Page 162 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
I smiled, happy that Elijah was still with him but in a good way. “He’s the angel on your shoulder.”
Ridge laughed a little. “Yeah, I guess he is. Neither of us was an angel. We both did a lot of shit we shouldn’t have, and for the longest time, I blamed myself. But then I started thinking about it in a new way. If that guy had shot me instead of Elijah, I wouldn’t want him wasting his time or energy feeling guilty. It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t help anyone. So I channeled all that energy into the game we both loved.”
“It’s the best way to honor his memory.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” He gestured to the sky where the sun was sinking into the horizon. “Have you been watching more sunsets, Evie?”
“Yeah, I have. But none of them have been this beautiful.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
When I turned my head, our eyes met, and as if there was a gravitational pull drawing us together, we moved closer until his mouth was a mere fraction of an inch from mine.
I closed my eyes and breathed him in. His hand tangled in my hair, and I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck. Our lips touched, just a soft brush that set off an explosion of tiny fireworks inside me, and then we were kissing. His tongue swept into my mouth, and my back hit the ground, and without stopping to think, I pulled him on top of me. It felt so good, the weight of his body and the heat of his skin, his hands in my hair, and his muscles taut under my fingertips, that for a while, I forgot the world and everything around us.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, the warning bells were going off. There was a reason we shouldn’t be doing this.
Then I remembered.Carina. It was like having a bucket of ice water dumped over my head.
I shoved him off me and scrambled to my feet. My chest heaved, and my movements were jerky as I gathered up our trash and climbed into his truck. “Take me home, please.” I slammed the door shut and fastened my seat belt with shaky hands.
God. My head dropped against the headrest, and I banged it a few times, trying to knock some sense into it.
Why did he make me so weak? Two minutes alone with him, and we’re making out like two teenagers. Meanwhile, he had a girlfriend who had no idea what he was doing.
CHAPTERSIXTY
Ridge
This would have beena great time to tell Evie that I didn’t have a girlfriend. Or better yet, I should have told her as soon as I’d picked her up. Then I could have avoided the dagger eyes she was shooting at me as I drove.
“That’s really low, Ridge. I knew you were a player, but I never pegged you for a cheater. That’s a whole other level of shitty behavior.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the side window. “I feel sorry for your girlfriend.”
My grip on the wheel tightened at the insinuation. “So you naturally assume that I’m a cheater, and I treated my girlfriend like shit. Is that what I’m hearing?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” She glared at me. “Now I’m wondering how many girls you kissed behind my back when you were in college.”
Oh, she did not fucking go there. “I never cheated on you. I never evenlookedat another girl when I was with you.”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”
“Yeah, I do. I’ve just given you my word. That’s not good enough for you?”
“It used to be. It used to mean a lot. But now I’m starting to question a lot of things. We’re twenty-six years old, Ridge. We’re too old for these high school games.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“So, why did you kiss me? Are you trying to punish me?”
“How is it a punishment to kiss you?” I hung the next right onto the two-lane highway that took us to Evie’s old house. She hadn’t noticed yet or was too preoccupied with her accusations to pay attention to the scenery.
“Why are we doing this?” she asked, letting out a weary sigh. “Why do we always end up fighting?”
“Because we’re us. It’s what we do.” We’d always pushed each other’s buttons. We were both stubborn and hated to back down from an argument. “But we didn’t always fight.”
“I know. We had a lot of good times.”
“It was still the best summer of my life.”
