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I type in Hope’s information and immediately have a screen full of news articles and returns But I don’t need to look at the every article and every lead that’s reported about Hope’s disappearance I know them by heart I slam the computer shut

I need to run

Chapter Eight

She has no distinct features that I can reirl with brown hair and brown eyes and felt she was the sao is quite possibly borderline obsessive

Ah I won’t be able to move past Les’s death if I don’t rectify at least one of the things I’ve fucked up in ot to let it go I’ve got to let go of the fact that I’ll never have Les back and I’ll never find Hope

I have these saht in htens little by little with each step I take I remind myself with each step that Sky is Sky and Hope is Hope and Les is dead and I’ether

The run begins to help ease sorocery store I’ve convinced h I’ about Sky I can’t get the thought of her out of my head and I wonder if that’s Grayson’s fault If I hadn’t heard hiht, I probably would have rocery store incident fairly quickly and I wouldn’t be thinking about her at all

But I can’t stop this growing urge to protect her I kno Grayson is and soirl for even a fewto put her through There isn’t a single girl in this world who deserves the type of guy Grayson is

Sky said she had a boyfriend at the store and the possibility that she ets undershe was Hope for even a fewextremely territorial about her

Especially now as I round the corner and see her standing in front of my house

She’s here Why the hell is she here?

I stop running and dropmy eyes trained on her back while I catchin front of e of ainst my mailbox She’s drained the last of her water bottle and she’s shaking it above her et more water out of it, but it’s completely empty When she realizes this, her shoulders slump and she tilts her face toward the sky

It’s obvious she’s a runner with those legs

Holy shit, I can’t breathe

I try to recall everything on her driver’s license and what all Grayson said about her Saturday night because I suddenly want to know everything there is to know about her And not because I thought she was Hope, but because whoever she isshe’s fucking beautiful I don’t know that I even noticed how attractive she was at the store, becauseher in front of me? My mind is all over that

She takes a deep breath, then begins walking I iear and ease up behind her

"Hey, you"

She pauses at the sound of my voice and her shoulders immediately tense She turns around slowly and I can’t help but smile at the wary expression strewn across her face

"Hey," she says back, shocked to seein front of her She actually seems more at ease this ti lot, which is good Her eyes slowly drop down to my chest, then to my shorts She looks back up at aze to her feet

I casually lean against the nore the fact that she totally just checked nore it to save her eet it In fact, I’ll probably be thinking about the way her eyes scrolled down my body for the rest of the damn day

"You run?" I ask It’s probably the ht now, but I’m completely out ofheavily fros," she confirot how hot it is in the afternoons" She lifts her hand to her eyes to shield them from the sun while she looks at me Her skin is flush and her lips are dry I hold out h, but I feel pretty damn pathetic that I freaked her out so ht actually do soe my water bottle toward her "You look exhausted"

She grabs the water without hesitation and presses her lips to the ri it back to me She wipes the water off her top lip with the back of her hand and glances behind her "Well, I’ve got another et started"

"Closer to two and a half," I say I’ next to nothing and every single curve of her mouth and neck and shoulders and chest and stomach seems like it was irl, I wouldn’t even coht now

I press the bottle of water toit’s et to her lips I can’t even take h to take a drink

"Huh?" she says, shaking her head She seems flustered God, please let her be flustered