them to
the side and they squeeze past. He gives her a genuine, full smile in return
for her mouthed ‘Thank you,’ and continues toward our table.

“I think you can learn a lot about someone by
the way they look at you when you’re trying to analyze them,” he says, slipping
into the booth and popping a French fry into his mouth at the same time.

I settle in across from him and drop my purse
from my shoulder to set it down next to me on the pleather seat cushion. “I think
you can learn a lot about someone just by watching them interact with others.”
I nod my head toward the family now exiting the restaurant. “Have you always
been such a gentleman?”

“Is that compliment number five, Maggie?” Ran
flashes me an enormous grin as he continues chewing his food. How can he make
eating junk food look sexy?

“No,” I say, collecting my cheeseburger from
the tray and peeling back the wrapper. There is cheese stuck to the paper, and
I thumb it off with my nail and pop it into my mouth. “Remember that
insult-related deduction? I’m back down to four.”

Ran grins and hangs his head. When he looks up,
he’s peering at me from under his dark hair and I realize just how attractive
he actually is. I thought maybe before it was the whole hero thing he had going
for him in his paramedic attire, but seeing him dressed in just distressed
jeans and a V-neck white t-shirt, he’s even more appealing. He stretches his
arm across the table toward his soda and my eyes trail down his half-sleeve of
colorful body art that winds around his bicep.

“Four compliments for me and I’ve yet to give
you any.”

I swallow the food in my mouth, wipe my lips
with a paper napkin and say, “I don’t need you to compliment me, Ran.”

“No, you don’t strike me as the type of girl that
needs any sort of affirmation.”

“I don’t seem to strike you as much today, do
I?”