This was getting too comfortable and freaking me out.
“No, I don’t think so. Always a good idea to weave in a little truth.”
“And honestly, after that, we don’t need many details. We have to show a little PDA, but I can take one for the team if you can.”
I flinched before I could help it. “What kind of PDA?”
She rolled her eyes and heaved a loud sigh. “I don’t bite, Tyler. I mean, I could if you think it would help us look believable.” She quirked a brow. “Is the idea of kissing methatrepulsive?”
No. No, it wasn’t. Despite spending most of my life wishing she’d just leave me the hell alone, once I hit puberty the urge to kiss her was always present, even when she’d sent me into a rage and I had to force it away, which only half worked.
But I wouldn’t have to this time. I could actually consider it now and do it without wondering if she would lure me into some kind of trap later on.
I was walking into this trap with my eyes open, and the scariest part was that I wasn’t even trying to look for a way out.
SIX
TYLER
“I’m not surprised that you became a baker,” Olivia told me after swallowing a bite of her dinner. I’d followed her lead and ordered the double cheeseburger on a fresh-baked roll with truffle fries and had to fight a moan with every bite.
“Why is that?” I asked, keeping my eyes on her as I took a pull from my beer bottle.
“Remember how we used to fight over my Easy-Bake Oven?”
“We fought overeverything.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “You let me mix the batter once and then knocked it out of my hands before I could put it into the oven.But it was an accident.” I mimicked her evil little girl voice. “And they all believed you, like always.”
“Not all.” Olivia put her napkin down. “After you left that day, my dad hid the oven for a week as my punishment. Our mothers never wanted to get involved when we’d fight, but he’d seen me knock it out of your hands and said that I wasn’t being kind and he didn’t like it. But he kept it between us.”
Once when my mother left me with Olivia to go shopping with Carla when we were little, Olivia’s father stood by and watched us play. Our mothers held out the dumb hope we’d naturally start getting along if they just let us be and never totally got over that denial. Or at least my mother hadn’t.
It was the first time I’d seen someone notice that Olivia was picking on me. When she left the room for a minute, he whispered that if I wanted to knock over the block tower she was building, he’d pretend he didn’t see. Javier Sanchez was good people and died too young.
“I’m sorry about your father. He was awesome.”
“He was,” she replied, focusing on her glass of water as she poked at what was left of the ice with her straw. “He was gone so fast, it almost feels like it didn’t happen, you know? Almost.”
I reached across the table and covered her hand with mine before I knew what I was doing. Once I saw her eyes water, comforting her was a confusing reflex that I couldn’t control, along with the jolt down my forearm when my skin touched hers.
She stiffened for a moment, staring at my hand on hers with a pinched brow. I didn’t understand my reflex either, but I couldn’t take it back. I tried to slide my hand off her wrist rather than jerk it away.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Wow, look at us tonight. Getting along, getting personal.” She snickered. “It’s almost as if… Never mind.”
“No, go on,” I pressed. “I don’t remember you ever holding back, so no need to start now.”
“Good point.” She nodded, moving her empty glass away. “I’ve known you my whole life. I knew how to piss you off early on, or how to make you bristle at my very presence.” She crossed her arms, her eyes meeting mine with a playful glare.
“All true.” I nodded slowly, taking a sip of water as my mouth was parched from the sudden tension between us. Not the usualwill this woman just go awaytension, but heavy air between us since I’d met her at the entrance that I couldn’t explain.
“Sitting here, having a meal with you, it’s like—”
“We’re meeting each other for the first time? Sort of.”
She stilled, and also for the first time, I witnessed Olivia speechless.
“Hm, maybe.” She scooted her chair closer to the table, jerking her shoulder in a quick shrug. “So weird. Plus, since we graduated college and I moved, I’ve only seen you sporadically anyway. The occasional family function or funeral…”
“I’ve seen you enough.” My scowl drew a chuckle out of her. “Maybe we were so fixated on being enemies from the beginning we never gave each other a chance to be friends. It’s nice to know this non-sinister side of you, Cleopatra.”
