He shook his head, still staring at Summer over my shoulder. “Yeah. No shit. No one likes to find out they’re second choice.”
***
I drank too much.
The party was winding down, and I wasn’t the only one who had overindulged. Jayce, who’d said he wasn’t drinking today, had just tripped over his own two feet, and his tipsy girlfriend laughed so hard, she fell down on the floor with him when she tried to help him up.
Needing some fresh air, I sat on the front porch alone, nursing a beer and licking my wounds. I’d done my best to ignore Summer after my earlier conversation with my brother. Then the front door opened, and she sat her fine ass down next to me on the step.
“Here you are. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
I was honest to a fault, more so when I drank. “I was.”
She bumped her shoulder into mine. “You’re not too good at it, seeing as you’re sitting on the front porch, and this is the only way out.”
I guzzled the last of my beer. “He still has feelings for you.”
Summer’s face fell. “But he’s seeing someone.”
“I’ve been seeing other people. Doesn’t keep me from staring at your face every fucking day on my phone.”
She tilted her head. “My face? Is that the part you stare at in the photo on your phone?”
My eyes dropped to her cleavage. “There’s more than three billion women in the world. Why is it that the only one I really want is the one I can’t have?”
Summer stared down at her feet. Eventually she said, “Like I told you eight months ago, I like Jayce. He’s a great guy. But whether you and I had met or not, he’s just a friend.” Her eyes rose to meet mine. “You can’t make yourself feel something for someone any more than you can make yourself stop feeling something for someone else.”
I knew she was right. We’d had no contact for more than eight months after finding out my brother was crazy about her. We’d both moved on to other people, and she’d never moved Jayce out of the friend zone. It was clear neither one of us had stopped feeling what we’d felt that first day for each other. Heart trumps head, every damn time.
It was me who started the game this time. Summer’s hands were splayed flat on the steps on either side of her, next to mine. I lifted my pinky and reached the few inches over to her hand, entwining her little finger with mine.
“Truth or dare,” I said.
She lifted those big green eyes to mine, looking up under thick lashes. “Truth.”
I arched a brow at her choice. She’d always been a dare girl. After sorting through a million questions in my head, I went with something open-ended. “Tell me a secret no one else knows.”
Summer bit her lip and looked shy for the first time since I’d met her. “No one knows I stalked you on Facebook and screenshot a photo someone had tagged you in. You were at the beach and looked really sexy.” She paused and lowered her voice. “And no one knows that sometimes I look at it while I masturbate.”
Jesus Christ.
I swallowed hard. This girl was trying to kill me.
She looked down at our linked pinkies and squeezed. “Your turn. Truth or dare.”
I cleared my throat. Since we were going against the grain, I went with it. “Dare.”
A seductive smile spread across her face. “Come home with me.”
Chapter 21
Natalia
“Are you and Hunter, like, serious?” Izzy asked.
We were about a half hour from the federal prison when she asked the question out of the blue. She’d been her normal, brooding self this morning and had popped her earbuds in before we’d even entered the car, then proceeded to sleep for three hours of the three-and-a-half-hour drive I’d already done.
“No. Not at all.” We were the exact opposite of serious. But telling Izzy that Hunter and I had agreed to become fuck buddies wasn’t really appropriate.
She shrugged and put her feet up on the dashboard. “I like him.”
“He’s too old for you,” I teased.
“Marcus was a dweeb.”
“Marcus was very nice.”
Another shrug.
“How about your love life?” I glanced at my stepdaughter. “How are things with Yakshit?”
“Okay, I guess. He asked me if I was going to the dance, and I said no. Then he asked why not. So I said the person I wanted to go with already had a date.”
“You did?” I was surprised. Old Izzy would have just given him an attitude and not talked it out. She was really maturing. “What did he say to that?”
“He asked me who I wanted to go with.”
My eyes flashed to her. “What did you say?”