“Shut up,” she says, and finally turns around to face me. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
I grab my T-shirt and pull it on over my head. “Liz is gone. For good. It took all night of relentless discussion, but I made it clear that we are not getting back together.”
“I can’t believe she came all the way out here,” Stephanie says. She sounds awed, in a slightly horrified way. “Who does that?”
“Girls I date, apparently,” I reply, embarrassed. “I guess she ran into my father back home and he told her that it wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Not kidding,” I reply tersely. “He’s been against me having a girlfriend my entire career and now he’s trying to get this one to stalk me. I have no idea why.”
“Maybe stalkers help sell a brand?”
She’s grinning, and it makes me grin. I appreciate her trying to keep things light, especially after that drunk, hormonal gong show last night. She starts toward the hall to go back downstairs, but I grab her arm, circling her wrist with my hand. “I feel like I should say something to make things normal between us, but I don’t know what that is.”
She glances at my hand around her wrist and back up at my face, biting her lip for a second before admitting, “Yeah, I came here hoping I’d think of something to say to make it less weird too.”
I turn her around and walk her into the hallway. Alex is staring up at us from the bottom of the stairs, grinning. Nosy little shit. “Larue, go get Parsons outta Maddie’s bed and meet me at the garage.”
“Sure thing!” he calls back. “Feel free to have sex while I’m gone!”
There is no playing dumb about last night now. I threatened to sleep with Steph, and she threatened to let me. The front door opens and then closes.
She clears her throat. “Well, that didn’t help the situation.”
A smile tugs at my face and then at hers. And then we’re both grinning. Our smiles get bigger and bigger until she starts to laugh, and that makes me laugh. Suddenly we’re both almost hysterical. She has tears running down her face and my stomach hurts.
“I don’t know why this is so funny,” she admits through giggles. “But I can’t stop laughing.”
“I’m going to try not to take it personally,” I manage to gasp between laughs. “That the mention of sex with me makes you giggle uncontrollably.”
We both laugh harder, and even though it’s insane, it’s exactly what we need. Last night was ridiculously out of control and I said some things that normal, in-control Avery would never have even let himself think. Who threatens to climb into bed with a woman and have sex with her? Not me. Not Avery Westwood, the poster boy for milk and Wheaties and Gatorade and the UNICEF ambassador and…Jesus, what is it about this woman that makes me forget the rules? That makes me cross all the lines of proper behavior? I really need to sort out my feelings for Stephanie and figure out how to go for this—for her—without losing my mind.
“Westwood, let’s go!” Ty yells from outside.
Steph smiles and starts down the stairs.
I follow her. In the downstairs hall, I grab my keys off the hook by the door, and she opens the front door. Ty and Alex are standing on the sidewalk. I toss my keys to Ty. “Go to the car. Be there in a sec.”
He nods, and they disappear around the side of the house toward the garage.
“So…I was stupid drunk last night,” I tell her out of nowhere, because now that the tension spilled out with our laughing fit, I feel like I need to address that whole disaster in her bedroom.
“I know,” she replies, and tucks her hair, damp from a shower, I’m guessing, behind her ears. We don’t say anything else as I watch her sit on the railing that divides our porches and swing her legs over to stand on the other side. Our eyes lock.
“I totally would have jumped you if you’d let me.”
She smiles. “I totally would have let you.”
“You’re bluffing.”
Her grin widens. “Really? Because I think you’re the one who’s bluffing. You wouldn’t go through with it. You’ve trained yourself not to be that guy.”
“I would have.”
She simply shrugs. “Too bad the moment’s gone and we’ll never know.”
She disappears inside her house before I can say anything else.
