Page 34 of Twisted Shot
Jake winces. “Shit.”
Mila stares into her wine. The glass is fogging slightly in her hand.
“I know he likes me,” she says quietly. Unless her instincts have suddenly stopped working, Theo’s been carrying a torch for her. “It’s like this low current buzzing under the surface whenever we’re in the same room. I can just...feel it.”
Natalie nods. “He definitely likes you.”
“But he won’tdoanything,” Mila says, and the frustration comes out sharper than she intends. “It’s like...I have to reach across this giant void to meet him halfway. And I’ve done that already. I showed up. I flirted. I gave him every opportunity. But I won’t drag him to the starting line.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Natalie says, her voice no-nonsense.
Jake leans against the opposite wall, thoughtful. “He’s not trying to play games, Mila. He’s...wired tight. Guy barely talks in practice. Doesn’t let anyone in. I don’t think he knows how to go after something he wants.”
Mila exhales slowly. “Then maybe I’m not what he wants.”
Natalie bumps her shoulder gently. “That’s not it. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”
Mila watches Jesse spin past again, dancing with a woman in a plastic lobster costume and wearing someone else’s sunglasses. The party is full throttle now. And yet, she feels a few steps removed from it all. Like the moment she’d been waiting for had come and gone, and now she’s just here, in a borrowed dress with a fading smile.
She thinks of Theo’s eyes—hazel, warm, always a little wide when he looks at her. She wants him to look at her that way. She likes it.
Seeing Theo shirtless tonight had been a revelation. Broad shoulders, dense with muscle, a chest that looked carved from stone, and a trim waist that flowed to the deep V of his hip flexors. Black ink marked his skin in intricate swirls—tattoos stretching across his shoulders and curling over his pecs. Too many to count without staring, which she absolutely had.
He was built like a man who could break things.
And God, did she find that sexy.
“I just...” She shakes her head. “I don’t want to chase someone who’s afraid of catching me.”
Natalie sets her drink down and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t have to. If he wants you, he’ll show up. Eventually.”
Mila smiles, leaning into her best friend’s shoulder, but her eyes drift toward the hallway.
Toward the shadow he left behind.
“I’m going to get some air,” she says, setting down her wine glass before taking off to the backyard.
The noise fades as Mila steps through the sliding glass door into the late October breeze. The sprawling backyard is edged with tall black silhouettes of pine and oak trees, their limbs swaying gently. Twinkle lights strung haphazardly along the fence line cast a soft golden glow over the trimmed grass and stone paths. A small firepit flickers in the distance, and tiki torches give off a faint, woodsy scent that cuts through the scent of beer and sugar-sweetened alcohol from inside.
She spots a couple tangled up on the patio set, a sexy devil and what might be a vampire, hands questing in each other’s costumes, oblivious to the world. Mila turns away quickly, lips twitching. Definitely not sitting there.
She moves deeper into the yard, past the firepit, through a thin curtain of ornamental grasses shivering like whispers. She doesn’t have a plan, just chasing space—from the party, from Jesse’s bedlam, from her own irritation.
A low voice startles her from her thoughts.
“Little far from the party, aren’t you?”
She whirls, startled, the heat draining from her limbs for a second before it pulses back harder.
Lurking at the edge of the firelight, half-swathed in the shadows of the towering cedar gazebo, stands a tall figure dressed like some gothic phantom conjured from the dark. He wears a sleek black suit beneath a sweeping cape that stirs faintly in the breeze. A sculpted black mask covers the upper half of his face, leaving only his mouth exposed. His jaw is dusted with stubble, and his full lips curve into a slight smirk.
She crosses her arms. “You always skulk in the dark, waiting to frighten women?”
He smiles, slow and unapologetic. “Only when they’re as beautiful as you.”
“Charming,” she says flatly, though her voice is just a shade tighter than before. Her eyes flick to the surrounding shadows, aware of how far she’s wandered from the house. The music has thinned to a muffled thump in the distance, and the laughter is barely more than a memory.
She’s alone. With a masked man. In the dark. Her shoulders tense. If she screamed, she’s not sure anyone would hear her.
