It’s fucking adorable.
I gesture to the board. “Ladies first.”
“Am I back far enough?”
“Yep.”
Not even close.
But if we back up much farther, we’ll trip over other people.
She takes aim and lets the dart fly, and itthunks off the wall to the left of the target.
“That’s seven points for creativity,” I tell her.
Bad idea.
Bad, bad idea.
My joke makes her purse those curvy lips as she suppresses a smile, and it’s hot as hell.
Stop it, I order myself as she takes aim with her second dart.
It misses.
So does her third dart.
“Forty-eight points for consistency,” I say.
She cocks her hip to one side and gives me the look I’ve come to think of as herthis old weirdo has no chance with melook. “I can handle losing.”
“Who says you’re losing? Maybe it’s less about hitting the bull’s-eye and more about seeing who can be most creative.” I toss my first dart and miss on the other side.
On purpose. Of course I can hit a dart board.
“Four points,” she says. “It would’ve been ten, but your dart didn’t have a good dismount off the wall.”
“Huh.” I aim my second dart, which hits the frame then flips a few times on its way back at us. It lands at Aspen’s feet, stuck in the rug.
She looks at the dart, then up at me. “Did you do that on purpose?”
“Aw, you think I have mad dart skills.”
“Do it again.”
If she were one of my brothers or my sister or my friends from childhood and we were playing a made-up point game, I’d demand she tell me how many points I got first.
But I don’t really care how many points this is worth in the game.
Not when I can show off my skills while she’s half smiling, half suspicious.
“Hard shot,” I tell her. “I’m not very good.”
God, she’s pretty when her eyes sparkle like that. “Throw the dart, Cash.”
Know the last time a woman made me nervous?
Probably my ill-advised, ten-day-long marriage back in the height of my Bro Code days.
