Read Online Hardcore: Volume 1 by Staci Hart - Free Book Online Page A

like it shifts your axis.” He straightened up and picked up a carving knife to slice the meat. “One day I took a camera with me. There’d been so many times that I wanted to capture a moment, a feeling I had when I was running. Photography was a way to do that. I’m on Tumblr and Twitter, and a few weeks after my posts started going viral, I was contacted by a journalist at the New Yorker who wanted to do a piece on me. That was my break.”  
    “I love that, and I’m not surprised at all. Your work is brilliant,” I said with a smile and picked up my drink. “Highest fall?”
    He laughed as he plated the meat. “Probably twenty feet, more or less, off a catwalk.”
    “Holy fuck.”
    “Yeah, I’m lucky I lived. I broke my leg in three places though, had to have surgery and get pins put in. You?”
    “Close to the same. I underestimated a jump, but I caught a ladder that slowed me down enough not to kill me. Pulled my arm out of socket, though.”
    He sucked in a breath with a hiss as he handed me the tray of meat. “Fuck, that hurts.”
    I shrugged and took it, moving for the table. “Only until you pop it back in.”
    He laughed and reached into the other oven for and reached behind him into the other oven for a casserole of what looked like wild rice and broccoli. We sat down at the small table. “Worst injury?”
    “Hmm.” I didn’t even need a knife to cut the meat, it was so tender. I moaned the second it hit my mouth. “My god, this is amazing.”  
    “Thanks,” he said and popped a bite into his mouth.  
    I swallowed the morsel of sheer heaven and thought a second longer. “Trick gone bad. I vaulted over a short wall and flipped, but I landed wrong. Slipped on the gravel and fell twelve feet or so, landed flat on my back. I opened my eyes and couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move my arms or legs. I thought I was paralyzed.”
    His fork hung in his hand with a sliver of pork on it. “Jesus.”
    I kept going. “Bloodiest was a shin rip. I seriously thought it was never going to stop bleeding. It was so nasty, you could see the bone in a strip. I ripped it almost from ankle to knee.”
    He squirmed, laughing. “My bloodiest was a rip in my hand.” He held it up to display a diagonal scar that ran across his entire palm. “You could see the muscles inside. I passed out.”
    I laughed. “We should win some sort of award for amazing dinner conversation.”
    Van took the idle bite he’d forgotten, and for a moment, we ate in content silence, though my mind was working over a single question. It was simple enough, but I couldn’t understand why someone so accomplished, someone who knew what he wanted would go so far out of his way for me when he could have just about anyone. Based on the fact that I fucked him and ran, he shouldn’t want anything to do with me, but somehow he did, and I wanted to know why.
    I worked up the nerve to ask, the nerve to hear his answer, and when I was ready, I set my fork down and spilled it.  
    “What do you want from me?”
    The question seemed to throw him, and he swallowed the food in his mouth, taking a second before responding. “I don’t really have any expectations. I just know that meeting you was a singular event in my life. Chasing you, watching you … I don’t know. Every jump you made, every step you took was powered by absolute certainty, and I wanted to know you. I couldn’t walk away.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know if this makes any sense.”
    “It does,” I said softly. It was too much, but I couldn’t move, just watched him across the table.
    He kept talking with a look on his face like he was trying to figure it out himself. “I really did just want to talk to you that night. I didn’t expect to hook up, but I didn’t expect you to run either. The minute I turned around and you were gone, I knew I had to find you. I couldn’t leave it alone. I laid in bed that night and stared at my ceiling, wondering who you were,