Page 48 of Carry Me Home
“Janie.” He gave me a look that said he saw right through my bullshit. “You’re hiding.”
Okay, maybe I was. Jack had been living here for ten days now, and I was still on edge about it. I wasn’t avoiding him. I was just avoiding beingalonewith him. Maya made a good buffer. As long as she was around, I wouldn’t be tempted to rip his clothes off.
“Whatever,” I muttered. “Do you want some tea?”
“That depends. Are you going to stick around and drink it with me, or are you going to hightail it back to your room like a scared little rabbit?”
“Is that your way of saying you want company?”
He chuckled softly. “I wantyourcompany, Ace. I’ve barely seen you since I moved in. I used to stop by the bar every afternoon just to play cards and hang out with you. Remember that?”
Was that really only two weeks ago? It felt like forever. I missed it, truth be told. I missed that thrum of anticipation that shivered through me every time he walked through the door of the Painted Cat. We had been on the cusp of somethinggreat. Ihad felt it in my bones with every not-so-accidental brush of his hand against mine, every look, every tease.
I was glad he was here. I needed him here. Maya needed him here.
But damn. It was like being sucker punched in the face with a bucket of ice water.
I knew I couldn’t have him the way I wanted, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t still be friends, right?
I pulled two mugs down from the cabinet. “Deal me in.”
He scooped up the cards, knocking the ends against the table until they all lined up in a neat pile. “What are we playing?”
“Your choice.”
The kettle whistled. I poured the boiling water over the teabags and brought both mugs to the table, setting them aside to steep.
I looked at him expectantly. “So?”
“Poker.” His smile was slow and suggestive, but there was nothing lazy in the sharp gleam of his blue eyes. “Strip poker.”
I gave him my bestI don’t fucking think solook. Being Maya’s mom, I’d had a lot of practice. “I’m not taking off my clothes in the kitchen with my daughter sleeping twenty feet away. No, scratch that.You’renot taking off your clothes in the kitchen with my daughter sleeping twenty feet away.”
He laughed. “We’re not taking off clothes. We’re taking off secrets.”
I was instantly intrigued. “What do you mean?”
“You lose a hand, you tell a secret. A real secret. None of this,oh, I don’t actually separate whites and colors in the laundrybullshit.”
“I don’t separate whites and colors. That’s not a secret.”
“Good. Then you understand the rules. You in?”
“This is dumb,” I complained. “I can’t bluff. I can’t read people for shit. You’re going to win every hand and the only person spilling secrets will be me.”
“Maybe. But all the skill in the world can’t fix a bad hand. A lot of poker is luck. I could lose.” He rocked back in his chair, balancing on the two back legs, hands clasped behind his head, smirking. “I have a lot of good secrets, Ace.”
God, that fucking smirk. He knew I couldn’t resist. I wanted to smack it off him. Or kiss it off him.
“You’re the luckiest person I know,” I grumbled, giving my teabag a good dunking. “Anyone else with wounds to match your scars would be dead by now.”
His grin widened. “Are you in?”
My stare was withering. “Obviously.”
“Excellent.” The front legs of the chair met the tiled floor with a gentle thud. “Five card draw.”
“We need chips. The only kind I have is chocolate.” I grabbed the bag from the pantry, dumped the chocolate chips into two small glass bowls, and brought them to the table. “Pretend they’re even.”
