I gave her another appraising look.
“Yes, I do.” She met my gaze, and her golden eyes shone. “Probably better than you.”
My lips curved. “Doubtful.” My cock was rock hard. I enjoyed her shooting sparks like this at me.
“Wanna bet on that, Mr. Moves?”
Oh, hell yeah, I did. “Loser owes the other a favor.”
And I’d collect. No doubt about it.
“Okay.” She nodded once. “But how do we decide the winner?”
“Hey, everyone.” Projecting my voice, I took a step back from our small group and threw my arms wide. “Band’s gonna play. Lacey and I are gonna sing, and you get to decide who sings better.”
Amid approving comments—most of the partygoers had heard me sing before—I turned on my heel and headed to the garage.
“’Bout fuckin’ time,” Dizzy muttered, moving quickly to catch up to me.
“Damn straight.” I gave him an affirming nod and glanced back at his sister. She wasn’t far behind. “Hurry up, Lacey.”
“My name’s not Lacey.”
When she lifted her chin, defying me again, I grinned. I might already be halfway in love with her.
Lace
For a guy who’d just met me, War had an uncanny ability to push my buttons. Bad or good, it was like he didn’t care which—he just wanted to get a reaction out of me.
I glared at him. He was too busy talking to Bryan and my brother to notice. They congregated together like guys tended to do, leaving me the lone woman in the group on the periphery.
I went to the back of the garage where my keyboard was set up. With the appearance of War, the night had taken a turn I hadn’t expected. I told myself I was relieved to be alone so I could mull it over.
I was majorly attracted to two guys—one in a hunter-green button-down and indigo jeans, the other in a white T-shirt and faded denim, a silver wallet chain swinging low over his thigh. They both looked like rockers. Both were easy on the eyes. If War was the same age as Bryan, both were two years older than me, and I was almost sixteen.
Bryan, the thoughtful boy I’d once known, was barely recognizable beneath all the muscle. His body wasn’t all that had changed. His jaw was sharp like a blade, his eyes sharper as he caught me staring and glanced away, cutting me to the quick. It didn’t seem as though much of the sweet sensitive boy I knew remained.
What did you expect, Lace? We were friends a long time ago. We’re not children anymore.
My childhood and our friendship ended abruptly when I was eleven, the night of the Metallica concert. I knew that. Deep down, I knew. I just wanted to rewrite a different ending.
But too many years had passed since then. In Southside, weeks could change a person. Bryan had been thirteen and I’d been eleven the last time I saw him. We had years of unshared experiences between us. Not surprising that the passage of time had chiseled hardness, not softness, into both of us.
I turned my attention to War. He was as hard as the assorted silver rings he wore on every finger on both hands. Coming on like a freight train, he’d made his interest in me clear, and then some. With the cotton of his tee stretched taut over his chest, he was muscular like Bryan, but where his friend was thickly muscled, War was lean and corded. He was undeniably handsome but with a dangerous edge. Not exactly a deterrent in my mind, or in the estimation of a lot of other girls, apparently.
War caught me looking at him, but unlike Bryan, he didn’t glance away. Giving me a scan, he smirked, his eyes sparkling approvingly and temptingly with the offer to share his knowledge of intimate things I didn’t know. Things maybe I wasn’t quite ready to know.
My heart hammering, I lowered my gaze, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans and pretending to look for something. When I glanced up again, I found War standing right in front of me.
“Hey,” he said, a light teasing note in his compelling voice. “Did you lose something?”
Yeah, my sanity, apparently, for even thinking about an experienced guy who only screws seniors.
But I didn’t speak my thoughts. I just shook my head in denial.
“Come to the front of the garage to sing with me.”
Oh no, no, no. I didn’t think that was a good idea. Not when I was more than a little attracted to him, and he was undoubtably more