The Match (It Happened in Charleston 1)

“Why would you be okay with that?” It’s a dare as much as it is a truth.

He’s quiet for a minute, and then he looks over my shoulder as if he can’t look me in the eye when he answers. “I guess I…want you to get to know me.”

“Oh.”

His eyes hook mine again. “So we can be real friends. Not just work friends.”

Oh.

Again with this friend crap?! I try not to let my dejection write itself across my face, but it’s probably no use. I’ve never been good at hiding my feelings. He’s probably reading a Post-it on my forehead at this very moment that reads, Hi, I’m Evie. I want you to like me romantically, but you don’t, so I’ll probably cry on my car ride home.

“Do you know why Joanna is here?” I’m ripping the Post-it off and changing the subject. “She never comes to my training days anymore.”

He shrugs his big shoulders, and I’m mesmerized by how the fabric of his shirt pulls tight. “I guess you’re in trouble.”

Not likely. If I had to guess, I would say that Joanna is going to be the one in trouble at the end of this day.

I try to step around Jake, but he cuts me off. Maybe Jake isn’t the only superhuman, because I halt my body so fast that I almost knock myself backward. Thanks to my reaction time, neither of us are touching, but that doesn’t help all the chills racing across my body.

“Wait. I want to know what you think of my room.” His voice is playful, and this is seriously throwing me off.

He’s like a bully that pulls my hat down over my eyes in the hallway and then keeps spinning me in reverse circles so I’m never able to catch my bearing. Business. Flirting. Stoic. Friends. Flirting. Quiet.

But he’s very clearly not going to let me leave this room without an answer, so I sigh and take a long, exaggerated look around the room (as if I didn’t already do a thorough investigation a few minutes ago).

“It’s nice,” I say and then get ready to leave.

“No, no, no. Tell me what’s going on in your head. What do you think? What stuck out to you?”

“Why do you want to know?”

He smiles. “Because…I don’t know. I just do.”

“Okkayyy. I like the vaulted ceilings.” Ceilings are neutral, right?

“What else?” His smirk says this is some sort of game to him, but I haven’t figured out the rules yet. Or the objective.

“You’re being weird.”

“Says the uninvited woman standing in my bedroom.”

“Right. Well…I guess I like that you don’t make your bed.”

He chuckles, deep and full, and I’m pretty s

ure that if my hand was on his chest, I would feel the force of it. “I knew that’s what you’d like most. I wanted to see if I was right. And I was.”

I narrow my eyes. “No you did not! How could you possibly have known that?”

He shrugs again. “I guess because I picture your place being messy.” He’s pictured my place?

“Should I take offense to that?”

“Not at all. I just mean that you…you’re not uptight. Life moves too fast for you to take time to put your things away. It’s refreshing.”

Oh good. The claw of heat is creeping up my neck again, and I’m about to be full-on strawberry. “I haven’t confirmed that my place is messy.”

He looks down at me and lifts a brow. “Is it?”