Page 10 of The Love Dare
For the next few weeks, it’s their little inside joke.
“Where’s my bracelet?” when he runs into her at the rink.
“Status report?” when she finds him waiting for her brother after school.
“I need to speak with a customer service representative” when he comes into her room at Alex’s next party.
It’s thrilling to feel as if for once, maybe, he’s seeking her out. To have something that’s just theirs. Not to be the tagalong little sister, but the main event.
She’s not, she understands. He’s just being nice, because she’s a Rusu, and he loves her family, and by extension that includes her. But it’s fun to pretend, for six weeks anyway. That’s how long it takes her to finish the bracelet.
She’s too much of a chicken to give it to him in person. What if she starts crying? What if he sees? What if he asks why she’s upset? What if she does something crazy like tell the truth?
Because now you don’t have a reason to come see me.
God, how pathetic is that?
No, much better to slip it in his hockey bag while he’s at practice, shed a few humiliating tears in private, and then scram. She doesn’t anticipate the knock on her door three hours later.
“Mom, how many times do I have to tell you? I was not looking at porn.” She lifts her head toward the door and stops dead in her tracks. “Oh my god.”
Tyler leans against her doorframe and crosses his arms with a half-smile. “Whatwereyou doing?”
Foot, meet mouth.
“Oh my god,” she repeats and buries her face in her hands. “It’s called a figure study. I’m not old enough to go to one in person, so I looked it up online.”
“Figure study?”
“Yes!”
“Naked figures?”
“…Yes.”
“Sounds like porn.”
“Would you just—” She grabs her lumbar pillow and chucks it at him.
He catches it easily, because of course he does. “I came to tell you dinner’s ready.”
“Drew the short straw?”
“I volunteered.” He takes a step into her room and holds out his arm. She’s too distracted by the muscles in his forearm to notice the bracelet at first. Seriously, it’s not fair for one boy to have so many defined flexors. The artist in her yearns to grab her pencils. The girl in her wants to jump his bones. It’s truly an all-around struggle. “I wanted to say thank you.”
The weight of his gaze paired with the earnestness of his tone sets her skin ablaze. She turns back to her desk and busies herself by putting her pens away. “It’s nothing, Ty.”
“You don’t have to do that with me.”
“Do what?”
“Hide.”
“I’m not.”
“Win.”
His voice is closer this time, but she doesn’t realize how close until he grabs the back of her chair and spins it around, practically pinning her against the seat as he leans down to her eye level, not giving her the chance to turn away. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. His body, this close. It’s like being struck by lightning. She’s too stunned to move, caught in the sizzle.
