Bet on It (22)

She was quiet for a few seconds, studying him. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for, or if she found it, but the tension around her eyes faded. He groaned internally when she moved her hand off his arm, immediately missing her touch.

“So, we’re friends now?” she asked, her eyes back on her sheets. “I didn’t know that.”

It took everything in him to take his eyes off her. “Do you make a habit of hanging out with random men and helping them get better at bingo so they can find a way to not be bored to death in this awful town?”

“Only if you call four or five guys a habit.” The words came out in an exaggerated whisper, and he had to bite back a bark of laughter.

“So this was all some ploy to make me think this was my idea before you turn around and play me.” His confidence was bolstered as he easily found another called number on one of his sheets. “You lure me in with those irresistible eyes and get my defenses down long enough to what? Rob me? Convince me to join some multilevel marketing scheme where you make me hawk shitty leggings to sad moms?”

Those eyes turned to him, just as irresistible as he’d claimed them to be. “All of this may or may not just be a long con to get you to move my furniture around my apartment.”

“I’d say it’s working pretty well. I can start doing my stretches to get my back ready to move a couch all by my lonesome if that’s what you want from me, Aja.”

“You’d offer your services up that easily? I barely had to do any work to get you to commit to that.”

The air between them sparked with something new. Walker’s brain told him that this conversation was far too charged for one between friends. Some part of him—his heart or his dick or something else, he didn’t know—was feeding off it. He felt excited and electrified and horny as hell. Those were dangerous things to feel for a woman he was trying not to bed. But that knowledge didn’t stop him from pushing past the limit he’d set for himself just a little bit more.

“How else am I supposed to show you how eager I am to please?” His words were low and brazen.

Aja’s eyelids got even lower as she blinked at him slowly. He could see her chest rise and fall a little faster. Her skin was too dark to show any kind of natural blush, but he was willing to guess that her cheeks were as warm as his. They stared at each other, that crackling air settling into something so charged he wasn’t sure how it didn’t suffocate them both. When her plush lips parted again, he held his breath, waiting impatiently for her next words.

“I think you’re trying to get me into some trouble, Walker Abbott,” she said softly. “Either that or you’re purposely trying to distract me so I don’t win before you do.”

“Too bad, I’ll never tell,” he whispered conspiratorially, using every bit of his strength to turn his attention to his sheets, suddenly much less interested in the game when faced with the reality of Aja fucking Owens.



* * *



He took the long way home, driving just at the speed limit on side streets and through neighborhoods he knew would make his drive time longer. He’d had an amazing time with Aja. Neither of them had won or even come close, but it was the most fun he’d had all week. Even if he’d had to spend the majority of that time holding himself back from flirting with her.

Gram was a night owl, and he knew she’d be awake when he got home. Their conversation would likely be awkward and strained in the way it often was these days. Sure enough, she was sitting on the couch when he came in. The television was on but muted, and the low light from one of the side-table lamps gave the old room a soft glow.

She looked up from the People magazine she had propped up on a reading table in front of her. The glasses she never wore outside the house sat low on her pointed nose. If the sight of her struggling to get comfortable with her bright pink casts weren’t so dismal, it might have been funny.

“You have a good time?”

“Yep.” He moved to sit on the other side of the couch, knowing it would make her sad if he shuffled off to his room immediately. “Aja says hey.”

Gram’s lips twitched into a smirk, and he had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. Injured or no, that foolishness wouldn’t be tolerated.

“Gram, please…”

“What?” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, but I know what you’re thinkin’, and it ain’t like that,” he lied through his teeth. “We’re just hangin’ out. She’s helpin’ me get more bingo practice in because I’m tired of you pinchin’ my ears every time I move too slow for your likin’. That’s it.”

The words sounded unconvincing, even to him. She didn’t seem to buy them either.

“Does that mean you aren’t goin’ to ask her out?”

He threw his head back on the couch with a groan way too juvenile for a thirty-year-old man.

Gram kept going. “Because you could do far, far worse, you know. Aja is beautiful, and kind, and she has her own job. Some kind of internet nonsense, but still, it makes her good money I think.”

“And she lives in Greenbelt.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Gram sniffed.

“In a little over a month, when I go home, how am I supposed to date somebody who lives in a place I hate? How are we supposed to go on dates when I refuse to step foot in this place after I’m gone?”