“Double-dog dare you.”
I swore under my breath. Growing up, Brittni and I had a made-up rule that neither of us could back down from a dare initiated by the other. I made Brittni do some pretty outrageous dares over the years, and she took great pride in payback whenever she got the chance. The sad thing is that the rule was originally my idea when we were like six or seven years old, and now it was going to bite me in the ass.
“And no veto either,” she added hastily before I could use that loophole.
“Bitch, I hate you,” I grumbled, clicking off my phone without saying good-bye.
My phone chirped, alerting me to a new text message as I was pulling into my regular space behind my apartment complex. I smiled when I read the message from Brittni.
I love you, whore.
What could I say? I loved her too.
Love you back, sugar lips. Revenge is beautiful, though.
I’m quaking in my rain boots.
You just wait. It’ll happen when you’re least expecting it.
Bring it on.
Kiss your handsome hubby for me.
You wish.
True story. Text you later.
You better. I want to know all about your card game. Wink wink.
I tossed my phone in my bag and climbed cautiously from my Jeep. It was starting to sleet, so the pavement was becoming slick. Landing on my ass was never fun. I’d learned
that lesson the hard way more than once.
I had less than an hour before everyone arrived, so I spent the time tidying up the apartment. Cameo helped me move our dining room table to the living room since there would be more people playing this time.
She and I had reached a tentative truce again on Monday when I helped her drag the bookcase she found by the Dumpster up the three flights of stairs. During the last few days we had maintained the peace by steering clear of the touchy subjects, most notably my new nightlife activities, or lack thereof. Where to put the new shelf, picking up more laundry soap, the teacher who gave her a D on a paper because she was five words shy on a five-thousand-word assignment—these were the safe topics we stuck to lately.
I thanked her for the help, but as we smoothed the wrinkles out of the tablecloth, I made the mistake of asking if she wanted to join us in the game. She shot me a look of disdain before stalking off to her room to finish getting ready for an evening out.
“I guess that’s a no,” I said to the empty room. I told myself it didn’t matter, but truthfully, it hurt. It was becoming clear that Cameo and I may never have the same kind of friendship again. It amazed me how quickly things had changed in a few short weeks. Part of me was angry at her for being a bitch, but I was also pretty sad that she had dropped me so easily.
An hour later, Cameo left without so much as a good-bye. Luckily, the guys were beginning to arrive, allowing me to push my woes with her to the back burner. Adam and Tim showed up with dripping jackets from the sleet outside. Adam pulled me into his arms for a bone-crushing hug before spinning me around.
“You’re getting me all wet,” I said.
“Well, that’s the first time a girl’s ever said that to me,” he said, grinning.
I barked out a laugh.
“Don’t let him fool you. He had all the girls in high school panting after him before he came out of the closet,” Tim said, giving me a spaghetti-arm hug. “Where’s Derek?”
“He should be home in a few. I think he had to work till seven. I told him to pick up pizzas and booze on his way home,” I said, taking their jackets as someone knocked on our door. Crap, crap, crap. I had hoped Trent would change his mind.
“Who’s that?” Tim asked, opening one of the bags of chips they had brought with them.
“A friend of mine. He’s here so maybe you guys can win some of his money and not mine. Not that there was a chance of that anyway,” I teased, trying to sound nonchalant as I opened the door. For the second time in one day I got to see water dripping from Trent’s hair. He was at least dressed in more than a towel this time, but for some reason, I still felt my insides beginning to heat up as I looked at him. There was something different about him, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was as he unzipped his jacket. His geeky Star Wars T-shirt wasn’t a problem since I knew what lay beneath the worn material. Even his normally bothersome glasses looked sexy. I found myself mentally undressing him.
“Are we moving the card game out to the hallway?” In my momentary trance, I didn’t notice Adam coming up behind me and throwing an arm around my neck. Trent’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses and I could see him processing Adam’s familiarity with me.