Truth or Dare (4 page)

Ava walked up beside her, an open bag of Pirate’s Booty in hand. Glancing down at the growing darkness, she nodded. “Me, too.”

“You know what annoys me the most? I bump into him constantly.”

“Definitely annoying.”

“At the grocery store. In the hall. Picking up my deep-dish at Lou Malnati’s. Did I tell you I ran out to grab a box of tampons at 7-Eleven and turn around at the counter…
he’s behind me in line.
He’s everywhere.”

“Like the plague. But I mean, he does live in the building and all that stuff is, you know, a block away.” Then, catching herself, or maybe the look of betrayal on Maggie’s face, she finished with a hissed,
“Stalker.”

Thank you.

“Yeah. And with this running, I see him every day. Walking home from the gallery, I get somewhere between North Honore and West Evergreen and he rounds the corner, all arrogance and obnoxious look-at-me everything else.”

“Every day? That sucks. So what do you do, just ignore each other?”

“I wish. From the minute he hits Milwaukee, it’s eye contact.”

Ava slanted a questioning look over at Maggie, but her scowl held firm as she returned her focus to Apartment Three.

“And then at the very last minute when he passes, he gives me this smug smile like he knows just
exactly
how deep he’s getting under my skin. He’s like some toxic spill taking up real estate in my mind. I don’t like him. I don’t want to think about him. Know about him. Have to talk to him—”

“Or watch him stretch after working out.”

Maggie shot Ava another warning look, reaching for a piece of Booty. “It’s my window. I’m not going to let him keep me from standing by it.”

“No way.” Ava tossed another bite in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s funny, though. I don’t really remember us doing this much window staring before he moved in and started contaminating the view. Oh, I like it when he rolls out his shoulders like that.”

Maggie nodded. “Me, too. But he’s such an ass. You know he actually made me laugh in the hall again last week.”

Ava fake gasped, but then for real choked on the bite she hadn’t quite finished. After a bout of coughing and eye watering, she pointed to the window and wheezed, “Bastard. He did this to me.”

Maggie gave her an adoring look filled with genuine gratitude. Ava went to the kitchen for some water and Maggie leaned against the window frame, studying the blight upon her walkway. The undeniably built blight who was loosening up by swinging his arms at chest level, forward and back. Forward and back in a motion that pulled the sweat-soaked fabric of his white, moisture-wicking, tight-enough-al
ready shirt taut across the ripped muscles of his back so she could see the flex and bunch of each one, the twin channels running alongside his spine.

Total wet T-shirt contest stuff. And totally annoying.

Ava came back carrying a half-drunk glass of water. “So any prospects for this month?”

As a rule, the topic of whether Maggie had scrounged up a date was met with grudging reluctance and a put-upon attitude. The dating thing was strictly for Ava’s benefit, and Maggie tried to think about it as little as possible. But today was different. Today the topic was met with a grin. A big one.

“As a matter of fact, yes. You remember when you broke your wrist two years ago and we—”

“Oh my God! Hot Doc?” Ava demanded, bouncing so hard her water nearly spilled. “He was
so
into you.
Pulleeease
tell me it’s Hot Doc.”

Maggie nodded. “Ava, he’s seriously perfect. Like, everything I’m looking for.”

Ava bit into her lip, clutching her glass to her chest with both hands. “Tell.”

“Obviously he passes the usual rigmarole. No cats. Employed. A reference in the form of his sister, whom he was actually giving dating advice to when I ran into him. Laughed multiple times. And his schedule at the ER is so nuts, the soonest we were able to book something was the thirtieth!”

Ava’s smile had gone a little stale and Maggie shifted uneasily on her feet. “What?”

“I guess when you said he was perfect, I thought maybe you were sort of excited about going out with him.” She sighed. “For real.”

So maybe this wasn’t the right time to share what Maggie had considered the best part. The guy was scheduled to leave on some two-month medical exchange just three days later. Instead she promised, “I’m open to the possibilities.”

It had to be enough, because it was all she had.

Sighing, Ava turned back to the window. “It’s what we agreed on.”

“So who have you got?” Maggie asked, glaring at Apartment Three, who looked to be finishing his cool-down as he turned around, providing her with an unobscured view of the front of him. The damp spikes of his hair hung low across his brow, and the hard set of his eyes and mouth and, well, damn it, everything else about him reminded her of what a total ass he was and how much she didn’t like him.

“Cop. Met him at court. Solid eight on the hot scale. Knows a bunch of people over at the firm.”

“You excited?”

“Ehh. I’m open.”

Yeah.

Tyler stopped where he was and looked up to her window. Their eyes met, and all the hot and hard and hostile got lost in the lopsided grin that broke out across his face, his right brow arching all
well-who-do-we-
have-here
as he watched her watch him.

Carefully maintaining her look of disdain, Maggie trapped a piece of Booty between her index and middle fingers and held it up with the snap of her wrist at the window.

Ava snorted. “What, is that some kind of snack food flip-off? How’s he supposed to know to be offended?”

Oh, he knew. That world-class smirk working his mouth and nod of understanding confirmed it.

“Hey, Sam and Ford are back with beer for their movie,” Ava noted as the guys walked up to the gate, stopping beside Tyler.

“It’s a movie night?” Maggie asked, her brow drawing forward as she watched the conversation happening down at street level. The exchange of knuckles…the laughs.

What the hell was this?

“Not for us. They’ve got one of those
Saw
movies, and you know the commercials alone give me nightmares. So no way.”

Sam and Ford started for the building and feeling better, Maggie popped the bite into her mouth. Only then Sam stopped, saying something she couldn’t make out. Tyler nodded, turned back to her window, and, jutting his chin at her, double-bumped the pinky side of his fists together, Ross style from an old episode of
Friends.

Damn it,
she tried not to laugh. She didn’t want to give in. Give him the satisfaction.

But in the end, the absurdity of Three’s flip-off was too much to resist, and not only did she aspirate her bite of Booty and double over choking…but of course,
he
saw it, too.

Ava shoved the glass in front of her and sighed, “I think I love that guy.”

Bastard.

“I can
not
believe he’s here,” Maggie groused, sailing down the hall toward Ford’s kitchen, her eye twitching at the fingernails-dow
n-a-blackboard sound of Apartment Three’s laughter defiling the space behind her. “First I’ve got Sam giving me this whole ‘he’s not so bad’ business, laughing about when he said
this
or
that
. Then suddenly Ford’s out for a run with him. And just when I think it can’t get any worse”—she slammed her tote of cookies on the butcher block and spun on her heel to face a bored-looking Ava—“I walk into Ford’s for our usual game-day hangout, and what do I find? That
ass
sitting in my favorite couch corner with my BFF handing him a beer!
Et tu, Brute? Et tu?
”

Ava checked her phone. “You know you sound like a lunatic, right?”

Maggie’s arms crossed. “It’s
him
. He’s making me this way. On purpose. Antagonizing me, intentionally. You heard him—‘Heya, Two’—when I walked in. What the hell is ‘Heya’ anyway?”

“Um, I think it’s like, ‘Hey you,’ isn’t it?”

“
Hey. You.
Really nice.”

Okay, so when she said it like that, it didn’t seem quite the call to throw-down it initially had. But whatever, she knew she was right. The guy was gloating over being in her space.

And worst of all, his being there caught her so off guard, she hadn’t even had a comeback ready to go. She’d just gawked like a fool through those first few outrage-infused breaths and then turned tail for the kitchen.

Prying the lid off her cookies, she stewed. She’d left that dickhead with the upper hand.

“Oh my God, are those what I think they are?” Suddenly, Ava was pressed up close to her side as she stared down with undisguised lust. “I take it back. I can’t believe his nerve showing up like this. And the way he talked to you? What an ass! Can I have one?”

Appeased, Maggie lifted the tray and offered Ava first pick.

Of course her
friends
could have a cookie.

Back in the living room, Maggie paused beside the TV, waiting until she had everyone’s attention.

Tyler’s mouth tipped to one side, those hard eyes slamming down on her with the special blend of judgment, irritation, and amusement that got under her skin like nothing she’d ever encountered before. Only then he noticed the cookies. His eyes darkened, his nostrils flared, and—geez, was that a shudder?

Hello, power position.

“So guys, I know how much you like the chocolate chip, but when I was at the little gourmet market yesterday, I saw they had those big, plump raisins in stock again,” she said, offering a tantalizing glimpse of her bounty. “So I hope you don’t mind I made Aunt Nora’s Oatmeal Raisin recipe instead.”

A chorus of needy masculine groans rose around her as Maggie circulated through the room, making a production of pointing out the biggest cookies, the thickest. The ones with the nicest golden brown at the edges. Shamelessly, she worked every compliment to the max while ever aware of Apartment Three tracking her movements with the vigilance of a starved man.

When only one guest remained unserved, and the rest of the room was splitting their attention between the game and the cookies even guys took a minute or more to finish, Maggie made a slow, deliberate pass in front of Ty, keeping carefully out of reach as she went by.

Crossing to the sideboard in front of the window, she set the tray down. Arranged the remaining cookies as a prickly awareness chased up her spine, alerting her to the close proximity of the unwelcome one.
The infiltrator.

“Those cookies look pretty good, Apartment Two.”

Damn straight they do.
“Mmph.”

She turned where she stood, using her body as a shield as she faced the antagonistic jerk who’d been her best bickermate since the day he moved in, in June. Hands stuffed in the front pockets of his faded blues, those broad shoulders hunched forward in a way that somehow made them look even bigger than when he stood straight, he ducked his head and shot her with a look from beneath some seriously thick lashes, flashing what she regretfully had to admit was a pretty spectacular smile at her. And sure enough, it even came with a dimple accompaniment.