Page 44 of Secrets and Lies
“Center.” He puts the pencil back on the table. “Did you play?”
“Not hockey,” I say with a laugh. “I can’t skate for shit.”
“You can’t?”
I shake my head. “I think I have some sort of genetic issue that makes it impossible for me to do winter sports. I almost died the first time I tried to ski, and I bruised my ass so bad when I tried to learn how to skate that I had to carry a pillow around for a week just so I could sit down. And you don’t even want to know what happened when I took my nephews and nieces tobogganing last year.”
“What happened when you took them tobogganing?” he asks, a sexy smile tilting his lips. “You can’t cliffhanger me after an intro like that.”
“I was trying to be fancy, so I decided to go down backward. In my head, it was a good idea, but I was on one of those innertube thingies, and I must have pushed off at an angle because the stupid thing started spinning like crazy while I was zooming down the hill. So there’s me, holding on for dear life and trying not to scream like a little girl while the kids were cheering from the top of the hill, thinking I did all that on purpose. And because toboggans don’t have brakes, either, I couldn’t slow down, and I hit the chain-link fence at the bottom of the hill so hard I went under it and slid right into a ravine. My oldest nephew told me it looked like I glitched right through the fence and disappeared into the backrooms.”
“You don’t have good luck with things that don’t have brakes, do you?”
I shake my head. “There’s a reason I refuse to even try roller-skating or rollerblading. I nearly met my maker on knife shoes, I’m not about to tempt fate by putting wheels on my feet.”
“I’m guessing skateboards are out too?” he asks with a grin.
“So out. I don’t even want to think about how epically I could fail on one of those. And surfboards,” I add. “I love swimming and I love the ocean, but I know better than to get on a foam board and play chicken with Mother Nature that way.”
“I can get behind you on the surfing thing,” he says. “But that’s mostly because of the ocean itself and everything that lives in it. The other stuff, you’re on your own for.”
“Why am I not surprised that you like things that don’t have brakes?” I lean back against the couch as the last of my nerves finally bleed out of me. “Let me guess, you’re an adrenaline junkie who loves anything that goes fast, and you think that zooming through the air at Mach 2 with no way to stop is fun.”
“Pretty sure I’ve never hit Mach 2,” he says with a chuckle. “But the rest is accurate.”
“Are you in that video?” I point at his laptop. “Because whoever’s doing those crazy flip jumps definitely hit Mach 2.”
“I took the video,” he says. “The twins are doing the jumps, and Rath is filming them from below.” He tilts his head and studies me for a few beats. “Did you play any sports in school?”
I nod, “Soccer.”
“Really?” He slides his gaze down my body in a way that doesn’t feel platonic or casual. “Yeah, I can see it,” he says, his gaze lingering on my ass. “Soccer guys always have better butts than us hockey players.”
My cheeks go hot. He can’t be flirting with me, right? That was just him making an observation, like when guys compare their forms in the gym. It didn’t mean anything, and I need to stop trying to read into things that aren’t there.
“So,” he says, slowly lifting his gaze back to mine. “The project.”
“Right.” I give myself a mental shake. I’m here so we can work on our group project together.
“Did you look over the interview topics on the syllabus?” he asks. “I figured we could decide which one we want to do and maybe brainstorm some ideas for the actual interview tonight. We can worry about the rest next time we meet up.”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Is there one that you want to do?” I ask. “I’m not really partial to any of them, so I’m cool with whatever you pick.”
“How about we go over them and see how much we both know offhand about each topic and if it interests us at all?” he suggests. “Then we won’t have to do as much research for the actual interview.”
“I like the way you think,” I tell him. “Work smart, not hard.”
“Exactly.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks the screen.
It hasn’t escaped me that Ant didn’t put on a shirt, and even though his partial nudity is distracting as hell, I’m definitely enjoying the view.
“Here.” He pats the cushion next to him. “Come check out the first one.”
Slowly, I slide across the couch until I’m sitting beside him, and all of my nerves come back with a vengeance when he leans closer so I can see his phone screen, and his arm brushes against mine.
I do my best to read the first topic, but I really only absorb every other word as the scent of clean soap and something slightly spicy, like cologne, wraps around me like a weighted blanket.
“That’s not really my thing,” Ant says after a few beats, and it takes me way too long to realize he’s talking about the topic.
