Page 64 of Double Bucked

Claire bends her lithe body over the table. Her chest nearly touches the green, and she threads the cue between her fingers. “I just don’t see the point of keeping the thing around.”

Claire is so focused on the game, when she goes to line up her next shot, she nearly walks straight into me. She catches herself at the last second, her hand on my chest.

Her hair tickles my face. Our eyes meet briefly.

She smells sweet. Like honeysuckle.

“The point is,” I tell her, “Chaucer loves her.”

Her mouth twists. She turns away from me and leans over the pool table. The balls click. Claire sinks her shot. We’re neck and neck now. “It’s an object, not a her.”

My jaw tightens. “Not to him.”

Claire stops playing. She looks up at me, and this time, there’s real fire in her eyes. Cold, black embers. “Studs don’t love,” she says simply. “Chaucer has fucked every mare in Kentucky. He’s not going to even notice she’s gone.”

“He’ll notice.”

She lines up her shot again, ignoring me. But I press on.

“He thinks about her every day,” I continue.

She glares at the end of her cue. “You don’t get to say that to me,” she says, her voice quiet and angry. “You don’t get to stand there and fucking lie.”

“It ain’t a lie, princess.”

Through gritted teeth, she says, “I. Am not. Your. Princess.”

She hits the ball with too much force. It skips and goes flying off the table.

James, eyes still glued to his phone, headphones in his ears, flicks out his wrist and catches it effortlessly in the palm of his hand.

“Play nicely,” he chastises before setting the ball back down on the table.

But Claire doesn’t budge. Her eyes are stuck on James, eyebrows scrunched, her pretty little mouth twisted like she’s trying to solve a puzzle.

“You caught that. Perfectly.” She speaks slowly, like she’s sounding out the words as she goes.

“I suppose I did,” he says.

“You have perfect reflexes,” she repeats.

“They come in handy.”

Her next sentence is a fine, lethal point. “You let me win.”

James’s expression flickers the second he realizes he’s made a mistake. “Claire?—”

“Did you,” she seethes, “let me. Win?”

He weighs his answer on his tongue before he gives it to her. “You’re getting worked up.”

Her jaw goes tight. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

Claire storms out, her eyes a gray hurricane, taking the fury of all-mighty Zeus with her.

Not gonna lie, I almost feel sorry for the guy.

Almost.

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