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“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the way—”
She grounds to an abrupt halt before swinging around and slamming her fist into my chest. Barely do I feel the punch.
“Fuck, that hurt,” she mutters, shaking out her hand as laughter sits on the tip of my tongue. I’m well aware that if I allow it to bust loose, she’ll wallop me again. Only harder. The last thing I want is for her to hurt herself. It’ll just be another transgression she holds against me.
“What was that for?” It takes a concerted effort to keep a straight face. Especially when her glare turns lethal. She’s on the verge of ripping me to shreds with her teeth.
“You know damn well what it was for! You’re the last person I want to be partnered up with.” A low growl vibrates from her chest. “And now we’re stuck together for the next month.”
“Ouch.” I pretend to wince. “That’s not very nice.”
“Yeah, well…I’m not feeling very nice right now. Thanks to you.”
I tilt my head and give her a considering look. “You would’ve seriously rather been partnered up with Cameron?”
“Anyone, Ford,” she grumbles with a huff. “I would have rather worked with anyone other than you.”
“You realize that he would’ve made you do all the legwork and then write the entire paper, right?”
I can tell by the way she smashes her lips into a tight line that she understands that my assessment of the situation is spot on, otherwise she’d argue.
“He’s a nice guy,” she finally mutters.
“He’s a high guy,” I shoot back with a laugh.
She rolls her eyes before swiveling around and stalking away. “You’re like a stubborn rash that refuses to clear up no matter how much steroid ointment I use.”
Another chuckle slips free as I flash a grin. “You spend a lot of time thinking about me, don’t you?”
She shakes her head, refusing to answer.
“So, about tonight—we’ll take off after practice?”
Her only response is to raise her hand and give me the finger, letting me know that I’m number one in her heart.
Exactly where I want to be.
Chapter Five
Carina
I reluctantly set the bookmark in my paperback and slip it into my purse as Ford drives his cherry red Corvette Stinger up the long, weathered brick road before pulling into the circular drive and easing off the pedal.
The first time I caught sight of the stone mansion with its turrets and portico was the summer before freshman year of high school. It was the kind of place I’d only read about in the romance novels I’d started to devour.
Mom met Crawford at the restaurant where she worked. It was love at first sight followed by a whirlwind courtship and engagement. Eight weeks later, they slipped rings on each other’s fingers and promised to love one another until death do they part.
Then we moved in with Crawford and Ford and voilà—instant blended family.
Unlike the books I’d read, everyone got along great. Crawford had been widowed for more than a decade. His first wife, Sandra, drowned in a freak swimming accident. It had been him and Ford ever since.
Ford…
To this day, I’m still embarrassed by my reaction to him. It had been so cliché. My breath caught at the back of my throat and my chest constricted until sucking air into my lungs felt agonizing. I’d had the weirdest feeling that we’d met before. And then it hit me that I’d drooled over him in advertisements for a high-end teen clothing brand. The one where they barely wore anything at all.
I learned that in addition to playing hockey, he dabbled in modeling.
When we first moved in, I’d worried that Ford would despise me. After all, who wanted some teenage girl and her mother to take over a house that had been a bachelor pad for the last decade?
