Page 28 of Really Truly Yours
“Knock it off!” Something nudges my shoe. I peer one eye open. Sydnee towers over me. “Stop playing around and get up off that floor.
I nudge her foot back with the toe of my sneaker. “Who says I’m playing?”
She huffs. “You’re a horrible actor. Now come on, Grayson.”
“Call me Gray and I will.”
“I’ll call you something alright. Now, get. Up.” She reaches out as if to help.
I narrow an eye. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Come on.” She wiggles her fingers.
“Feeling cocky, are we?” One minor success and she thinks she can lift all two-hundred-twenty pounds of superstar?
The fingers wiggle at me again.
Okay, sure. Let’s do this. I take her hand, begin another three-count, and on the magic number…pull.
As in, pull Sydnee Carson right down.
On me, that is. I keep tension enough that she’s not sprawled, the perfect distance to decide whether the flecks in her blue eyes are green or gold. Her nose is cute. Her breath is warm. Her lips are red and full and make me—
An impulsive idiot.
I wouldn’t call Sydnee’s sudden unthawing full-blown panic, but a near relation. She pushes and flails, worsening the situation she’s doing her darndest to undo. Palm at her waist, I give an assist, holding until she’s steady.
As the target of her wrath, I’m not supposed to be enjoying her spitfire moment, am I? The breathless sound, the flushed cheeks?
Ah, yet another failure added to my tally.
She bats sandy hair from her face, and man, my nerve endings replay her soft touch on my skin.
Donny and I trade looks as she flits to the kitchen, there for a moment, returning with two bags in hand.
I pop to my feet. See, the whole thing was her fault. Bad arm or no, I am fully mobile.
“I’m going to leave now.” Cheeks still glowing, she steps around the box and yanks open the door, no subtle message in its ensuing slam.
Chapter 7
Grayson
“Cute girl, ain’t she?”
I blink away the vision of Sydnee’s…cuteness.
Eyes on me, Donny wears a not-easily decipherable look.
“She’s alright.”
He snorts, not buying in. “Guess you have your pick of fancy women. I saw you dated that actress. What’s her name?”
My eyes squeeze. Another not-my-finest-moment moment, that one. “Kelly. And we only went out a few times.” A few too many, that is. Six weeks of my life I’ll never get back.
He grunts. “A looker for sure, but Sydnee’s the real deal. She’s like a daughter to me.”
I face him full-on. Is he suggesting something or warning me off? And daughter? Them’s almost fightin’ words, given our own defective relationship.