Page 11 of The Romance Game

“No, there’s a bee.” And then the little sucker stings me. Right on my bare upper arm.

I rocket out of the car, hand pressed against my skin and hopping around like I accidentally stepped onto hot coals. “Ow. Ow. Ow.”

“What happened? I’m the one who got hit,” Ryan says in his stupid dumb handsome voice. Don’t even argue with me about how a voice can’t be handsome if you haven’t heard Ryan’s. It’s a mixture of southern charm, islander ease, and I’m-six-and-a-half-feet-of-pure-muscle-so-outta-my-way command.

I hate it.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I go still. Lengthen my spine. Drop my hand from my arm. I remember that I am not, nor was I ever, under this man’s spell. His eyes are the devil’s work. So deep and so blue no one has ever resisted their temptation.

“Nothing is wrong.” I bite the inside of my lip, an old habit when I lie.

To be clear, I’ve only ever lied to Ryan McGregor or about him. Honest.

“What the heck just happened?”

With the toe of my Vans checkerboard sneaker, I draw a little circle in the sand. Also, a bad habit when I’d nabbed the last of Aunt Martina’s coconut crunch and she was looking for the culprit.

Ryan’s eyes graze me. No, they penetrate my lying soul.

Or maybe that’s just what it feels like when guilt goes on a feeding frenzy.

He saunters over. Of course he saunters. He doesn’t have the decency to at least give me the pleasure of seeing him limp after striking him with the rental car.

Kidding. Sort of.

Seeing him up close and personal after years of glimpses on the big screen at work or my small phone’s screen, he still has the same thick, healthy brown hair and faint freckles.

The man is objectively attractive with his chiseled features.

Okay, fine. He makes my insides flutter like nobody’s business. But that’s beside the point. A long time ago, we established that we hate each other. Nothing, not even his being a successful athlete, will change that. Behind all that flash and flirting and charm, he’s the same old rascal.

Probably.

“Hey, kiddo.”

“Old man.”

He presses his hand to his chest. “Ouch. We’re the same age.” I expect the defensiveness in his tone but not the flicker of something else that hides just behind his dark lashes. Is he reckoning with getting older?

“Let’s try again. Hi, Nugget.”

With a defiant lift of my chin, I say, “You don’t get to call me that.”

“Does anyone get to call you that these days?” he asks with the kind of swagger of a man who is sought after, the confidence of someone who’s never been rejected or left to raise a kid by himself.

Waving my hand, I say, “Pass, next question.”

“Were you avoiding me at Royal’s wedding?”

I wish I didn’t take that pass. Can I call a lifeline? Aunt Martina was big into game shows and was once on the Price is Right. That’s where the Pontiac, her assortment of dumbbells, and dinette set came from.

A shaky sigh escapes, which has everything to do with missing her and not the fact that I am single.

“Nugget, what’s that?”

“What’s what?” My tactic is looking everywhere but at Ryan, which causes me to follow his gaze to the rapidly growing golf ball on my arm.

---