Page 22 of Tourist Trap

“Are you?” I put a hand to my chest and gasp. “Are you admitting there’s some killer sexual tension between us?”

“I have no idea how you got that out of that sentence.”

“Body language,” I say, then smile. “That and the beet red blush on your face as soon as I said it.”

“I’m not blushing,” he lies, the blush only going deeper.

“Ahh, yes, it must be a killer sunburn you got in the past, what, eight hours you were sleeping?”

He shakes his head and puts the list back on the fridge.

“Look, I gotta get to work. Just…don’t get into trouble, okay?”

“I’ll do my best. Can’t make any promises, of course. I love wreaking havoc at eight a.m. on a Monday.”

A small smile spreads on his lips.

“A smile? Did I just make Miles Miller smile?” His blush deepens, and even though he fights it, the smile spreads. I throw my hands into the air dramatically. “Call the press! Call the president! Miles Miller knows how to smile! He’s not a robot!”

“I know how to smile, Claire,” he says as he hefts a bag over his shoulder and makes his way out the door.

“Now that I’m in your life, of course you do. Have you met me?”

“For better or worse, Claire, I have.”

Honestly?

I’m going to call that interaction a success. MissionMake Miles Have Funhas commenced.

EIGHT

MILES

“So wait, hold up, your brother’s ex is living with you for the summer?” Grant asks with a loud laugh. “The hot one?”

I grit my teeth, regretting that I confided in him when I was drunk three years ago that I thought his sister’s best friend from out of town was hot, even if she was way too young for me. More so now, that, for some unknown reason, agreed to have her live with me for the summer.

She moved in less than a week ago, and I already almost saw her tits and argued with her on the deck, gave her a list of rules she has adamantly ignored (okay, so she’s just ignored the one rule, but it was arguably the most important one), had her make somesummer fun listshe’s insisting I cross off with her, and had two sex dreams about her.

I’m not sure how the fuck I’m supposed to survive this summer in one piece.

“Shouldn’t we be calling her your little sister’s best friend?” I much prefer that descriptor since the reminder that she used to be with Paul makes my jaw tight every time.

In contrast, Grant smiles wider, loving my misery.

“Not with the way you’ve always looked at her. When you do that, we call her your little brother’s ex that you’ve been into for years.”

Have lifelong friends, they said.

It will be fun, they said.

I call bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

“She’s a friend,” I say, only half lying because, for a while, I did, in fact, consider Claire Donovan a friend. “And she paid four months up front.” His eyes go wide with the same shock I felt when she offered that. “Six grand.”

“Jesus, where did she get that kind of cash?”

I shrug.

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