Page 27

She laughs. She’s looking at me like I’m crazy. “No, it’s not. There are days your father makes me so angry I can’t see straight. I even make him sleep on the couch sometimes.”

Mom might be lying about all that, but it still makes me laugh. I brush the tears away. “I have to go get the boys’ stuff ready for football practice tonight.”

“Bring them by for some treats afterward.” She points to the pan of Rice Crispy treats. “And your brother will be here next week with the guys. Cash and Grady wanted to know if they can spend the night.”

“Nope.” I take one of the treats. It’s still hot and burns my finger. Licking the marshmallow from my fingers, I say, “Ty and his friends are assholes.”

“Oh, they’re good guys. Most of them are married now and have kids. I think Jameson’s are around the boys’ age.”

“Ha. I don’t know. We’ll see. I really do have to go.” I kiss Mom goodbye and wave to my dad who’s standing in the fairground’s parking lot.

I don’t know why, maybe because he’s consuming every thought I have today, my mind details the night Ridge found out I’d gone to the movies with Austin back when we were in high school. I wasn’t dating him. We just went to a movie.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, wondering why he was sitting on our front porch, hood pulled up over his head.

Vacant and indifferent, Ridge’s eyes dragged slowly from the track across the street to me, but he didn’t answer me. “What were you doing with him?”

Frustration gnawed at me as I pushed my fingers through my hair. I was so tired of his games. He didn’t want me dating anyone, but he wouldn’t date me. “We just went to a movie, Ridge,” I muttered. “It wasn’t a date.”

“Break up with him,” he said, curt, his look as menacing as he personality.

I looked at him like he’d lost his mind. I thought he had. I frowned. “I’m not going out with him. I told you, it wasn’t a date.”

Ridge squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t give a shit,” he warned. “You don’t belong with him. I don’t want you anywhere around him.”

“Oh my God, you’re crazy. I’m not dating him.” I stood my ground.

“Why him?” He opened his eyes and turned to face me. His voice was fire on my skin, leaving scorched skin in its wake. “Why’d you go to the movies with him and not me?”

“Because you never asked.” I gulped, knowing where this would lead. I wanted him to make it stop too, yet I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Maybe him leading me on, controlling me, dictating our relationship was what I wanted.

Suddenly, he stood, took my hand and led me across the street to the fairgrounds where the track was. “I don’t want to date you. I want to fuck you.”

I couldn’t breathe. I was fifteen years old. I didn’t understand his words or the meaning behind them. In some strange way, I wanted that too. I wanted to have sex with Ridge. I imagined it all the time. I did, but my nerves and the need to have something more stopped me.

And I was horrified that he affected me this way.

I hadn’t noticed how, or when, but we were flush with each other, behind the concession stands at the track, and I was intoxicated by his scent and high on his face.

“What do you want, Aly?” he asked, his pupils so wide his eyes were almost completely black in the darkness of the night. A streetlamp nearby lit the side of his face, making him look almost sinister.

“I’m not going to have sex with you,” I told him, knowing I was nowhere near ready for that.

“Then kiss me,” he whispered into my face, his breath tickling my cheek.

“But I—”

He shut me up by slamming his lips on mine. They were warm and sweet and completely right. His kiss was erotic, deep, desperate, and not something you’d experience from a fifteen-year-old boy.

My heart hammers in my chest, my face flushing as I walk up the street with shaking steps. Goddamn him. For years Ridge led me on, evoked reactions he didn’t deserve, made me think all he wanted was sex and then disappeared from my life, and now that he’s back, he’s probably about to do the same thing to me. Guys like Ridge Lucas don’t change, and he’s the last person I need to get wrapped up in.