Page 20 of Fall Over You

“I do have a full range of human emotions,” she sighs, then laughs. “You busted in there like a big gorilla man. Where’s my girlfriend? Where’d you even get that baseball bat?”

I roll my eyes and chuckle. “I kept it in my car for emergencies.”

“What, an emergency home run derby?” she jokes.

“You should be glad I had it!”

“I was, I was,” she says, putting her hands out to calm me. “Then you threw me over your shoulder like a cave man.”

My neck feels all hot. I remember that powerful feeling, having Becca over my shoulder, having total control over her. How I couldn’t imagine ever taking advantage of that. How I needed to feel her against me to know she was safe. It scared the daylights out of me to think that those guys might hurt her, and by the time I got there, my adrenaline had reached a peak. “I had to act like I was your boyfriend. And if I was your boyfriend, I’d have been pissed a bunch of guys were trying to have you.”

I might have been pissed about that even though I’ve never been her boyfriend, but that’s beside the point.

Becca looks pensive, cheeks still rosy and eyes glassy. She blows and pops a bubblegum bubble, but her expression remains serious. “Did you ever tell Dusty?”

It’s so far in the past now. I could have told him any number of times in the last few years, but every time I thought about it when I was with him, I didn’t want to bring it up.

It was unusual, outside of any dynamic I’d ever had with Dusty or Becca or anybody, really. This weird little mosquito moment trapped in amber that I’ve kept in my pocket for all this time.

For that night, she’d trusted me, and I didn’t want to betray her trust.

“No. I never told him.”

Her brows knit. “You could have.”

“Other things are more important.”

Why did I say it? It dismisses this nice moment we were having.

But I guess I don’t have nice moments with Becca.

“Okay,” she says in a stupid voice. “Geez. Tell me I’m unimportant, why don’t you?”

Her lips hook upward and I know she’s about to be up to something.

“Tyler,” she sighs in a breathy voice before kicking one leg over the other and popping her chest forward. “Am I still unimportant?”

She gives me her best doe eyes and twirls her hair around her finger. “I’m just your best friend’s little sister.”

For a moment, I let myself look, to drink her in. I’ve seen so much of her in the last week, and every time I’m trying not to look at her.

Because I’m afraid of how I’ll feel if I see her.

I’m afraid I’ll like what I see.

And right now, I can’t deny that I don’t just like what I see. I’m cataloging every part of her to remember later. I wish I could draw so I could capture this, her, the way her free-wheeling nature and unflappable confidence makes me feel. She’s the most self-assured person on this planet.

But it gets worse.

Becca rolls to climb to her hands and knees, looking back at me while her barely-covered ass is on display. She bows her back to arch her hips up, and my god, this is the kind of thing only my subconscious could serve up. The kind of dream that I’d wake up from with a raging hard-on and pouring sweat. What would it be like to sink inside her, to palm those tits, to be the one who finally gets his turn?

But she’s not being serious. She’s using her sexiness to mock me. She sits back on her heels and glances at me over her shoulder, popping her ass out. A peek of her luscious cheeks that beg to be bitten hang out of the bottom of her shorts and I wonder what I’ve done wrong to deserve this. “Is this something from one of those car calendars?”

I know I should act grumpy, but I just can’t be right now. Becca’s goofy on a regular basis, and she’s even more so now. And she’s stop-in-your-tracks stunning at the same time.

“You can’t pay for your truck work that way,” I say, but my voice is dry and crackly. I’m trying to seem unaffected, and I’m about as convincing as Pinocchio.

She sticks out her bottom lip. “You’re no fun.”