The golden rule of living with your best friend is simple: never, under any circumstances, let her brooding, soon-to-be-divorced older brother catch you bent over in a pair of tiny yoga shorts.
There was a time when I thought my biggest problem was a neuroscience mid-term. That was before Ryan Hale moved in. He’s a fiercely overprotective, perpetually pissed-off LAPD officer who treats me like a nuisance. We avoid each other like the plague, communicating only through a vicious prank war that involves salt in my coffee and fart spray in his body wash.
But the hostility is just a cover.
I know it, and he knows it. It becomes undeniable the afternoon he walks through the front door unannounced. I’m in the middle of the living room, my body sprawled on a pink yoga mat in the downward dog position, my hips arched in the air. I have on nothing but extremely short black yoga shorts and a top that leaves my cleavage spilling out.
I hear the groceries slip from his hands, crashing to the laminate floor. When I look back, he’s frozen. His jaw is slacked, his icy blue eyes crash-landed directly on my ass. The air between us suddenly feels thick, suffocating, and charged with something dangerous.
"Are you going to come in, or just stand there?" I ask, my voice betraying my sudden breathlessness.
He doesn't answer. He just stares, his cheeks flushing a deep red before he scrambles to clean up the mess. But the damage is done. The image is burned into his brain.
Days later, he comes home from a brutal shift, his lip busted and his eye bruised purple from fighting a suspect. I sit beside him on the couch, gently pressing frozen peas to his eye. My fingers trail along his scruffy jaw, and I feel him shiver. The tension finally snaps. We lean in, our eyes locked, my fingers tangling in his hair. I can feel his breath on my lips, ready to devour me... until the front door swings open.
"Oh, shit! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt," my friend stammers. Ryan bolts up, his eyes wild. But we both know the truth. This isn't over. It's just the beginning.