Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(24)

Leaving her when she was sixteen and running back to her a year ago.

“Truce?” I mumbled, reiterating what she’d said.

Light laughter fell from under her breath. “Feels like a shaky one.”

I gave a tight nod. No question it was.

Shaky.

But she’d been my friend long before she’d been anything else.

So, I searched for some kind of lightness, the easy yet profound way we’d once been. “Probably. Just hold on to something when you move. One look at me, and you won’t be able to remain standing.”

It was all a tease with a tip of my lips.

She choked out a laugh. “Wow . . . someone really is full of himself.”

“Just keeping things real.”

Amusement danced across her pretty face.

So damned pretty.

Painfully pretty.

She was all smiles when she tipped the neck of her beer my direction. “To poor girls who can’t keep their heads on straight when they’re in your presence. May they forever see through the BS.”

I clinked my beer against hers and then lifted it in the air. “Believe me, baby, the outside looks way better than the inside.”

I let a little of the cold, hard truth sneak into my ribbing.

She took a sip of her beer before she tucked it up close to her chest as she stared at me, her voice close to a whisper. “I think you sell yourself short, Ollie. I’ve always been pretty fond of what’s on the inside.”

I tossed a tortilla onto the griddle I’d had heating with oil. It sizzled and hissed, and I focused on evening it out with the spatula.

“That’s an ugly place, Nikki. Believe me, you don’t want to get anywhere close to that. Not anymore.”

“What if I’ve just always wanted you for your body?”

Could feel her words take to the air, light and playful, the way we’d spent thirteen years. Acting like we didn’t really know each other.

Our interactions nothing more than a breezy tease when the wind that gusted beneath them threatened to be a dust storm.

She was all taunting smirks when I looked over at her.

Little Tease.

Probably the last thing I should do, but I went with it.

“Think I’m more than you can handle.”

A sexy twist of her lips had me stumbling. “Well, if that’s how you feel.”

She nodded, and a flash of sadness twined through her demeanor before she tipped her beer my direction. “Friends.”

I picked mine back up and clinked it to hers. “Friends.”

Problem was, having to remain friends with Nikki Walters was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.

A half hour later, the girl’s contagious laughter was bouncing against the walls.

She popped the last bit of her taco into her mouth, wiped her hands with her napkin, and rocked back on the high-backed stool. “You’re such a liar. That was totally your fault.”

My laughter was low, way too amused, barriers down that’d been there for so many years. I shook my head as I sopped up a few pieces of meat that’d fallen from my taco, glancing up at her with a grin when I did.

“My fault? Are you kiddin’ me? Every bad idea I ever had was because of you. Tying that rope to that tree included. I said it wasn’t gonna hold me . . . and what did you say?”

Guilt twitched all over her flirty mouth. “I don’t remember.”

A rumble of amusement rolled around in my chest. “Think it went something like, ‘Ollie thinks he’s the shit, but he’s really nothin’ but a chicken shit.’ On repeat, of course.”

“No.” Her head shook in vigorous denial, but she was doing her best not to bust up in outright confession. Indigo eyes full of old affection.

The same kind gripped at my chest. Claws wanting to take hold.

I shook it off and focused on being friends.

“Yes. You were always the instigator, whispering in my ear, making me think I wasn’t a man if I didn’t go through with whatever you’d concocted.”

I wiped my hands and tossed my napkin onto the table, slinging my arm over the stool back, grinning at her. “Took it on myself to prove to you just what kind of man I was.”

Mischief moved across her face, honeyed locks of hair swishing across her cheeks, those freckles so fuckin’ sweet.

Had the intense urge to lean out and lick them.

Taste her.

That mouth and those lips and every inch of smooth, soft skin.

“Hey, it isn’t my fault you thought you had to be such a badass. Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

“More like I had my own, personal troublemaker.”

“And look who I was trying to keep up with. If anyone was the troublemaker, it was you.”

“And look who I was trying to impress.”

A blush kissed across her chest, rising with the energy that danced. Slowly. Quietly. Though just as intense.

Her tone turned wistful. “At least Kale discovered his true calling that day. He got really serious about setting your ankle.”

“That shit hurt like hell, too,” I told her through a chuckle.

Memories hit me hard.

One after one.

Like they were so close, I could take a step and tumble into them.

They called them the good old days.