Page 20 of After Tonight

“So you’re going to test me or something?”

“Nope. I’m going to train you.”

He felt his eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

She nodded. “Seriously. You need to try out an actual relationship before you get into one with a nice girl, realize you hate it, and break somebody’s heart.”

“And you’re going to teach me?”

But that didn’t sound quite as crazy as it should have. He really didn’t know how to date a nice girl for real. He knew how to make a woman laugh. How to help her forget her troubles. How to feel more confident. But he ran the show in those situations. They were short-term. He didn’t really know how to do the two-way thing, or even what was expected of him in a relationship like that. Riley was Lucy’s best friend. She probably could teach him a thing or two. But…

“That means we’re going to have to spend a bunch of time together, huh?”

She narrowed her eyes but nodded.

It was stupid. He annoyed Riley more than anyone. And vice versa. And yet, he didn’t mind the idea of hanging out with her. With Riley, there was never a dull moment. He could tease her without worrying about hurting her feelings. He wouldn’t have to be perfect. She’d tell him he was being dick, but she wouldn’t get all hung up on it. She’d be that bratty little sister she’d always been. Riley would not only be able to tell him what nice girls expected, but she sure as hell would call him out when he got it wrong.

It all sunk in a lot faster than he would have expected. “This might work.”

She looked a little surprised. “Really?”

He laughed. “Yeah, it’s a good idea. You can show me what it’s like to date a nice girl and nobody gets hurt.”

“And I get to say when you’re ready to ask someone out. If you ever get ready.”

Yeah, yeah, he was going to have to play by Riley’s rules. He could do that. How hard could it really be to date a nice girl? “Fine. So when do we start?”

She gave him a grin and stuck out her hand. “Right now.”

He looked down at her hand, then back up.

He’d never shaken hands with a hot woman that he was going to date. Even if it was kind of fake dating.

Of course, he’d never really dated anyone since high school. He shrugged and took her hand. What the hell? Might as well start doing everything differently right now.

* * *

Riley stared into her bathroom mirror the next morning. It was seven a.m. As in five hours after she’d gone to bed. She should not be up.

But her mother was up. And making waffles. Which was, without a doubt, the loudest breakfast someone could make. Besides the banging of pots and pans, there was also the TODAYshow blasting from the television that sat on the counter next to the mixer so her mom could hear it over the sound of the mixer itself—because apparently you couldn’t mix waffle batter by hand—and the horrible, piercing beeping of the waffle iron every time a waffle was done cooking.

Riley scrubbed a hand over her face and looked into her bloodshot eyes. Yeah, it was going to be a long day.

“Riley! I’m making breakfast!”

No shit. “Yeah! Coming!” She didn’t want waffles. But she wanted coffee. And lots of it. And that was upstairs with the waffles. And her parents. Kill me now.

She really needed to get a job. In California. Far from Sapphire Falls. She’d gone into computer science because it had seemed less personal, frankly, than a lot of jobs. Jobs like becoming a doctor. More specifically, the doctor for her small hometown. Kyle, had known what he wanted to do with his life since he was about eight years old. And it had always involved staying in Sapphire Falls.

Riley had been the opposite. She hadn’t known what she wanted to do until she’d taken a computer class her junior year of high school. And even then, it had simply been something she liked and was good at. It wasn’t like she had a passion for it. They were just machines. The jobs in cyber security paid well and they were far from Sapphire Falls. And being in cyber security sounded better to her mother than gamer-girl. Which she also was. She just hadn’t figured out how to make a living doing that.

Of course, getting tossed in jail—even if her name had been cleared later—for her cyber security job hadn’t sat well with her mother. Or her employment prospects.

Which meant she was jobless and homeless and on her way to penniless. For now. Temporarily. It had to be temporary. She simply couldn’t tolerate anything else. She could design websites. She could start a podcast about her favorite video game. If prepubescent boys could make good money doing that, she surely could. She could design her own video game. She knew nothing about marketing that or…really anything else that had anything to do with starting a business like that, but she could definitely design her own game. And it would be kick-ass.

“Riley! The bacon is getting cold!”

Riley blew out a breath. Sure. She could do all of that. But she needed to move out of her parents’ house yesterday. Because living in her parents’ basement and spending most of her time on her computer was pathetic and way too much like how she’d spent ages twelve to eighteen.

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