Blind Spot - Katana Collins Page 0,54
to step away. Instead, I swept my thumb across her cheekbone, wiping off some flour there and holding my white-stained finger in front of her eyes. “I see the baking is going really well.”
She laughed at that, her head dropping into her hands. “Oh my God, look at me. I’m a freaking mess.”
“Maybe they’ll be delicious.”
“Maybe they’ll taste like charcoal.”
I swallowed, my throat feeling like something had lodged there. “Maybe I won’t care.”
“Maybe you have a death wish.”
“More like a Shelby wish.” Her playful smile slid away as I glimpsed the seriousness in the depths of her eyes. In a tortuously slow motion, her gaze dropped to my lips as she sucked in a sharp breath.
What had been a bearable warmth heating my pelvis flared into scorching heat. Her hand drifted down my chest, brushing over my pecs until she reached my abs, where she stopped. I grabbed her wrist, gently, so freaking gently so as not to scare her, and flipping it over, I drew it up to my lips, brushing a soft kiss against her pulse.
The knot in my throat unraveled, expanding. “We only have an hour until we need to leave for the tutoring center,” I said, pulling my travel Scrabble set out of my backpack. I’d forgotten I had it until Shelby had mentioned the game when she called me a ninety-year-old the other night. It was something my grandmother bought for me years ago, and it had basically been collecting dust in my closet.
She stepped aside as I moved to her futon, dropping the game onto her coffee table.
“Harrison used to play Scrabble with me to help with my dyslexia. Of course, nothing really helped with it.”
Dyslexia? I didn’t know she was dyslexic. That would explain why she had so much trouble with test taking. If Harrison had helped her with that, then they must go way back. I mean, I knew that…sort of. But it didn’t really register until she mentioned that. Little by little, I was stripping away at her barriers and learning more and more about her life. “You’re dyslexic,” I repeated. “Is that why French is so hard?”
She shrugged, brushing it off. “Maybe. Tests have always been really stressful. But my dyslexia is very minor compared to a lot of people’s.”
“You’re like an onion, Shelby Stevens. The more layers that peel back, the more I learn.”
Okay, if I thought she went rigid before, she was a damn plank of wood right now. She went ramrod straight like someone strapped her to a pole. “My stepdad used to say that. Except he said that like an onion, the more you peel the layers, the less complex you become and the more you stink.”
She grew up hearing that shit? “Sorry, but your stepdad sounds like an ass.”
She wasn’t facing me, but the muscles at her back and shoulders relaxed again. “You want coffee?” She bent down to open the oven.
“Coffee and croissants sound incredible.”
She opened the oven door and another waft of smoke escaped, drifting to the ceiling and sending the smoke alarm off. Jumping to my feet, I grabbed her French book off the table and started fanning the smoke away from the shrieking disk on the ceiling.
She dropped the blackened croissants to the counter, swiping her hand across her forehead. “Maybe just the coffee, then?”
Chapter Nineteen
SHELBY
Saturday finally rolled around, and I swear this week moved slower than any other week.
Wear this. Be ready by 6:30. That’s all Tate’s note had said. No other hints, no matter how hard I tried to pry information out of him. And now it was 6:29 and I was sitting on the couch in a ridiculous red and black ruffled skirt (which, thankfully, I could wear with yoga pants), a tank top that was painted to look like a lace up corset, and my black ballet flats.
There was a knock at the door, and I jumped to open it. “You better have a damn good explanation for this.” The first thing I saw was the box in his hand. The second thing I saw was—well, was Tate. He wore some sort of weird, old-fashioned pants with suspenders, a white T-shirt, and a newsboy cap. “What the—? What is going on?” At least I felt like less of an idiot now. Now we both looked dumb.
“You look amazing.” He grinned. “Reagan helped me put the costume together. And you should thank me. She wanted you in a real corset. Something told me you’d be more comfortable in