She grins at me. “Fucking up your father’s profits isn’t boring though. That gets high marks in my book. Good job. A-plus again.”
I don’t know how she does it, but she has me smiling again. “You’re obnoxious.”
“Defense mechanism that goes with abandonment issues.” She sighs happily and leans back on me. “Do you think there are dried bodily fluids in this carpet that we shouldn’t be sitting in?”
I shudder.
She grins wider.
“Goddammit, was that a test?”
Her laughter is all the answer I need.
It’s music.
It’s happiness.
It’s inspiration.
And that inspiration has me picking her up off the floor, tossing her over my shoulder, and carrying her into the bathroom.
“Oliver!” she shrieks. “What are you doing?”
“Showering other people’s dried bodily fluids off of us.”
“I can shower myself.”
“Sorry, don’t trust you to not stuff a soaked rag down your pants to slap me with when I fall asleep waiting for you to be ready to go get coffee and breakfast.”
“Who are you, and how have you figured out all of my tricks?”
It’s my turn to grin, and I’m grinning harder than I’ve ever grinned in my life as I deposit her in the bathtub. “Clothes on or off? Three seconds to decide before I’m turning the water on.”
“Don’t you dare, you—ahhhhhh!”
It’s the spark of a challenge in her dark brown eyes that makes me do it.
The tilt of her lips.
The fists on her hips.
The dare.
She’sdaringme to.
And so I do.
I turn the shower on at full blast.
24
WHOOPS, WE DID IT AGAIN
Daphne
I shriekas the freezing water spikes into my hair and shoulders. Oliver stands at the side of the tub, preening, clearly proud of himself.
So I grab him by the T-shirt and yank, pulling him under the cold spray of water too.
