Page 37 of Always a Bridesmaid
With the trash talking done, she followed Ford to the pool table. He retrieved two sticks and asked if she wanted to break.
Seriously, what had she been thinking, challenging the guy? She was far from a pool shark, but she also hadn’t specified what “make it interesting” meant. First, she needed to figure that out for herself.
“You can break,” she sweetly said, wrapping a hand over her closed fist. “And then I’ll break you.” Since she’d never been able to crack her knuckles, she went ahead and added sound effects. “Crack. Pop. Tough noise.”
The hypnotic twitching of Ford’s arm muscles halted as he went from chalking his pool stick to leveling his green eyes on her. “Did you justaddknuckle cracking sound effects? I’m not sure you’re doing the intimidating thing right.”
“That’s how I sneak up on people. Plus, even if I could crack my joints, I hate the sound. Gives me goose bumps.”
Ford moved closer and, with a grin that bordered on evil, cracked his knuckles without using his mouth.
“I should’ve seen that coming.”
“Lesson number two: never let your opponent know your weaknesses.”
Violet plucked the blue square of chalk out of his hand. “Wait. When was lesson number one?”
“When I taught you not to be lured by the promise of puppies.”
“Right. How could I forget?”
Ford leaned over the table, an eye squinted. He looked straight out of one of those movies where people go into a bar in the country to get information, usually on the whereabouts of some killer.
This guy? This is the guy who’s wearing down my resolve?
His shirt didn’t have sleeves. He was chewing on a drink straw, same way he probably chewed on the kind that came from bales of hay.
He was…so frickin’ hot.
“Speaking of,” she said, right as he hit the cue ball. “Did you ever name the puppies?”
A loudcracksplit the air, and two striped balls dropped into corner pockets.
That cockeyed corner of Ford’s mouth twisted higher. “Gonna have to do better than that, Vi. And Trouble, Nitro, and Tank are doin’ fine.”
“Aww. Nitro and Tank? How cute is that?”
“‘Tough’—that’s the word you’re looking for.”
“Mmm, no. Pretty sure I meant cute.”
“Since you started with the T and they’re destructive little devils, I figured TNT fit nicely. Trouble is what his name claims, Nitro’s fast, and Tank crashes on through no matter how much heavy furniture you push across doors to keep him out. Together, they destroy.”
Violet stuck out her lower lip. “So, socute.” She pointed at her eye. “Like, I’m getting a tear in the corner from the cuteness.”
“Next you’ll be sayin’ bombs are adorable,” Ford muttered. However, the groove in his cheek gave his almost-smile away.
At the drag of his hand across her lower back, every nerve ending in her body stood at the ready. He set up right beside her for his next shot, and her body was ready to spontaneously combust from his nearness.
Suddenly she could relate to those puppies all too well. Search and destroy. Expend and sabotage. Live in the moment, for later you might not be able to pee on every tree in the woods.
In other, more-human terms: carpe this diem and make it your bitch!
Which was why, as Ford retracted his elbow, Violet draped herself across his back and covered his eyes with her hands.
“Resorting to cheating?” His gruff voice traveled down her arms and kicked her heart into motion.
“It’s called making it interesting.”
