Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
winnie
“I can’t do it, Winnie,” Tyler announces as he strides into her bedroom and slams the door behind him.
Music from the party downstairs thuds against the wood like an unwanted guest, and he leans against it as if to hold the intruder back.
“I can’t spend another moment with these people.
I love your brother, but his school friends are just the worst.”
Her parents are gone for the weekend and her idiot brother decided to throw the first rager of his senior year, lucky her. As fun as spending the night fending off attacks from Grace and her cronies sounds, Winnie decided to curl up in her bay window with a rock-star romance instead.
I should have put on some makeup. I should have put on some actual clothes.
I should have worn a freaking bra! What kind of idiot knows half her school is downstairs and doesn’t even put on a bra?
She glances quickly at the bubblegum-pink pajama set that probably makes her look twelve years old. Crap!
Heart thundering, she shoves her book between two pillows and tries her best to appear nonchalant. “What happened this time?”
“The same shit as always.” He rolls his eyes as a look of disgust passes over his handsome features.
“The first thing I heard when I walked through the door was some girl complaining about going to Turks and Caicos for the third Christmas in a row. I mean, are you kidding me? Then this other chick was whining about the company jet being booked over Thanksgiving so her parents were making them fly commercial. Making them! MAKING THEM! And then, I swear to you, I heard some asshole say something about stock options, and I just had to get out of there.”
She bites her lip to hide her smile. “Where’s Alex?”
“Last I saw, he was being suspended upside down over a keg by some of the guys on the team. I left before they tried to rope me into it. Plus I saw Cindy walk in a few minutes after me, so…”
“He’ll be occupied for the rest of the night?”
“Something like that.” Tyler snorts and runs a hand through his golden hair.
Winnie fights a sigh as a few wavy strands fall sexily over his brow.
He probably doesn’t even use conditioner.
So how the heck does it always look so perfect?
“Anyway, I would go home, but Mark is there, and well…” He pauses to clench his jaw, then locks eyes with her.
The full force of those baby blues hits her like an enchantment, sending tingles down the back of her neck, trapping her whole being under his spell. “Is it okay if I hide out here?”
He could’ve asked her to bury a body, and she would’ve said yes without hesitation.
But the idea of him hanging out in her bedroom unchaperoned prompts a swarm of butterflies so intense she’s momentarily struck dumb.
Every inch of her body feels on fire. It’s everything she’s ever fantasized about, yet utterly terrifying at the same time.
What if he catches her staring? What if he finds one of the many what she now realizes are incredibly reckless portraits she can’t stop herself from drawing of him?
What if Alex walks in and gets the wrong idea?
What if it’s not the wrong idea at all? What if she can’t stop herself from running her fingers down his washboard abs the way she’s imagined doing a thousand times, and instead of turning away he leans in? What if they kiss? What if—
Okay, stop, she quietly orders. You’re acting insane. He’s a friend. He wants to hang out as a friend. You can do this. You have to do this.
It’s not about the party. It’s about that last little bit he let slip—Mark is there.
Tyler doesn’t talk much about his home life, but he’s said enough for her to know it’s not good, and everything else, she’s learned from eavesdropping on her parents.
His mother is a drug addict and serial dater of the worst types of men.
Enablers. Abusers. Just plain assholes. He doesn’t have a lot of stability, and they barely have any money.
The only reason he can afford to play hockey is because of the scholarship program her father started.
If he doesn’t want to go home, there’s likely a very good reason.
She can handle this.
Or she’ll end up like Icarus—dead and drowned after flying too close to the sun.
Only one way to find out…
“Sure. Why not?”
“Excellent.” He shoves his hands in his jeans and kicks off the door with a sudden smile that squeezes her heart. They’re so rare and bedazzling. “So, what are you doing?”
Definitely not reading a book with a sex scene so explicit my mother would disown me. Winnie swallows and subtly nudges her paperback farther under the pillow. “Just, um…” She scans the window seat for another excuse. Luckily, her sketchbook is never far out of reach. “Drawing.”
“Cool.” He steps farther into the room. “Can I see?”
“Umm…” There are definitely drawings of Tyler in here, and there’s a non-zero chance he’ll accidentally catch sight of one. But it’ll be suspicious if she says no. “Of course.”
Winnie quickly flips through the book and finds a safe page while he approaches.
Tyler collapses onto the window seat beside her, shoulder just barely grazing hers.
Even through a layer of cotton, that little spot burns so intensely she can’t think straight.
Her fingers tremble as she folds the cover all the way around and holds out her latest sketch.
It’s a floral design she’s planning to turn into a beaded zgardan bracelet—red flowers and white flowers with green leaves set against a black backdrop.
“Hey, this is great,” Tyler says as he grabs the book for a closer look. Her heart leaps into her throat as their fingertips brush. She leans closer, as if pulled by a magnet, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “It looks like one of those bracelets you’re always wearing.”
“It is,” she murmurs, mesmerized by the way the cut edge of his cheekbone contrasts against the softness of his pouty lips.
As if stirred by her attention, he suddenly wets them with his tongue, and a flush warms its way up her cheeks.
She quickly looks at her drawing. “I want to make one for my cousin Daciana since she always sends me one for my birthday. We’re going over there for two weeks this summer, so I’m hoping I can have it ready in time.
” Winnie laughs softly, remembering what happened when she asked her mother for help.
The woman nearly face-planted running to grab her sewing kit.
She lives to share the old traditions. “My mom is losing her mind. I haven’t seen her this excited to show me something since the Great Sarmale Disaster of 2015. ”
Tyler huffs under his breath. “I remember that.”
“Yes, well. You at least were a gentleman, eating my cabbage roll mush without complaint. Alex, on the other hand…”
“Launched one at you from across the dinner table?”
Winnie snorts and elbows him in the side. It’s like hitting a brick wall.
“Hey! I didn’t throw it.”
She tries not to swoon when he laughs quietly under his breath. Tyler’s laughs are so rare. They deserve to be treasured. And she remembers the one from the night in question with vivid detail, because it was the loudest, purest laugh she could ever remember him making.
“No, but I seem to remember you laughing like a freaking hyena when it hit me in the face.”
“It exploded against your forehead!”
Winnie sighs dramatically. It took two rounds of shampoo to get the tomato sauce, pork, and rice out of her hair. Her pale skin was stained just a little bit orange for an entire day.
“And I defended your honor,” he adds with a pointed glance that steals her breath.
Because he did pick her side. Whether it was for her benefit or just for fun, she’ll never know, but while she was still in shock, the sauce dripping over her eyes, he launched one across the table at her brother.
It hit Alex right in the nose with a loud whack.
After that, it was all-out war while her mother shrieked at them to stop.
If her father had been home, things might have gone differently, but Yetta Rusu didn’t have the same scare factor.
Oh, her dad scolded them later when he found out what happened, but by then the damage was done.
Her knees still hurt from scrubbing tomato juice from the carpet whenever she thinks about it.
“Could you make me one?” Tyler asks suddenly, his gaze on the sketch.
“A bracelet?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I think it’s cool how you’re always wearing them.”
“You don’t think the guys will make fun of you?”
“Fuck ’em.”
“Ty!” She gapes at him, scandalized but also unable to fight the giggle bubbling at the back of her throat.
“What? Who cares what they think?” He turns to her, mischief twinkling in those eyes. “Unless, of course, you’re the one who thinks I’m not man enough to pull it off.”
She swallows. He’s hot enough to pull off a miniskirt if he wants to, but there’s no way he’ll get that information out of her. “Hey, if you want to rock some Romanian jewelry, who am I to say no?”
“I’d be honored to wear a Winnie Rusu original.”
“I probably won’t do the flowers, though,” she murmurs as he hands back the sketchbook.
She flips to a blank page, the inspiration hitting like a wave she can’t control.
He watches quietly while she works, nothing but the scratch of pencil on paper to fill the silence.
The weight of his gaze on her cheek is heavy, but art is probably the one thing she finds more all-consuming than Tyler Briggs.
“It’ll be something more like this,” she says a few minutes later, showing him a rough sketch. Instead of the traditional flower motifs, she used the more geometric zigzags and crosses commonly found in Romanian embroidery. It’s a little more masculine.