Not a Chance(14)

She looked up at him, then, and glared. "I love Nick."

The sound of those words made him want to be sick. "It doesn't show."

"Do you want me to play poker with you?"

Travis pressed his lips together. Two hands later he said, "Just tell me this. If there was no Nick, would you be interested?"

"I'm not participating in that line of questioning."

"Okay, so if it wasn't me, but some other guy who maybe didn't have a lot of money in the bank, worked at a job where he had to get dirty, but was otherwise a pretty nice guy. Would you be interested?"

She sighed. "Probably not. I don't really like poor and dirty. I prefer well-employed and clean-cut. So I'd just find me another Nick."

It was his turn to glare. "I'm not poor and I do take a shower now and then."

"We weren't talking about you. We were talking about the hypothetical poor, dirty nice guy."

"Now you're just being difficult."

"Well, so are you. Can we stop, now?"

Travis exhaled loudly and focussed on playing. There was no way he could break through her defenses in just a couple of days. He would just do the best he could without getting his hopes up.





CHAPTER NINE



"So you've mentioned Kristin a few times," Arden said. They were laying on the mattress staring up at the ceiling.

"We're each other's backup plans," Travis replied.

Arden kicked her feet in and out. They'd both run out of enthusiasm for cards and board games and romance novels. The lack of entertainment left nothing to distract her from the increasing sizzle that was developing between them. She was fairly certain if he were to say or do just the right thing, she'd lose all self-control and jump him.

"Well if you're not seeing anyone else," Arden said, "why is she your backup plan?"

Travis sighed. "Well...when we first hooked up, I wasn't interested in anything serious. And I was still so fucked up after Tonya leaving that I doubt Kristen would have had me anyway. By the time I got through all that and on my feet good and steady, Kristen had fallen in love with Brody Jessop. But he's still getting over losing his wife, so he's needed time. She's approached him several times and gotten her heart broken. Those are the times she and I tend to hook up."

"Does Brody know about your relationship with her?"

Travis shrugged. "Don't know."

Arden sighed. It was okay, talking about Kristen like this. It didn't seem real. Didn't bother her. But she was fairly certain if she ever saw her with Travis, she'd have to hate the woman.

"How did you and Nick first get together?" Travis asked.

Arden glanced at him to make sure he wasn't somehow trying to harass her. Satisfied, she looked back up at the ceiling. "He was a senior and I was a sophomore. We met at a party. That was about it."

"How do rich kids party?"

"We wait until someone's parents go out of town, steal from our parents' liquor cabinets, and then get drunk and make out. How do poor kids party?"

He chuckled. "We pile in pickup trucks and drive down to Coon Hollow where old Dirk Danby lives. We drink whiskey from his still and get in fights."

"My God. We're freaking Romeo and Juliet."

Travis turned to look at her. She froze, immediately regretting saying it. Travis rolled up on his elbow and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her. But he didn't. He just grinned down at her. "No we're not," he said. "I'm pretty crazy about you, but not enough to kill myself over."

"Is that so? Too bad for you. I only go for the suicidal ones."

He studied her and she felt her skin heating up. He reached over and took her hand and she let him. His fingers played through hers and it was easily the most erotic skin-on-skin contact she'd ever experienced. She didn't pull her hand away. It would have been too difficult. Too much to ask, even of her, the queen of self-control.

"So," Travis said. "You met at a party. Then what?"

Arden returned her gaze to the ceiling, trying to detach herself from the fact that Travis's hand was making love to her own. "Nothing much. We started dating. It was really good, back then. I thought he was so cool. And he really is a good looking guy. I think mostly I liked the attention I got from dating him. Then he left for college and we broke up. Then when I went to college, we hooked up again. At another party."

"Were you by any chance drunk at these parties?" Travis asked.

She had been, come to think of it. But then, whenever it came to having sex with Nick, drinking was always helpful. "Everyone is drunk at those parties."

"Mm-hmm. So then what?"

"So, we dated a while. Then he went to grad school and we broke up again. I didn't really feel like doing the long distance thing. Then I graduated and moved here and he graduated and moved here and we hooked back up. Not at a party. Just hanging out. Actually I think it was a high school football game. And we've been together since then. Which is about a year and a half."