Page 34 of Forever Never
“Only when I talk to you,” he shot back.
She wrinkled her nose. “Mean. Can I at least come over and hang out with you and Spence?”
“You’re already grounded. I’m not busting the chief’s daughter out of her house. That’s illegal on a whole lot of different levels.”
“You’re no fun.”
“So I’ve been told. By you. Repeatedly.”
She wasn’t ready to climb back up the trellis just yet. This was the most number of words Brick had strung together around her, and she didn’t want to waste the conversation. “You could have just let me go and get caught,” she mused.
“I could have,” he agreed.
She tapped a finger to her chin and studied him in the dark. “You came swooping in to save me from having my own mom arrest me.”
“I pity the idiot who has to arrest you the first time.”
“There you go again with the compliments. You like me. You don’t want me to get arrested,” she sang.
He winced in the dark before recovering his flat expression.
“I didn’t mean that as a shot against your dad, and you know it. Lots of people get arrested. Pretty sure I’m gonna be one of them at some point. Lots of people go to jail. Doesn’t mean they’re bad people.”
He was back to pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s exactly what it means.”
“Is it exhausting seeing everything in black and white? Don’t you have any room for any other colors?”
“Right is right. Wrong is wrong. Now, don’t make me regret sparing your mother from having to handcuff you and send you off to military school.”
“She knows better than that. I’d burn it to the ground and lead a rebellion within my first forty-eight hours. Hey, so how’s your grandma doing?”
“Stop stalling,” he ordered, putting his hands on his hips and staring down at the toes of his boots.
She waited, staring at him until he cracked. “She’s fine. The surgery went well. She’ll be home later this week.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll make her a pie.”
“Fine. You can give it to your sister to deliver since you’re grounded.”
“You are infuriating!”
“Right back at ya, baby. Now climb.” He pointed toward the porch roof. “Or I’ll march you through the front door and deliver you to your dad.”
“Youwouldn’t.”
“I would.”
Realizing she wasn’t going to get past the Wall of Good Time Ruining, she accepted temporary defeat in the battle to save the war. “Fine, fun police.” She climbed up onto the edge of the porch and reached for the trellis.
“Good girl,” he said.
Good girl.
The way he said it, with that rough edge, gave her a delicious, full-body shiver. She wanted him to say it again. She wanted to make him say it again.
“Oh, Trouble?”
She paused mid-climb and glanced down at him, the mountain of a man waiting in the shadows to catch her if she fell.
