“I don’t think you know me as well as you think you do.”
Her eyes brighten with a new kind of heat. “Try again. I still know how to pull those thoughts out.”
“Doubtful.”
“You’ll see,” she tells me in a whisper. “I just haven’t busted out the big guns yet.”
A wry grin spreads over my face. “You want to play this game? You think you’re the only one who knows how to dig into secrets?”
“Ryder, wait—”
Her voice cuts off when I step against her. I don’t stop when she draws in a sharp breath at my nearness; I don’t stop when those soft lips part as I lean my face close to hers.
What am I doing? She’s a spiraling storm and I’m lost in the heart of it all. Some things don’t change. Ava will always suck me into her vibrant whirlwind.
“Where are those tough words now?” I whisper. “You look nervous.”
“Because a big, broody baseball player is pressing his big, bulky body against mine.”
“That’s a lot of ‘B’ words.”
“Clever, don’t you think?”
I grin and flatten a palm on the wall beside her head. “I think a lot of things.”
“I know,” she whispers. A shadow passes over her eyes and her hand pushes against my heart. “But . . . I’m not a game to play.”
My brow furrows. “What?”
Ava nudges me away, gently, but firm enough it draws my attention to how close I truly came. I practically had her caged against the wall.
“You said this was a game, but it’s not to me. To you, sure. Because none of it matters, right?” A crack of emotion splits in her voice. “That’s what you said.”
“Ava, I—”
“Hunt!” Mason’s voice echoes up the stairs.
I jump, stepping back at least three feet from Ava at the same time Mason pokes his head in the upper room. Lucas McKenzie, Mason’s best friend, is at his back, a pungent beef stick in his hand.
“Oh, hey,” Mason says, his eyes drifting toward Ava. “Sorry if we were interrupting.”
The two teens smirk at each other like they know something.
They don’t.
I force my expression into steel again and glare at the two boys. “What do you want?”
Mason takes a beef stick from Lucas and points it at me. “Parker asked us to d-d-drop off his old baseball shelves. Guess you said you wanted them.”
Right. “Yeah. Leave them downstairs.”
“That was nice of them to drop them off all the way out here,” Ava says, eyes on me. Her voice is slower, and if it’s the same cue as it once was, she wants me to clue in on something. “Wasn’t it?”
I pinch my mouth, cluing in, and face Mason. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Mason flicks his gaze between Ava and me, his smirk widening to a full grin. “Cool. We’ll get out of your hair.”
“Wait.” Ava smiles at Mason. “You were outside at the meeting. Are you part of the team?”
