Page 128 of Holding On To Good

But for once, she didn’t want to be smart.

Even though she knew it was going to cost her in the end.

“I’m not going out with Brandon,” she repeated because Reed looked unconvinced. “Emory, my best friend, broke up with her boyfriend—again” —a recurring theme with those two— “and I told her we’d hang out.”

He snorted out a harsh laugh. Tugged free of her hold. “Right.”

“I don’t lie.” Well, only to herself and a few untruths to her brothers that were so harmless, they didn’t count.

“You could ditch her,” Reed said. “Meet me somewhere.”

She was tempted.

And that just sucked.

He had no right to do that. To try and lure her to the dark side. She wasn’t the type of girl to abandon her friends for a guy.

“I can’t,” she said. “I mean I could but I won’t.”

“Guess that’s it then,” he said, his expression, as usual, unreadable.

“I guess so.” She tried to smile but it just wasn’t happening, so she gave up. “Thanks again for the ice cream.”

He nodded—Reed Walsh’s version of you’re welcome. Then he turned and walked away.

She tried to do the same, she really, really did, but her feet wouldn’t move.

Jennings don’t quit, she’d told him. Not when they want something.

And she wanted Reed.

The rest of it… him being an angry, hardass with a chip on his shoulder; his vast and varied experience with other girls; her complete inexperience and the fact that she was leaving in eleven weeks and two days… none of it mattered.

Even the smartest of girls were stupid sometimes.

“We’ll be at the lake tonight,” she called out, stopping him as he opened the door. He didn’t face her, just stood there, half in, half out, shoulders tense, back rigid. “Me and Emory. In case you were interested.”

Her heart pounded, the beat of it echoing in her ears as she waited for him to respond. She’d put herself out there, put her pride on the line. The least he could do was look at her.

He didn’t.

He just stepped outside and shut the door behind him.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Urban sensed her before he saw her.

For a second, he thought it was his imagination. Willow being here, at his house, just after midnight, waiting for him. As if his thoughts had conjured her out of thin air.

But the way his scalp prickled was real enough. The tingling at the nape of his neck was an unmistakable warning that he wasn’t alone.

His steps slowed as he crossed his yard from the garage. Inside the dark house, Bella barked a joyful greeting, her deep yaps harmonizing with the high-pitched chirping of peepers.

Usually, he’d leave the kitchen light on for Bella, make sure the outside lights were on, too, but when he’d left, he hadn’t planned on staying out so late. Just long enough to clear his head. To waste some time until he could go to bed.

He hadn’t planned on going out at all, but after spending a good hour staring blindly at the estimate for a new roof for the Kempf’s on his laptop, he’d pushed away from his desk, grabbed his keys and had ended up at Miles’s, nursing a beer and evading his brother’s questions.

When he reached the edge of the patio, the motion detection light at the front corner of the house flicked on, illuminating the French doors and table and chairs. But the rest of the patio, like the house, like the night, was dark.

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