“Skip class? Lose my job?” I batted my lashes and bared my teeth at him.
“Nah. Just take a little time off tomorrow?”
That grin was criminal. Truly. There should be a law.
“I’d have to find someone to cover my shift.”
He raised an expectant brow.
“Not likely to happen on such short notice. But like I said, it won’t take long for word to spread that you’re back. You’ll have plenty of people reaching out to entertain you.”
As though I’d conjured some of those people, an obnoxiously loud diesel pickup slowed down in front of the house where Danny had parked his car. Such a noisy ride should have signaled who was behind the wheel, but it was new, and I didn’t recognize it. Then the driver tucked it in front of Danny’s Mustang and Derek Watson stepped out onto the curb.
“Shoulda known where you’d end up the second you got back to town,” Derek said with a sneer.
Even after being away from him for four years, hearing that voice and seeing the cruelty his handsome features could never quite hide made my skin crawl. At least he had the decency to stay on the sidewalk in front of the house rather than invite himself up onto the deck.
Aiming a barely-there shake of his head at me, Danny stood and walked down the steps. As he reached the bottom step, the passenger door of Derek’s truck popped open, and Mike Ryan, Derek’s ever-present sidekick, stepped out.
“Long time no see,” Danny said. “How have you been, man?”
“Never better. You see that?” Derek gestured over his shoulder to the forest-green behemoth idling loudly in front of the house. “Just picked it up two days ago. It’s got all the bells and whistles.”
“I bet.” Tipping his chin up in Mike’s direction, Danny said, “You’re still this loser’s number-one man, huh?”
Mike huffed out a self-deprecating chuckle. “He keeps me entertained.”
“We should grab a beer this week. Tell each other some lies—if you can tear yourself away from your little prick-tease.”
The cold expression in Derek’s dark eyes brought back so many bad memories. It was all I could do to remain seated as his words dragged me back to when he did his damnedest to turn me into a fifteen-year-old pariah. All because I had the good sense to see past his good looks and turn him down for the Homecoming dance freshman year. Ancient history, yet he never could seem to let it go.
Danny dragged Derek’s attention away from me. “Unfortunately, hanging out with you is my third or fourth choice, what with Taryn leaving town tomorrow and Ronnie not coming home until the Fourth.” He soothed his insult with a grin. “But I’m sure we can bullshit our way through enough beer to have a good time.”
That was the thing about Danny. He had this way of drawing people to him—even people like Derek Watson, who thought he was the big man on campus because his dad was a bank president and he could throw a football. At this point, though, their relationship looked more like a “keep your enemies closer” kind of thing than a true desire to be friends.
When Danny first moved to town, Derek had actively courted him to join his entourage of jocks and bullies. As quarterback of a state champion-caliber football team, every guy in school showed him deference, whether they liked him or not. Derek had a natural leadership charisma that drew people to him, and if they didn’t succumb to it, he harbored zero compunction about bullying them into hanging with him—or dating him. Somehow Danny managed to remain his own man while keeping Derek placated. It was a tightrope I’d never seen anyone else walk.
Maybe it was because when he stepped out on the field, Danny was the best wide receiver anyone had ever seen, utterly unselfish and unstoppable. Their senior year, the combination of Derek’s cannon arm and Danny’s route running and sure hands had resulted in a record-breaking season and a coveted state championship. Danny made Derek look like a hero and had given him the highlights that landed him a football scholarship to a D-I school. That must have been what had kept their friendship going. Honestly, it made no sense to me. Then again, I’d never asked about it, not wanting to discover that Danny had some deeply hidden dark side to complement Derek’s.
I’d heard the rumors about Derek not taking no for an answer, and that, coupled with the aggressive way he’d come on to me during my freshman year, made saying no to him easy. I think I was the only person—male or female—who’d ever said no to him. He’d made me pay for that throughout high school—even my senior year when he was no longer at Central Valley after graduating with Danny the previous spring. The only date I’d had in high school was when, out of pity, Danny took me to prom. We’d danced one slow dance and shaken hands when he dropped me off at the end of the night.
And yet, that night was magical. I still had fantasies about it sometimes.
Have I mentioned how pathetic I am?
“Not sticking around, Hamilton?” Derek asked. “That’s too bad.”
Giving him zero expression, I shot back, “I’m not missing anything.”
“Ouch, man!” Mike smirked.
If he had superpowers, Derek would have lasered his friend into cinders with his narrow-eyed stare alone. “Guess you can’t help yourself. Once a bitch, always a bitch.”
Danny took a step toward him, and the hot summer air dropped about twenty degrees. “On second thoughts, I don’t need a beer bad enough to drink with you.”
Derek snorted. “You’re an idiot, man. She’s never going to give it up for you either.”
With his back to me, I couldn’t see Danny’s expression, but whatever was on his face had Mike putting a hand on Derek’s shoulder to urge him to move toward his truck.
