Ryan Hunter (8 page)

“I guess I’m lacking motivation to do that. I’m like a lame duck at running.”

Is that so
?
Hm, what could we do about that? “What you need is a personal trainer.”

The pretty girl in front of me laughed and took a short step back, studying me with disbelieving eyes.
“You want the job?”

That was why I suggested it. But I played my cool role to perfection.
“Sure, why not? If you promise to show some enthusiasm, I promise to be there.”

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes a little. I couldn’t blame her for not trusting me just yet. We were only getting acquainted with each other. Liza wasn’t someone you rushed into your bed. She was a gem that you enjoyed marveling at. If you were lucky, you got the chance to touch her delicate surface.
A treasure that I’d go any to length to make my own.

Eventually, she said,
“Okay, deal.”

Deal?
That was a fucking
yes
to a date. I felt like an idiot from one of Susan Miller’s romance books when my heart actually did some sort of backflip in my chest. I struggled to stay cool, but I managed to keep my pleasure under control and just nodded. “We’ll start Monday morning.”

She didn’t look so happy any more. Hopefully, she didn’t regret her decision already. Anyway, I wouldn’t let her go back on her word, and I made that clear by trapping her gaze with a hot, determined look. If she got her foot into this game with me, she wouldn’t get out of it single. I wanted her to be aware of whom she was dealing with, because I’d never felt as true to the name Bay Shark as I did in this moment.

“Hey, Ryan! We’re starting a game of pool. Are you in?”

Fuck you, Justin
! I wanted to strangle my friend for ruining this moment for me. I glared over Liza’s shoulder at my friend, and he sure knew right then that he’d come at the entirely wrong moment.

“Sorry, man,” he mouthed and grimaced.

Exhaling a sigh, I pushed away from the counter. The spell was over. I might as well go play pool with my friends now. But I was going to do sports with Liza on Monday. I had been waiting years for that chance, so what was one more day? “There in a sec,” I told Justin.

When he was gone and I looked at Liza’s beautiful face again, I wondered what that sweet mouth of hers would taste like. I stroked her
cheek with the neck of my bottle. And there it was, dammit. The first dreamy look in her eyes that was
only
for me.

“Enjoy the night
,” I said in quite a soft way. “And whatever you do, stay away from the strawberries.”

It was time to go, or I would do something stupid that was way too early in my plans of seducing Liza. So I headed for the door, leaving her a little stunned. But when I stepped past her, I couldn’t resist stroking the back of her hand with my own.

Chapter 5

A FEW GUYS stood around the pool table. Justin was playing a game against Alex when I came into the room adjoined to the main hall. Justin looked up and his face crumpled worse than a raisin. “Ah man, sorry, that wasn’t my intention,” he apologized again, straightening and leaning on his cue.

“Forget it.” I grinned. “It’s all set for Monday.”

That made him lift his brows in an impressed way and nod.

“What’s set for Monday?” Alex demanded after he shot the yellow ball into the hole. “And what wasn’t your intention,
Just?”

“Nothing,” Justin and I shot back at him.

“Is there money in the pot?” I tried to change the topic as I sat down on the couch between Frederickson and a guy whose real name I didn’t know but who we all called Sylvester.

Alex tabbed the stack of dollar notes on the table
with the tip of his cue at. “Twenty-five from each.”

“I’ll play the winner.” I didn’t have to play for money to stock up my bank account, but it was way more fun playing with the guys if
they
had the right incentive. For one,  they didn’t play pool like sissies then.

It wasn’t easy to tell who was the better player, but this time Justin came out as the winner, because Alex holed the black eight early.

“Fifty are in the pot,” Justin said to me with a wide sneer. “I want to see your money if you want to play.”

I pulled two twenties and a ten from my wallet and placed them on Justin’s prize money. “I’m in.”

Alex passed me the cue, and I chalked it while someone else set up the balls for us. Because I’d only just come in, I got to shoot first. Number twelve ended in the left corner pocket, which left Justin with the solids and me with the stripes. It was a fast game. In only four turns I had dumped most of my balls. Only the orange and white ball with the number thirteen was left, and I holed it into a corner pocket with a spectacular shot over three cushions. Now just the black eight, and victory would be mine.

A confident smirk at Justin made the guy a little nervous.
“Come on, Ryan, give a friend a chance. You can’t hole the ball just yet,” he whined.

That didn’t irritate me.
“What’s your problem, Justin? Afraid, your Mama’s going to find out you’re playing for money?” I leaned forward, focusing on the black ball, measuring my final shot.

“My Mama doesn’t give a damn. But I
really, really
need this Spiderman comic. It’s an original.”

Ah right. If it wasn’t about
BMXing or girls, with Justin it was always comics. He hoarded them like squirrels hoarded nuts, and I couldn’t believe how much he was willing to spend on those books when his pocket money for a year was what I got in a month.

He had me feeling bad for him…almost
. Heck, this was a guy-thing, and I couldn’t lose, just to make a friend happy. When you were eighteen, it was all about rep.

I positioned the cue in a perfect line to the white ball and the black eight. Then I moved the cue subtly back, getting ready to knock the ball into the pocket. I was so close to winning this game. Only, I made the mistake to look up for a second and froze.

For an immeasurable moment, I forgot to breathe. How dare she come in here and ruin this game for me? Ah
God
, how dare she look so good, dammit? It only took a second for the others to realize something went wrong, and they all turned to find my personal downfall standing in the doorway.

Liza
grimaced and played uncomfortably with the hem of her top. “Is something wrong?”

Everything
was wrong
.
It always was with me when this girl was anywhere near. The day I had first seen Liza Matthews, I had tripped over the soccer ball and landed face first in the dirt. She always made me forget about anything else around me. And now, she’d cost me a fair sum if she didn’t turn around and walk out so I could get my head back in the game.

No such luck. Justin made sure of that. He rushed to her side, the grin of victory sitting fat on his face.
“You just saved my life, hun.”

Liza seemed a little surprised when Justin laid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her farther into the room where the warm light from above played out the various shades of brown in her hair. For one, I wanted to kick my best friend’s ass at this moment, because he knew I’d screw up with Liza in this room and he just used that to his advantage. And secondly I wanted to kick is ass, because he simply dared to lay his fucking arm around my girl. He was going to pay for
both
later.

“Ah…
yes,” Liza said and looked from Justin to me. “And how so?”

She had
no
idea. That was one of the things I liked about her most—that she always was so sweetly unaware of everything. Especially of the crap that was just about to fall on my head.

“He can’t play when someone is watching him
,” Justin stated the obvious. “Totally screws up then.”

Her brows knitted together.
“But you
all
are watching him.”

The way she spoke to everybody else but looked only at me made me grin.

“Yeah, but we’re not girls.” That was Alex from the back of the room, and he certainly enjoyed selling me out. Bloody bastards. Were they all against me tonight?

It probably was time so say something in my defense, to save my honor, but all I did was fix Liza with a salacious stare as I straightened and chalked the tip of my cue.

“Sorry,” she croaked. “I’ll leave you guys alone then.”

Justin didn’t let her slip away
. “Uh-uh, no way, hun! You’re my insurance to get that comic book. You stay.”

His arm around her got mightily on my nerves, even though he made Liza smile. And heck, she had the prettiest smile in all Grover Beach.
That kind where the upper lip slipped back a little and revealed perfect, white teeth that touched her soft, rosy bottom lip. A smile that conjured sweet dimples on her cheeks and made her pretty apple-colored eyes crinkle. One that made me lick my bottom lip, wanting nothing more than to kiss her.

And because she still only gazed at me and no one else when she smiled, I couldn’t help that one corner of my mouth tilted up right now. I was in serious trouble. Lisa distracted me something awful. She made me lose my mind and lose this bloody game. More, she made me lose face in front of my closest friends—and she still lived. Damn, I must be in love with this girl.

Taking a deep breath, I shook my head and leaned over the table once more. Everybody was tense and silent. Right, they would just love to see me butcher this shot. I cleared my throat, playing for more time, hoping for a miracle that would swipe Liza out of the room this second. But she remained, and I couldn’t stop looking at her. Hard as I tried to concentrate on the balls in front of me, my gaze drifted up to her face time and time again.

Ah, to hell with it! This game was lost.

I dropped my forehead to the edge of the table and laughed. “Take your money, Just. I give up.”

They guys broke out in a rowdy cheer. Yeah, right, rub it in guys!

Bracing my palms on the pool table, I hung my head for a moment, accepting their gloating. But when I looked up, Liza was still there capturing me with her gaze, and I knew it was totally worth it.

“I’m so sorry,” she
mouthed.

And she had better be. Liza probably had no idea how badly she’d damaged my rep and that the boys would never let me live through this. But I wasn’t angry. How could I be? She was the sweetest distraction that had ever walked through my door.

I didn’t let her out of my sight but smirked and mouthed back, “
You
are banned from this room.”

She didn’t move an inch when I slowly
walked around the table toward her. In fact, she even pressed a little harder against the wall, her eyes growing wider, her breathing coming just that bit faster. It looked like she couldn’t make up her mind whether she should shy away from me or be fascinated.

I stood only half a foot away from her, with the cue tight in one hand. The other I place
against the wall next to her head so she couldn’t escape me. “You just cost me fifty bucks.”

“Yeah, I know
. But he
really, really
needs this comic book.” She batted her long lashes at me. To my shame I had to admit that this simple move bulldozed right through my coolness.

I laughed.
“Siding with the enemy. I should have known.” Then I seized the opportunity to touch her one more time tonight and placed my hand in the small of her back. “For tonight, this room is off limits for you.” Gently, I pushed her through the door back into the main hall and enjoyed every second while my hand lay on her warm body.

“Oh why?
It’s so much fun to watch you…screw up.”

She mockingly glanced up at me, and I should have bitten her bottom lip for that impish pout.

But I resisted the urge and also to brush my thumb over her lip. Instead, I leaned in a little closer. “Off you go.”

She obeyed, and I didn’t know if that made me happy or sad. But as soon as she was gone, I closed the sliding wood door and slumped with my back against it, facing a hoard of sneering guys.

“Can anybody tell me why I never have my phone ready to videotape it when things like that happen?” Chris Donovan popped a new bottle of beer and saluted into the room. “Hunter screwing up a game because of Liza Matthews. This is priceless.”

“Mitchell is so going to kill you for stealing his girl,” Alex said while rearranging the balls on the green felt.

“Mitchell doesn’t have to know,” I sneered back. “Anyway, I’m not stealing her. That was just some harmless flirting. Nothing to blow a fuse about.”

“What
she
did was harmless. What
you
did, man, was begging to get laid.”

A laugh escaped me about the honesty and probable truth in that. “Fuck you,
Winter. Are we playing pool now or what?”

“You just epically failed. I’m not playing
you
, Hunter.” He cast me a mocking glare then turned around. “Frederickson, get your ass off the couch. We play.”