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Maybe it’s a sign. She’s not ready, and the universe is telling me to hold tight for another year, but goddammit I don’t think I can survive another year in Jackie Chan’s headlock.
Mina looks up at me suddenly and claps. That’s more like it. I kick aside all the shitty feelings taking over my chest and beckon for more. She lets a loud whistle rip. I’ll take it. I curtsy to Danny—who I’m playing against—and Danny graciously takes off his shirt since he only took down six pins.
Mina wolf whistles for him. Dammit, I wish I’d bowled a gutter.Thatwhistle should be mine, but I had her attention for a few seconds. Better than nothing.
The night is still young. I’ll find time to tell her how I feel.
There’s a fine balance between protecting a friendship and trying to turn it into more. I’ve been erring on the side of caution, asking her out on friendiversary night while spending the rest of the year trying to stuff Jackie Chan into a box so he doesn’t embarrass us. Three hundred and sixty-four days trying to stuff the greatest stuntman, athlete, and actor of all time into a box is exhausting. Not to mention spending each of those days dissecting what went wrong every other year I’ve asked her.
I think I finally know what I’m doing wrong.
I’ve been cool and casual about it. She doesn’t think I’m serious. That has to be it, right?
So tonight, nothing is going to stop me from making it clear I have feelings for her. Especially after what almost happened at the bar. Maybe I have a chance.
“Hey, America’ssecondSexiest Man!” I shout because Nic—who got knocked from the top by Gabriel Sinclair last year—is talking to a woman at the back of our group. “You’re up!”
Considering I sent his whiskey-hued ball down the lane, he’s going to be waiting for that turn. Sucka.
Nic grabs my arm on his way up. “You’ve got an admirer.” His eyes drift to a woman with rose gold hair standing not too far from the woman he’d been talking to.
“Always have a few,” I scoff at him. I’m not oblivious, even when I pretend I am. The woman he pointed out has been undressing me with her eyes for the last twenty minutes. There’s also a wolf furry who sniffed me—I’m taking that as a compliment—and a lanky guy covered in tattoos with the metalheads who keeps sending sly glances my way.
“So go have some fun,” Nic says, slapping my arm.
What does he think this is, the old days when we first came to LA? I don’t need a wingman, I’m not interested in anyone other than Mina. Even if I were, tonight would not be the night for that.
“I am having fun.” I lie. Well, it’s sort of a lie. I’m not having the fun I want to have, but Timbo’s Bowling “Death by Match Play” is the best and also the reason why this place makes me put up a massive deposit. It’s impossible not to have fun.
“No,” Nic says, “you’re pining over a woman who wants to be friends. It’s weird. Move on.”
My anger is back and Jackie Chan is ready to throw. “Know what’s weird?” I lean closer. “Screwing around to make what Addison did hurt less.”
Nic’s gray eyes harden. “You don’t have a—”
“No,youdon’t have a clue and you’re messing up your life. Keep your dick in your pants and call my therapist so the next Mrs. Fontana doesn’t have to worry about antibiotic-resistant Syphilamydia. Except my therapist doesn’t have a phone. You can find him on the beach. When you’re done, get tested.”
I’ve been trying to limit the damage from Nic’s ho phase but finding a balance where he doesn’t realize I’m micro-managing his life like the evil genius I am is exhausting. My cockblocking skills are ninja-level—ask my parents—but if I have to pull him away from one more twenty-one-year-old model, I swear to god…
Nic’s handsome face darkens. “There’s never going to be another Mrs. Fontana.”
Oh, the smell of that bullshit. “I’m going to laugh you back down the wedding aisle.” I hum a wedding march because it will drive him nuts and it does. His shoulders hitch, his scowl deepening. “Goats at the reception,” I say before he opens his mouth.
Nic rolls his eyes and goes to wait for his ball.
It isn’t lost on me that I’m getting up in his business while getting mad at him for getting in mine. The difference is I’m right, and he’s wrong.
I drop into the chair next to the most beautiful woman on the planet. It’s unfair how badly I want to touch her. Wrap my hands in her silky chestnut brown hair. Look into her soul-devouring dark eyes for hours. Kiss her lush mouth and her lush everything and lose myself so entirely inside her search and rescue will have to find me.
Nic’s words roll around in my head anyway. I’m not wrong…but what if I am?
I’m still not convinced what almost happened at the bar wasn’t my overactive and very graphic imagination. Maybe I’m too busy feeding my ego with the idea she has feelings for me.
Which would make me the biggest self-entitled dick in the world.
I lean into Mina and ask quietly, “Am I the biggest self-entitled dick in the world?”
Mina sizes me up. “I wouldn’t say the biggest.”
