bite my tongue against saying something inappropriate but then decide fuck it. Brogan cheated on her and they broke up. I don’t need to censor myself out of respect for him anymore. “I’m pretty fond of the size of your ass, Mia.”
Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops a fraction, and she stares at me as if she truly can’t believe what I just said. When I just wink at her, she smacks me in the arm with the back of her hand.
“What?” I ask.
“You can’t say that stuff to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . Arrow, we’re friends. That’s important to me above all the other petty shit. You don’t say stuff like that to your friends.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Hmm. I don’t know. I think you’re thinking of mean things. You don’t say mean things to your friends. What I said definitely doesn’t qualify. If you’d like, I can elaborate, and you’d know just how kind my feelings about your ass really are.”
“Ice cream.” She points at the road and bites back a grin, but her eyes are already smiling. “Stay focused.”
I’m so proud of myself for making her smile, it’s all I can do not to give a little victory fist pump. “Yes, ma’am.”
We go to the Dairy Maid drive-through, and Mia orders a four-scoop chocolate and peanut butter sundae with the works. I order a turtle sundae of similar size so she won’t feel self-conscious, but I know I won’t be able to eat it, not when my stomach is in knots over having her by my side. Single. No longer Brogan’s.
And fuck it. It’s not like I don’t know there are rules. You don’t go out with your best friend’s ex. Maybe it would be acceptable after a respectable period of time passes, like, say, three or four years, but most definitely not the night she dumped him.
I’m not going to do anything. Nothing but make her smile. Make her laugh.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask as I pull out of the Dairy Maid lot. “We could watch B-grade horror flicks at the dorm or maybe play laser tag?”
At a stop sign, light from the streetlamp illuminates her face. Her cheeks are still pink from the tequila. She arches a brow. “Laser tag?”
“After we finish our ice cream. Sure. You could pretend the opponents are all Brogan and Trish and shoot them repeatedly.”
She laughs. Really laughs. A bright, beautiful sound that seems to fill the car. “No, thanks. Not sure I’ll be able to button my jeans after I’m done eating this, let alone run around in them.”
“Fair enough,” I say, but I have to grip the steering wheel a little tighter and try very hard not to think about activities that involve Mia unbuttoning her jeans. Because damn. “So, how about the movies?”
She pokes at her ice cream with her spoon. “Could we just . . . go somewhere private and talk? Not my apartment. Brogan’s probably looking for me, and I’m not ready to face him.”
“The dorms?” It’s more a horrified question than a suggestion. I don’t know how much more Mia-on-my-bed I can handle without acting on seriously poor judgment.
“I don’t think so,” she says. “There are always people coming in and out of your quad, and I don’t feel like pretending to be okay tonight.”
Private. Private sounds dangerous. “Whatever you need.” I go to the light and pull a U-turn, heading back out of Blackhawk Valley and toward my father’s house, all the while trying to decide if this is the worst idea I’ve ever had. I’ve always done my best to be worthy of Brogan’s friendship, and I know there’s no way I can tell Mia how I feel tonight without being a complete scumbag, which is why I was trying to suggest very public activities. But I can’t turn her down.
On the way to my dad’s property, she pokes at her ice cream, only taking a bite or two and abandoning it altogether when I pull up to the gates and drive into the estate.
Straightening, she sits the ice cream in the cup holder beside her. “We’re going to your dad’s house?”
“Not exactly.” I’m trying to be mysterious, but she’s too distracted, her eyes scanning the horizon as we follow the rolling hills to the back of the property.
“That’s where you grew up?” she asks, as I drive on past the house.
I shrug. “It’s just a house, Mia. A big one, sure, but we had our problems like