I swallow. I did say that. A few nights ago when she came over for wine andScandal. And clearly I was rather convincing. Or maybe not, judging by the devious glimmer in Audrey’s brown eyes. I frown at her. “A heads-up would have been cool,” I repeat firmly.
“So have you fucked him again yet?” she asks in a voice that is way too loud for my liking.
I shush her and frown. “Of course not! We just drove here.”
“I’d fuck in that car,” she replies with a shrug of her tiny shoulders, and I flip her the bird.
Suddenly there’s a beer dangling in front of my face. I tip my head back and see Sebastian smiling down at me from behind my chair. “Something to cool off that hot little temper of yours,ma belle,” Seb says softly as he gives the can a little tilt from side to side.
Butterflies take off from my belly and bounce off my rib cage. My hormones are clearly ignoring the memo my brain sent regarding this matter. I stand, turn to face him, and take the beer from him. He’s cracked it already. I tilt my head skeptically and switch the cans, giving him the one he offered me and taking the one he just sipped from.
“You could have roofied this one,” I explain. “You can never be too safe.”
With that I leave him standing there, his mouth hanging open. Audrey laughs and I hear Josh say, “Yeah, ’cause Sebastian has so much trouble finding a chick that he has to drug them.”
I ignore them all and stomp over to where a few friends are playing volleyball.
Chapter 8
Sebastian
Two can play at this game, I remind myself as I watch Shayne. She’s sitting on the top of the picnic table, legs crossed under her dress, while some dude in a trucker hat talks her ear off as she eats carrot sticks with ranch dip off her plate.
She’s been talking to him, and only him, for the last hour. The sun is quickly setting and the whole lake is reflecting golden light from the pink-and-gold sunset and it’s making her look even hotter. And naturally that’s making me nuts. Josh started a fire. Audrey is pulling out marshmallows and hunting down sticks. The air is still muggy and warm, and my mood is making me even hotter under the collar.
It’s one thing for her to brush me off. I mean, I guess I kind of deserve it since I haven’t explained why I’ve been MIA for almost two weeks. I really want to, but I can’t tell her I’m a hockey player just yet, and I haven’t figured out how to lie without really lying. I could say I was on a business trip, which is technically true, but what if she asks me what I do? I’ve already admitted I have money, which is also not a lie, so she’s probably curious how I earn it.
I have to tell her what I do, but I want to get back to what we were that first night. And I’m not just talking about the sex part. I’m talking about the way she smiled at me, the way she flirted. The excitement in her eyes. I want to bring that out again. I want her to feel that again so she’s willing to make an exception to her silly hockey hate thing.
The douche in the trucker hat leans down and whispers something in her ear. Shayne tips her head back to laugh, but when she rights herself, her eyes find mine. And I am suddenly very certain she wants me to see this. I stand up from the camping chair I’m sitting on by the fire and walk right up to a blonde I met earlier named Carly. She made it clear that she was interested in me earlier with the way she flipped her short blond hair and begged me to be her volleyball partner.
“So how’d you do out there?” I ask, and nod my head toward the sandy makeshift volleyball court.
“We lost.” She frowns and then puts her hand on my chest. “But I would have won if you’d been my partner!”
I glance over to where my new friend Josh, who was her partner, is standing staring at us. He heard everything. I give him a quick “sorry, bud” look and he shrugs. I look down at her and give her my best puppy dog face.
“I wanted to play,” I say, making sure my voice is soft and deep, the way I talk to sports reporters after a tough loss, because chicks have told me they love that. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret…”
I let my sentence trail off and hold my breath as I glance around as if to make sure no one is paying attention, when in fact I’m making sure I have Shayne’s full attention. My eyes catch hers briefly, and she quickly looks away, which means she’s riveted to my little scene. I bend so my head is right next to the blonde’s ear, and I use my hand not holding a beer to push her chin-length hair back so I’m right against her ear. “I’m kind of injured.”
As I pull back her big blue eyes flare and her hand moves from my chest to my elbow. She squeezes it sympathetically. “Oh my God, really?”
Her voice got louder so I shush her, and I notice Shayne isn’t even pretending not to pay attention anymore. “Nothing serious, just a strained tendon in my wrist, but we start playoffs soon so I need to be careful,” I say quietly, because I haven’t told anyone—except the trainers and my coach.
“What happened? Did you fall on it on the ice or did someone hit you with a stick or something? What do they call that? Slashing, I think?” I nod, and she smiles like she thinks she’s a genius for figuring it out.
I smile and try not to think about the fact that the team doctor looked a little more concerned yesterday than I would have liked. “No big deal, I shouldn’t miss any games. I landed a punch wrong in a fight. Just bad luck.”
She nods and lifts her red Solo cup to her lips, taking a sip before smiling at me and batting her eyes. “Maybe your luck will change tonight?”
I watch her walk away, back over to her gaggle of girlfriends by the shore. Wow. That’s too easy. But I want Shayne. Only Shayne.
I glance over at her, and she’s staring right back at me. She says something to Trucker Hat, jumps off the table and makes her way over to the fire—right where I’m standing. She stops half a foot from me, her eyes set on the crackling fire in front of us.
“Hope you brought a condom, Frenchie,” she murmurs, still looking at the fire.
“You don’t have one in your bra this time?”
