Twisted Up (Taking Chances #1) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,30

also smart and no nonsense and take charge and kind of funny.”

“What she is not, however, is crazy about you,” Max added. “Which is why you’re interested.”

“You make me seem like an ass,” Jake muttered.

“You’re sure it’s not you who’s making you seem like an ass?” Dillon asked. “You’re the one who’s been kissing and teasing her for a year now.”

“You’ve been thinking about that letter for ten,” Max added.

That fucking letter. Yes, it had bugged him. A lot. But he wasn’t such an egomaniac that every woman he ever slept with had to end up in love with him.

Probably.

But yeah, the letter haunted him. Not because Avery wasn’t in love with him after their night together, but because of the fact that she’d believed she wanted a family—his family—so badly that she would give herself to him because of his last name.

Jake hated the idea that Avery would give herself to anyone for anything less than real feelings and true trust.

“I think my favorite part of the letter was when she said she knowingly used alcohol and your hormones against you,” Max said with a wink.

Yeah, Jake knew that sounded ridiculous. When he’d first read it, however, he remembered his heart clenching. He’d known she was making excuses, trying to cover the fact that she’d believed there was something between them when he obviously hadn’t.

Then again, maybe she really did believe that. She had no other experiences to compare it to. Avery had never had a boyfriend, never been in love, never even been kissed. Maybe she really didn’t know that he’d had every one of his faculties fully functioning, and as soon as he’d realized where the night was heading, he’d stopped drinking. He hadn’t wanted to miss, or forget, a thing about it. There hadn’t been one thing about their night together that he hadn’t been fully aware of and participating in 100 percent.

“Oh, my favorite part,” Dillon said, “was when she apologized for taking her shirt off.” He tipped his water bottle toward Jake in a sort-of salute. “I know you were pretty pissed about that.”

Jake shook his head. These men were his best friends?

Surely he could do better.

“Time to shut up about the letter,” Jake said.

“Fine,” Max said agreeably. “How about we talk about you not kissing her anymore instead?”

Jake shifted in his chair. He wasn’t going to stop kissing her. He couldn’t. But he did recognize that he was teasing her. He lived in Kansas City. He was committed to big things in places far from Chance. Avery was committed to Chance. She wasn’t leaving. So messing around with her every time he came home was kind of an asshole thing to do.

But he couldn’t leave her alone.

“She’s never once told me to stop or pushed me away,” he informed his friends. That was something he thought about a lot. “Not once.”

Max regarded him intently. Jake shifted again.

“Seriously man, you’re over the whole thing now, right? You got her panties off one more time. Nothing to do with her being drunk or naive or in love with your family. Now you’re good, right?”

No, he wasn’t good. He wasn’t good at all. Because he wanted her. Still. Again. More.

“Hey, speaking of Avery and my family,” he said, sitting up straighter, “how come she got all fidgety around my dad today?”

Max frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He said hi to her, but he called her Chief Sparks, not Avery. She called him Chief Mitchell.”

“So?”

“Then she got all . . . stiff.”

“So?” Max asked again.

“There hasn’t been any falling out? Any big issues between departments or anything?” Jake was feeling even more restless about the whole thing, now that he was thinking about it again.

“No. Not that my dad’s mentioned, anyway,” Max said. “They seemed civil today.”

Civil. That was a strange word to have applied to Avery’s interactions with one of his parents. There had been a time when Avery had been at his house more than he had, and he’d been convinced that Avery was his mother’s favorite child, regardless of blood or biology. She’d spent every day after school with his mother—baking, doing crafts, and having tea parties.

Avery had lived with her grandmother since she’d been very young. Her grandma had earned income from cleaning houses around town, and she’d cleaned the Mitchells’ house as long as Jake could remember. Ruth Sparks had been a gruff woman, certainly not polished and sophisticated like Jake’s paternal grandmother and not warm and bubbly like his mother’s mom. She’d

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