Somehow, her eyes seemed even brighter than usual.
“I basically wrote half your essays for you. I did all the research, and the one time we had to do a group project and we weren’t together, you failed.”
I fought a smile. “I didn’t fail the second time around when she let me resubmit my paper.”
“Because I helped you!” She nudged her foot into my shin under the covers. “I had to explain everything about ten times because you never listened!”
“Hey! That’s unfair. I listened to you.”
“No, you checked sports scores, did extra practice, went to games…”
“Who had to help who in math?”
“My brain isn’t wired for numbers!” Her voice was a little shrill. “It’s not my fault! Besides, I would have passed without your help. Eventually.”
“Yeah, right, okay.”
“What?”
“Holley, do you remember that practice test? You got two questions right. Out of fifty.”
She blinked up at me, her dark eyelashes brushing her skin, and said, “It is not my fault the new Twilight book came out that week.”
“It is your fault you read that book instead of your textbook.”
“Mm, hot werewolves and vampires or algebra? Oh, such a tough choice.”
“It really shouldn’t have been.”
“Well, I don’t like math and I do like books, so…” The covers moved in what looked like a shrug. “It’s really not that hard to figure out.”
“There you go, then. I like sports and not English. It’s not hard to see why I almost failed.”
“Do you know what amazes me?” She tilted her head back to peer up at me again. “You could barely read an assignment question in high school, but you’ve read Game of Thrones. I could barely get through Game of Thrones.”
“Really? All that judgement and you can’t even read it?”
“Hey, I can read it! It’s just a lot of words. They’re big books. I needed palate cleaners.”
“What did you use? Twilight?”
“Nope. Murder mysteries.” Her grin held a spark of evil.
I narrowed my eyes. “I think I might sleep on the sofa after all.”
Laughing, she reached for her bottle of water and sat up just enough to drink from it. “Stop it. I’m not going to kill you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah. I don’t have my car and my tarp is in the trunk, so…”
I grabbed one of the stupid girly throw cushions they always put on these beds and swung it in her direction. She only just moved the bottle of water out of the way, and she almost choked as she quickly swallowed what she’d been trying to drink.
“Now who’s killing who?” she rasped, patting her chest to clear her throat. She capped the bottle and set it on the nightstand before letting out one big cough.
Then she grabbed the cushion and hit me in the face with it.
“I deserved that,” I admitted.
“Yes, you did.” She turned off her light and slid back under the covers, facing the middle of the bed. The glow from the TV illuminated her features, glinting off her blue eyes, showing the pucker of her lips as she pouted at the screen.
I had no idea what she was pouting at, but the urge to kiss her was…
Terrifying.
I wanted to slip my fingers into her hair, tilt her head back, and kiss her until we sank down in the pillows and my body was covering hers.
But I didn’t want to be punched in the face either, so I didn’t do that.
I settled down myself, looking at the TV. I still didn’t know what was going on in this motel with the eccentric actress—who I was pretty sure was the mom in the original two Home Alone movies—and I wasn’t sure I would ever figure it out.
But I didn’t argue anymore.
This was the closest I’d felt to her since I’d walked into Bookworm’s Books, and I wondered if maybe—just fucking maybe—this might be a friendship we could repair.
If not more.
If I was lucky.***“Thank you,” Holley said, leaning on my car window. “For giving me a ride down here.”
I glanced at the garage behind. “That’s it? Just for the ride? Not for paying for your repairs?”
“Hey, if you hadn’t coerced me into the wedding in the first place, I wouldn’t have busted my tire.”
Shit.
She was right.
That was irritating.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry.” I fought the twitch of my lips. “And you’re welcome.”
“I know.” She didn’t bother to fight her own smirk. “Annoyingly… I had fun.”
“I know.” This time, I let it go, and my lips tugged to one side when I winked. “Your dancing leaves a lot to be desired, though.”
“You dance like my dad,” she shot back. “And nobody needs to see that in public. Except they do at least once a week, but I digress.”
My smirk turned into a big ass grin. “I am an excellent dancer, actually.”
Holley pulled off her glasses and held them out to me.
“What are you doing?”