Page 70 of Will Bark for Pizza
“Stop flirting and play,” Thoren said, rolling his eyes as though they were any kind of innocent.
Heat flushed over my chest, reminding me that we had an audience. And though we might be somewhat shielded in our corner by the growing crowd, we were not invisiblein this very public setting. I didn’t need the lecture from Luke, if half the town told him his little sister was flirting with his best friend. He wouldn’t buy that I was only doing it to win a game of darts.
He wouldn’t be wrong, either.
Just as I released my dart, Beckett’s hot breath tickled my neck. Thankfully, the dart still hit a seventeen. But barely.
“I’m going to get a refill,” he said, holding an empty cup. “Need anything?”
“Dr. Pepper.”
“Coming right up.”
I held the second dart, but this time when I went to throw it, I knew better and held on to it. Because Beckett tried once again to steal my tactic.
“No cheating while I’m gone,” he said against my ear, his breath a teasing caress against my skin. I shivered as I imagined his warm breath in other places on my body.
“I’ll come with you,” Thoren said to him.
My second dart landed in the double twenty, closing it out. But only because I waited to throw it until Beckett vanished into the growing crowd.
“Something going on with you two I should know about?” Alyssa asked, her expression all mischief.
“No,” I said, shaking my head so vigorously my ponytail swished from side to side. “He’s just?—”
“Best friends with Luke, Connor, and Thoren,” she offered.
“He’s the one buying the bookstore,” I added, hoping that straightened this out.
“So you’reflirtingwith him to what? Convince him to let you buy it instead?”
“I can’t afford to buy it,” I said, the admission causing my stomach to plummet. I threw the third dart, and by some miracle hit an outer bullseye.Huh.
“You sure about that? From what I can tell, your last book launch was a pretty good one.”
I considered it, of course. I tossed and turned last night, crunching numbers in my head. But every scenario had me coming up short, both in money and time. “Even if I could afford the building—which I can’t—I wouldn’t have anything left over to revive the business.”
And I had very little knowledge of how to actually run a bookstore. If I found a way to take over and failed . . .
“Fucking Margene Miller,” Alyssa grumbled. “Maybe our next girls’ trip needs to be to Mexico to find her ass.”
“Anyway, I’m headed back to Omaha in a few days. Probably after the going-out-of-business sale is wrapped up next week. I told Dad I’d stick around to help with that.”
“You working on your next book?”
“No.”
Alyssa’s expression shifted from curious to serious. “Will therebea next book?”
“No way! You hit a bullseye,” Beckett said, handing me a full glass of Dr. Pepper. “Tell me the truth,” he said to Alyssa. “Did she cheat?”
“No. But if she did, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”
“Fair,” he said, picking up his darts.
The game resumed, and Alyssa dropped her question.
For now.
