Page 8 of End Game
Sorting through the various items, I hope my attempt at distraction works. “Sunglasses, lip stuff, medicine, a tampon,” I say, holding up the slender package.
She rips it out of my hands. “Give me that.”
“Words every man wants to hear,” I crack, watching the apples of her cheeks turn a couple of shades of red. “I’ve had two interactions with you so far and you’ve been feisty in both. I’m guessing this is a thing with you.”
“Apparently.”
“I like it.”
She flips her gaze back to me. This time it’s softer, a bit of hesitation in her golden eyes. “It’s gotten me in trouble a time or two in my life.”
“Trouble’s not a bad thing, you know.”
“Said from the man who won Best Baller Bad Boy fromExposé Magazinea couple of months ago,” she laughs.
“Ah, so you do know who I am,” I tease. “I was afraid there for a minute.”
“I bet you were terrified.” She lifts a wallet off the counter and plucks up a small, circular tin. “Found it!”
“What is it?”
“It’s lip balm, but not just any lip balm,” she says, opening the lid. “It’s the best honey-based balm in the universe and I thought I’d lost it.”
She slides a finger along the top of the container, and then, like a vixen I didn’t quite have her pegged to be, rolls it along her bottom lip.
“That’s not helping either,” I groan, my hand going to my lap. “I tell you what—your brother has you all wrong.”
Smacking her lips together, the sound echoing around the room, she tosses the tin down again. “How’s that?”
“What? Your lips? They’re fucking amazing.”
“No,” she laughs. “How does my brother have me all wrong?”
“He talks about you like you’re this harmless, helpless little thing. I’d venture to say you’re neither.”
“I’d venture to say you’re right.”
I sift through the mess in front of me again, wondering what else there is to know about Ms. Layla James Miller. Spotting a business card propped against a hairbrush, I pick it up.
“Give me that,” she says, reaching for it.
There’s a level of panic in her voice that only makes me more curious. Leaning back in the seat, I bring the off-white card to my face. “Logan Curie, Sex Therapist.”
I almost drop the damn card.
“Give me that, Branch.”
I don’t. I look at it again. The words have not changed.
There’s a streak of alarm hidden just below the surface of her lit-up eyes and high cheekbones that prickles something in my chest. There are a million questions on the tip of my tongue and a million-plus-one offers I’m willing to make to cure whatever ails may have her seeing a sex therapist. But there’s something in the horror she’s trying to hide that keeps me from it.
I hand her the card.
“Go ahead,” she says, refusing to look at me as she shuffles the discarded items back into an oversized yellow bag. “Ask.”
“I have nothing to ask.”
“Yes, you do,” she snorts. “Just do it so we can move on.”
