Page 31 of Holiday Home 3
You can figure it out,Liam thought, pleased to have passed along the shock he’d received this morning to the trouble-making redhead.
Step by step, she’d get there.
“Let me make sure I’m hearing this right,” she said, harboring her suspicions behind a befuddled frown. “You’renotin a relationship with one of Bellmore’s sexiest professors? And I’m not talking about Victoria right now.”
“I know, and that’s what I’m saying,” he said. “That’s what I’m going to keep saying, too. Today, tomorrow, for the rest of winter break. Every time you ask, that’s what I’m going to say. So you really don’t need to ask again.”
“You’d be bawling your eyes out if that were really the case,” she accused.
“It is the case, and I’m not the one who was sulking on this couch when I got here.”
“Iwasn’tsulking.”
“We could ask Anna what she thinks once she rejoins us.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’d rather fuck you.”
Avril’s face twisted into a mask of myriad emotions. Annoyance, indignation, disbelief, and even, quick as she was to hide it from him, a tinge of awe. It wasn’t one moment of shock, a measly handful of seconds where he’d reversed things on her. It wasn’t just a single sucker punch in an otherwise lopsided bout but a whole round in which he’d kept her on the back foot.
And there wouldn’t be another round, at least not for several hours. Annabelle unwittingly served as the homophone of the latter half of her name when she finally appeared with his hot chocolate more than five minutes after disappearing into her kitchen. She called out before appearing at the threshold between the kitchen and living room, a single cup of piping hot liquid in hand. Moments before she reappeared, Avril clicked her teeth together and glared at him.
This isn’t over,the fiery embers in her eyes proclaimed, but he disagreed.
As far as he was concerned, the fight was over, and the scorecard declared his victory via total knockout.
Chapter Ten
Lingering Strife
After silently claiming his championship belt, he smiled gratefully as Anna brought his drink toward him. Her timing had been superb; he couldn’t have asked for better. Perhaps this was another of Anna’s many talents. If not, even if it was just a fluke, he was nearly beaming at her as she reached him.
“Thanks, Anna,” he said, gingerly accepting the piping hot cup by the handle. Blowing on the waves of scalding heat roiling off its dark surface, his gaze flitted toward Avril.
She was back to her sullen ways, though he knew he’d transformed the reason why with his earlier actions. He hid a smile behind a quick sip of the hot chocolate, which scolded his tongue for thinking he’d cooled it off enough to take a drink.
Ow.
“It’s still very hot,” Anna said, noticing his pained expression.
“Yeah, it definitely is,” he agreed, resuming blowing on its surface. “But it’s good. And I’ll try and get it down quickly so we can head out on our date.”
A hint of rosiness flared across Anna’s delicately beautiful features, but Avril, while snatching the remote and muting the TV, stole his attention by rolling her eyes.
Don’t be jealous,he said with a look.
“Are you ready to share where we’re going?” Anna politely asked.
“Sure. I figured we could eat at Zeke’s Scratch Kitchen. Have you ever been?”
“No,” Anna said. “I’ve not heard of it.”
Half-expecting a comment from Avril, her unusual silence yanked his attention back to her as surely as if she’d sounded an air horn.
“How about you, Avril? Ever been?”
“Once or twice,” she grunted. “It’s fine.”