Page 76 of Guarding Colton’s Witness

When he crossed his eyes and made a funny face, she couldn’t help it, she laughed. “So you get stuck with me?”

“Yup. You’re too antsy to sit still and watch a movie, so what shall we do?” He tapped his lips as if thinking, then snapped his fingers. “I got it. Let’s play Never Have I Ever.”

“Are we in high school now?”

“You’ve lost your fun, girl.”

She scowled at him. “Have not.” She kind of felt like she had, though.

“Have, too. Come on. This will take your mind off why we’re in this house. I’ll go first. Never have I gone skinny-dipping. True or false?”

An image of him skinny-dipping popped into her head. It was a very nice picture, but no, he’d been completely focused on becoming a doctor since he was eight years old. She just couldn’t see that Ryan doing such a thing. “True.”

“Wrong.”

“Seriously?”

He grinned. “Seriously. Senior year, me and Becky McCoy, my girlfriend. You ever skinny-dipped?”

“No.” But now, she wanted to. With him.

“We’ll have to do it sometime. Your turn.”

She thought for a moment, then remembered Eric Hill. “Okay, here’s mine. Never have I hooked up with one of my brothers’ friends.”

“Hmm.” He tilted his head and studied her. “I think false.”

“Nope, but I wanted to. He was Aiden’s friend, and I had the biggest crush on him. He was twenty and I was sixteen. I…” She shook her head. She couldn’t tell him that.

“Oh, no, you don’t get to almost tell me something and then stop. Out with it.”

“It’s too embarrassing.”

“Even better. Tell me.”

“Ugh. Why did I even go with that one?” She huffed a breath. “Fine. Aiden brought him to my sixteenth birthday party. After a while, the guys drifted off to the backyard. A little later, Eric came in to use the restroom, and I was waiting for him in the hallway when he came out.” She put her hands over her face. “Do I have to finish this?”

“No stopping now, Matti girl.”

“I kissed him.” She dropped her hands to her lap. “He didn’t kiss me back. He was horrified, actually. I’m still embarrassed to this day, and any time I see him now, I can’t even talk to him.”

“That’s not surprising. To him you were his friend’s little sister, and to us guys that made you off-limits. Plus, a four-year difference wouldn’t matter now at your ages, but to a twenty-year-old, sixteen is almost robbing the cradle.”

“Yeah, I get that now. At the time, though, I was devastated.”

“Still crushing on him?”

“Lord no. I was cured of my crush that very night.” After making a fool of herself, she’d fled to her room and hadn’t come out until the next day. She’d been on pins and needles waiting for Aiden to confront her for trying to kiss his friend, but he never had. She took that to mean that Eric had never told him about the disastrous kiss, for which she’d be forever grateful.

“That’s good because now I won’t have to kill him.”

She blinked. That was rather drastic. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

Chapter 32

But he was. Ryan picked up her hand and linked their fingers. “I would’ve kissed you back.”