Page 44 of Never Date A Player
She glares at her brother. “Tyler, don’t be an ass. Make yourself useful and carry Gen around or something.”
“Yeah,” I say, because son of a bitch. Lewis and his conditioning—killing is more like it.
Tyler tips his chair on two legs, extends his long arm to the counter, and tosses the cookie in my lap.
Cookie torture aside, I like having him around even though he forces us to watch motocross and other random sports instead of our reality shows. He’s got us using Hulu so he can watch sports live—something about not being able to record his games because he’ll hear the results before he watches them.
That—that right there. That’s how men rule the world. Women are too accommodating.
A couple of hours later, Cali leaves for her first day of work. She got the job at Sallee Construction, and now that she has it, I’m not sure how I feel about her working there. I encouraged her to apply, but I forgot there is another Sallee in the house, so to speak. Cali will see Lewis on a regular basis.
There’s so much I don’t know about Lewis and so much I’m still figuring out. I don’t even know what our kiss meant, or if it meant anything. I totally screwed up the moment with my Drake flashback.
Nessa comes over after Cali leaves, for a Gen-can’t-walk movie marathon.
She plops beside me on the couch. “How are you feeling?”
I lift my legs onto a pillow and let out a sigh. “Like an invalid.”
“Will you be able to work tonight?”
“I think?” Not exactly sure how I’ll carry heavy trays all evening. “I’m downing a handful of Advil an hour before I leave and hoping for the best.”
She glances around. It’s eerily silent in the chalet, which is unusual with Tyler in town. “Where is everyone?”
“Tyler is out riding his bike, or whatever he does, and Cali started her new job. She’s having orientation this afternoon.”
Nessa pulls out the DVD for Sixteen Candles. “I’m so happy it worked out at Lewis’s company.” She cues up the DVD player beside the flat screen—the two most expensive objects in the chalet. Cali and I are convinced a dude owns the place, because everything except the electronics is outdated and heinous.
Nessa’s into eighties classics the way Cali is, which means I’m properly schooled on big hair. Sixteen Candles is one of my favorites. Jake Ryan, anyone? Oh, hell yes.
Speaking of mysterious, dark-haired, mouth-watering men… “So, Nessa, I’ve been hanging out with Lewis. For our training,” I quickly add. “And I was wondering about his relationship with Mira. Purely for scientific purposes, of course.”
She smirks. “Of course. His being hot has nothing to do with it.”
“No, nothing at all.” I smile. “Anyway, what’s with them? He says she’s not his girlfriend, but they seem so—so?—”
“Together?”
“Yeah, that. Like a couple, with the fighting and the possessiveness, on Mira’s part, anyway. I don’t get it.”
The microwave beeps, the scent of buttery popcorn filling the air. Nessa continues her valet service and retrieves the steaming bag, holding it away as she peels the top open so as not to steam burn her face.
“They have a complicated friendship,” she says, and pops a yellow kernel in her mouth. “It’s like”—she munches, her eyes unfocused, as if she’s considering—“all tangled up.” She holds out the bag for me and I grab a handful. “Zach told me once that Lewis was there the day his dad rescued Mira from an abusive home when she was three. Her mom was hooked on drugs and had abandoned her for days. It was a lucky coincidence that his dad was working nearby on a project and found her.”
My stomach pinches. “Oh my God, a three-year-old?” And I thought my mom was bad.
Nessa nods. “Yeah, so it’s understandable why Mira has issues. When Lewis and his dad walked in, she went straight to Lewis. He was only a few years older, so that could explain why, but she’s been at his side ever since. Lewis takes his protector role seriously. It’s crazy how much his life revolves around her happiness.”
He saved her and that’s a good thing, so why does my heart sink? Lewis and Mira aren’t together, but they’re connected in a very profound and important way. All I have is a kiss. One hot, hot kiss.
“Lewis mentioned he’s only had one girlfriend. I got the feeling he won’t date girls because of Mira.”
Her eyes soften, as if she understands the direction of my thoughts, which I imagine are transparent. “That sounds about right. I’ve seen him with a couple of women, never the same one. Mira threw a fit the one time he brought a girl around in her presence. It’s always been like that. Zach said Lewis never dated in junior high or high school. Tons of girls liked him. Well, you know—” She waves at me as an example of said women fawning over him. Definitely transparent. “No one questioned why he wanted to stay home and prep for the SATs instead of going to prom, because he had one of the top GPAs. Now that he’s an adult, not much has changed in the romance department. He’s a bit aloof, you know? But I think that’s because of Mira. She turns into the Tasmanian Devil if she senses he’s interested in anyone.”
Getting mixed up with Lewis was always a bad idea. For a moment, when he said he and Mira weren’t a couple, a spark of hope flared, but his connection to Mira is too big, too important—it’ll never work out. I sensed this, but now I know it for sure. So why, then, did I attack him? And I mean attack.
I’ve never thrown myself at a guy before. I don’t even fantasize the way some girls do (Cali). Sex is a part of the relationship I expect and, to some degree, bear. But with Lewis, I think about him. Crazy stuff like the way he smells, his eyes, that scar—stopping what we were doing on the top of the cascades was the last thing on my mind, until visions of Drake shocked me out of my hormone haze.
