Page 67 of Will Bark for Pizza
I should have asked Aspen for a ride. This whole exchange felt dangerous, and yet, I couldn’t seem to help myself. I leaned into it.
“Your funeral,” I said, giving him a flirty shrug before spinning toward the dartboard to retrieve my purple darts.
“Care to make a little wager?” he asked when I returned to the table.
“What do you have in mind?”
“If I win, you tell me your secret.”
My heart pounded in my ears. I was good at darts, but I had no idea if Beckett was a secret world-class dart champion. Considering he’d been in the military, I suspected he had decent aim.
“And if I win?”
“What do you want?”
I wanted many things I had no right to want. I wanted him to push me up against the wall and kiss me breathless. I wanted to rid him of that fitted shirt and trace my fingertips over all those tattoos as he told me about each and every one. I wanted him to sneak me into his bedroom and put that mouth to other good uses, too.
My resolve to stay mad tonight was clearly shot to hell. I blamed too much time in the sun for scrambling mybrain, since I was drinking Dr. Pepper and couldn’t attribute my poor lapse in judgment to the alcohol.
To keep myself from saying anything stupid, I shifted focus.
“I would say a bookstore, but I don’t think that’s on the table.”
“Kira,” he said, his gruff tone so gentle it stirred something inside me.
Or maybe it was the compassion lingering in his eyes that threatened to undo me. Those damn eyes that were both intense and kind at the same time. It would be so much easier to hate him if he were rude, unapologetic, or selfish. But so far, Beckett Campbell proved to be none of the above.
“Looks like I’m not the only one keeping secrets,” I finally said.
“I tried to tell you.”
“When? When we were outside by the firepit the other night for almost an hour?”
“I should have told you then.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was distract?—”
“Can you two stop bickering and start playing?” Thoren hollered over the music. “I have a bet to win, and it’s boys against girls.”
“Fat chance,” Alyssa said to Thoren.
I knew this game well and was good at it, whether we aimed for numbers in order or not. I stepped up to the line, finding my center so I could focus on my shot, but barely. I couldfeelBeckett’s eyes on me.
Why did I have to like it so much?
I took a deep breath, and focused on the twenty section.
My dart landed just above the triple twenty slot, in a single zone.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. It wasn’t what I was aiming for, but at least it was close.Twenty was better than zero.
“Not bad,” Beckett said.
I aimed the second dart but missed the twenty by one slot section.
“I tried to find you last night,” Beckett said as I took aim with my final dart of the round. “You were asleep.”
