I shifted my weight just slightly to keep her from moving around me. “You’ve been busy lately.”
She cleared her throat and pulled her gaze away from mine. “I’m surprised you noticed. I’m trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. I know you don’t want me in this house, so I’m doing my best to make it seem like I’m not even here.”
I leaned closer to her, forcing her to lean back against the fridge in the dark. “I thought you worked so hard to get under the same roof as me because you wanted to show me how sorry you are for what you did to me. How does that work if you’re never around?”
She made a face and nervously fiddled with the apple in her hand. “You made it pretty clear you don’t want to hear any excuses for why I did what I did. I fought a losing battle for most of my life, Huck. If I learned anything, it’s when to know it’s time to cut your losses.”
When she put the apple back to her mouth for another bite, I moved quickly and grabbed her wrist so she couldn’t pull the piece of fruit away. I bent down and bit the other side. I heard her gasp as I got close enough that our noses almost touched. She went still as stone as I put a hand on her hip and guided her body even closer to mine. I pulled back after taking a sizable chunk from the opposite side of the apple and grinned at her after chomping it down.
“It’s too sweet.” My voice was twice as raspy as it normally was, and I couldn’t stop a shiver when I felt her body quake underneath my hand.
When I let go of her wrist, the apple fell to the ground with a thump and rolled away. Ollie lifted shaking hands to her open mouth and blinked wide eyes at me.
“What are you doing?” She sounded completely bewildered and baffled, but even in the dark, I could see the way her gaze locked on me, skimming my face and the rest of my barely dressed body. It was about damn time she realized I was missing most of my clothes while standing close enough to touch.
I lifted a hand to my mouth and used my thumb to wipe my bottom lip. “I just wanted a bite. I was curious how it would taste.”
The double entendre was cheesy and as thick as maple syrup, but Ollie didn’t seem fazed by it in the slightest. Instead of saying something sassy or silly back, she scurried away, chasing after the fallen apple and muttering that it was past time for her to go to bed.
I didn’t stop her when she ran away, but I did grin at how fast she fled. I took it as a good sign that she was far from unaffected, even if she didn’t respond in the way I’d hoped. I supposed there was simply too much history between us for her to fall fast and hard, no matter how high I turned up the charm. It was bound to take some time to get her to stop seeing me as her childhood friend and protector and make her see me as something… someone else.
If she was going to run from me now, I was going to have to chase her.
It was anyone’s guess what kind of disaster was going to happen when I finally caught her.
I was egotistical enough to want to believe I could walk away unmoved after I ran Ollie off. I’d learned how to live without her once before. Only, the way my heart was currently racing, and the way my entire body felt tight and overly alert from being too close to her, were huge red flags that I was getting in over my head where this complicated girl was concerned.
It was unfortunate that I’d never been the type to abide by those pesky little warning signs. If I had, maybe I could’ve stopped Sawyer from ruining all our lives with his selfishness.
I didn’t pay attention all those years ago, and the monster nearly ate me alive.
I wouldn’t make that same mistake this time.
Ollie
“Do you think he was going to kiss you? It sounds like he was coming onto you, which is weird since all I’ve heard from the moment you moved to town is how much he hates you. Are you sure you didn’t misread the situation? It’s not like you have a ton of dating experience.”
Mercer stirred her straw around her second margarita. She’d finally appeared out of nowhere and asked me if I wanted to meet for lunch. She immediately shrugged off my concern about her whereabouts and sudden attachment to her new boyfriend. She told me repeatedly that I was blowing the situation out of proportion and once again rubbed my innocence in my face. I was sure she didn’t do it to be hurtful, but on top of Huck’s weirdly forward behavior out of the blue, I didn’t have a solid hold on my emotions, and I was overly sensitive about everything.
I traced a falling drop of water on the side of my glass and looked down at the table as I muttered, “I might not know much about dating, but I know everything there is to know about Huck. He wouldn’t try to get close to me all of a sudden without a reason.” And without acknowledging my apology or discussing what happened between us in the past.
He wouldn’t get close physically or emotionally without a purpose. When we were younger, it was because he wanted to protect me and he liked the added benefit of pissing off Sawyer and Sawyer’s mother. Now, I knew all the way down to my bones that he was scheming something. He was playing a game and I didn’t know the rules, but I knew he intended for me to be the loser no matter what.
He’d grown up a lot in the years we’d been apart. Back in the day, his tricks and pranks had been mostly harmless and rarely hurt anyone. It didn’t seem like that would be the case now. He’d grown up adjacent to evil, but always seemed to be unaffected by the darker influences around him. The adult version of Huck made me question that childish belief. There were times he was just as cold, calculating, and unscrupulous as Sawyer.
“So, what’s his reason for suddenly being so flirty if you know him so well?” The second margarita was gone as quickly as the first, and Mercer signaled the waitress for a refill. While it wasn’t uncommon for her to have a cocktail during lunch, full-on day-drinking was something new, and the worry that had been eating at me while she went quiet started to tingle along my senses once again.
I frowned at her as I aimlessly picked at the chips and salsa sitting between us. “I think he’s going to try and get me into bed.”
And I knew if I succumbed, he would immediately flip the script and freeze me out. He wanted to betray me the way I’d betrayed him. He wanted me disappointed and disillusioned the way he’d been. He wanted me to feel ashamed and embarrassed enough to leave the house on my own without dragging the landlord into our situation. He wanted to destroy any lingering infatuation I might have for the boy he’d once been.
Mercer sipped on her drink and lifted her eyebrows. “Well, that sounds like fun, not a threat.” She continued to look at me questioningly as I sighed heavily.
It might sound like fun to someone else, but for me, I knew it would only end badly if I let myself fall into his trap.
She cocked her head and asked, “Why don’t you give it a shot? If you know what his intentions are, why can’t you have a little fun? If anyone deserves a couple of mind-blowing orgasms and some thoroughly distracting sex, it’s you. Maybe he’s got a magical dick and it can heal all that’s wrong in your world at the moment.”
I tossed a chip at her but she just batted it away, unbothered and possibly a little buzzed, if her terrible coordination was any indication. “Really, though. If he wants to sleep with you for his own end, why not play his game but make your own rules? You can’t tell me you aren’t attracted to him. Your entire face changes when you talk about him. And it has since you first stumbled into my store all lost and alone. He’s like your magnetic north. No matter what direction you’re spinning, your needle always points back to Huck.”