Jessica Hawkins

One of the workers had cocked an electric drill in front of his crotch. It spun around as he jutted his hips back and forth. It was stupid, but the other men on the site laughed.

I fingered the thin, gold bracelet around my wrist, a birthday gift from Dad. Tiffany and I didn’t always get along, but I didn’t want to leave her in a dangerous situation. These men were big and dirty. They were making me nervous.

We went up the brick and concrete walkway to the front door. My parents’ house wasn’t a mansion or anything, but my classmates gawked when they came over. With palm trees, a perfectly manicured lawn, and a three-car garage, our two-story home fit in with the upscale Newport Beach neighborhood. It curved gracefully at the end of the cul-de-sac and even had a pool, despite the beach being a ten-minute drive away.

At dinner the night before, Mom’d asked why my bracelet wasn’t on my wrist since I rarely took it off. The most likely explanation was that I’d lost it while fidgeting yesterday. Dad had warned me it was expensive when he’d given it to me.

I kept my eyes down, even though there was no reason for the men to notice me. Mom had told me years ago that one day I’d look like my older sister. That day hadn’t come yet. My limbs were too gangly, my dishwater-blonde hair wasn’t highlighted. I didn’t even have breasts. My mom had gotten hers at seventeen and kept assuring me they’d come.

Retracing my steps from where Tiffany had parked the day before to the dirt lot, I bent at the waist and searched for hints of gold.

“Hey,” one of the men said. His voice was so deep, it gave me goosebumps on the inside, if that was even possible. “I found it. Here.”

Slowly, I turned. The enormous hand in front of me had dirt under the nails and my delicate gold chain coiled in its deep valley.

“It looks valuable,” he said.

I squinted up, and up, and up at him. I had only two concepts of men—ones my father’s age, like my teachers, and the boys I went to school with. This one didn’t fit into either category. He was bigger than my dad, bigger, even, than our vice-principal, who was the tallest man I knew. I couldn’t quite see his eyes under his hardhat, so I looked at the rest of his face. Black scruff nearly hid the dent in his chin. His nose was strong and hard with a noticeable bump.

“It is,” I said.

He held it out. The sleeves of his charcoal-gray t-shirt had been ripped off at the seams. His arms were like the guns Dad displayed in his study—hard, defined, chillingly powerful. The more my father warned me off the weapons he kept locked behind glass, the more I just wanted to touch one to see how it’d feel.

I didn’t move an inch, my heart beating harder.

“It’s all right,” he said, nodding. “It’s safe.”

I opened my hand. He poured the bracelet into it, and I put it in my pocket.

He removed his hardhat. He’d rolled and knotted a red bandana around his head, but it didn’t seem to do much; he had a lot of thick, black hair that spilled over. Picking up his shirt,

he wiped his temples, giving me a glimpse of his hard, rippled stomach, and a smattering of fine dark hair. He dropped the hem immediately, but I averted my eyes anyway.

“Sorry,” he said.

“For what?” I asked the pavement.

“If I made you uncomfortable.” He removed the bandana and used that on his face instead. Dirt smeared across his olive skin. He was making it worse. I could see his eyes better now, dark brown like soda pop, but against the sun, there were lighter flecks, gold as the chain in my pocket.

My stomach tightened. I was uncomfortable, but him knowing that made it worse.

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and hit it against his palm. “You should get the clasp checked,” he said before he walked away.

I made it all the way to the front door when I remembered I didn’t have my house keys. I could picture them on my desk between my phone and a stack of Sassy magazines. I hadn’t even thought to take them this morning. Why would I? Tiffany was supposed to be with me. Even the gate into the backyard was locked. Dad had been extra diligent about securing the house since construction had started.

I shuffled back down the walkway, sat on the curb, and took out my book. Somehow, I could sense the man watching me. I wanted to look back. I liked his dark eyes, and how he looked scary, but he’d done something nice for me. I read the same paragraph three times and still didn’t know what it said, so I gave in and glanced up. He sat on a brick wall that surrounded the lot, his hand cupped around a lighter

middle, and admired my work. In two halves, the sandwich nearly toppled over.

That made me think of his hands, how they’d enveloped my waist and my forearm earlier, of his fingers, the way they’d set my skin prickling. I didn’t want him to touch Tiffany the way he had me.

The truck was parked at the curb of the lot next to ours, the construction site. It looked

Manning sighed and ran his hand down his face. “Why don’t you go get us some ice cream, Tiffany? Give each other a second to cool off.”

“Ice cream?” she asked.

He arched an eyebrow. “You went on and on about it when you invited me.”

She took a step back and sniffed. “Oh. Okay. Will you come with me?”

Tiffany?”

“She’ll find us.”

He strolled away. I had to hurry to keep up. Two kids darted between us, nearly knocking me over. “We can do the bumper cars,” I said. “Those are way more fun.”