Page 65 of Best Kind of Trouble
“Why? You hate watching my matches.”
“Sure, but if someone beats the shit out of you, I at least want the chance to heckle them.”
“You’re a good sister.”
“I know,” she agrees just as Travis and Ollie come back to the table.
They don’t have any stuffed animals with them, but there’s no defeat on the kid’s face. Travis is the one who looks like someone gut-punched him.
“Your plan didn’t work?” I ask Ollie.
“No,” he says, “but that’s okay. I just have to make a few extra calculations. I’ll try again next time.”
“How about I buy you a stuffed animal, short stuff?” I suggest, but he shakes his head.
“No, thank you. I have lots of stuffed animals. I like defeating the odds. That’s most of the fun.”
“Yes, by all means, let’s make life more difficult for ourselves,” Hannah says, watching me as she speaks.
I lift my glass to her in a toast. “Finally, some sense.”
Sense is something I could use more of, myself. Because part of me wants to believe this means Hannah would be happy if I end up dating Briar. That thought is a lot like that hair wrapping around my finger—seductive at first, then too tight.
Because I’m being an idiot again.
Hannah might want me to date. She might want me to be happy. But she meant it when she told me to stay away from her friend. And Briar’s not just my little sister’s new best friend—she’s my boss, the woman who holds my future in the palm of her hand.
That means I need to keep my distance, because obviously I’m incapable of controlling myself around her when I don’t.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BRIAR
When my alarm goes off on my phone the next morning, my first waking thoughts are about Liam. No wonder. I’ve never done anything as dirty as asking a man to touch himself in my office before. I still can’t believe I was so bold with him—or that I stood outside of the door, my ear pressed to the wood, hoping I could hear him running his palm over himself while he thought of me. That’s something I’d prefer for no one to know, ever.
Oh, God…
Something isdefinitelywrong with me. I need to tell someone, but I can’t talk to Hannah about this for obvious reasons, and it wouldn’t be right to ask Sophie to keep it secret.
I set the phone down and settle for telling Karma the cat all about it while I do my morning yoga. He is nonjudgmental but seems disinterested and only wants his food. So I feed him and then get ready for the day and head into Silver Star, feeling a strange undercurrent of excitement and worry.
Will Liam mention what happened yesterday?
Should I?
It took me hours to fall asleep last night because I keptrunning through what had happened in my head, along with every minute leading up to it.
When I get into the office, Liam hasn’t arrived yet, but I find his new rule penciled onto our list?—
Definitely don’t kiss your boss. Especially if there’s no HR rep.
A wrenching feeling nearly makes me stumble, but it’s obviously for the best that we both think it’s a mistake. Yes, it felt good to kiss him, but?—
No,goodis a word you’d assign to a movie or a perfectly in-season pear. A yoga session that leaves you feeling lithe.
Those kisses wereamazing. Transcendent, even.
But what we did was also wrong, and I already know from experience that kissing the wrong manalwayshas a price.
