Things happen. It’s what I’d been telling myself since that night at Summerland’s. It’s not like I hadn’t been neck deep in guilt for a while. I had. What was one more dose? But damn if this made zero sense to me.

You want her.

“No, I don’t.”

That’s what I kept telling myself, telling the voice since that Sunday at the lake house. Aly was very sweet. She had a pretty face, luscious lips and eyes that were haunted, but beautiful. I liked her. But no, I didn’t want her. That’s why what happened today made so little sense to me.

I blame my father.

Team meetings generally didn’t last long and this one hadn’t, so maybe if there hadn’t been a locker room full of my teammates all in one place then Aly showing up with Koa on her hip might not have been such a big deal. But she did show up, looking like she normally did, but this time she wasn’t wearing a baggy, sleeveless tank or frayed dance pants. She still wore her hair in that severe bun at the back of her head, but she sported just a touch of make-up and a pair of modest length shorts with a thin, green lace shirt that accented the swell of her chest and her small waist.

Amazingly, the guys on the team hadn’t noticed her knocking on my father’s office door. Not until Dad answered it and did that dumbass baby talk to Koa. It was that stupid accent coming from my mammoth father that had my teammates turning around to look at them. That’s when they spotted Aly.

“Who the hell is that?” Trent said, stepping onto a bench to see over the heads of players around us in various stages of dress. We were prepping for practice, taking our time getting dressed because the team meeting had gone short.

“Don’t know, but I call dibs.” Mike Richard’s slow Mississippi drawl was funny, but then what he said registered and I immediately thought he was a stupid redneck.

“The hell you do,” Trent told Richard. “Can’t call dibs on a girl until you find out if she’s taken.”

“She’s not taken.” Why the hell had I offered up that information? Those pricks didn’t need to be calling dibs, especially not on Aly. Wait. Not especially. Just on Aly. Dammit.

“You know her?” Trent nudged my arm and I shrugged, not bothering to clarify shit for that idiot. She wasn’t his type. She actually used her brain. Besides, there was no way Aly would be down for a guy like Trent.

We’d spent the better part of two weeks working on her audition and practicing Kizomba at the studio. She had become a friend, I guessed, or at least the closest to that as I’d had in a long time. She’d talked to me about her nerves over the audition and her worry that the pregnancy was taking more out of my mother than she wanted to admit.

She was a chill girl, funny and didn’t take attitude from Koa or anyone else. I liked her and I knew damn well Trent wouldn’t have a shot.

“Yeah,” I finally told him when he nudged me again. “I know her.”

And when he stepped down off the bench and walked straight toward the office, I made damn sure Trent knew that shot he wanted would be pointless.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked him, pushing against his chest before he made it to the office door.

“I needed to ask Coach Hale about…”

“No. You don’t.” He tried moving around me but I met his step, blocking him with my arms over my chest. “You think my dad is gonna appreciate you interrupting him when my kid brother is in his office?”

“That’s not…”

“Especially when he doesn’t get a hell of a lot of time with him as it is?” My lips went down in some bullshit exaggeration of a frown and I tsked, the sound low like Trent was a kid who wanted to leap frog to the moon. “Not gonna happen, brah.”

When I didn’t move and ignored the way Trent kept looking at the window in the office door, I tilted my head in front of his face. He opened his mouth, like he might offer one more bullshit excuse but my slow head shake shut him up.

That felt good, shooing off Marshall because the guy was an entitled dick. And I enjoyed the few seconds I took watching that jackwagon return to his locker to finish dressing for practice.

Two small knocks on the office door and I slipped inside, stopping right over the threshold to see my father grumbling something about Instant Messaging to his computer and Koa standing on the desk with his chubby legs, running his small fingers through Aly’s hair as she held his waist. The difference between all that long, thick hair waving down her back and the tight bun she usually sported was remarkable.

“Brah!” Koa called when he spotted me.

“Hey brah,” I said, catching him when he leaped into my arms from my dad’s desk. “What are you doing here?”

“He wanted to show your dad his new do,” Aly offered, ruffling my brother’s shorter hair.

“Mother fu…” Dad’s curse cut off with one glare from Aly. He rubbed his eyes before he exhaled and pushed away from the desk. “Sorry.” Then he took Koa from me. “Sorry, keiki kane, but makua kane has to go see his boss.” I caught his frown and the tight clench in his jaw, but dad shook his head, telling me silently it was nothing to worry about. “Give makua kane a kiss, buddy and I’ll see you tonight.”

“It’s okay, Kona. Koa kept asking for you when we left the barber. I knew you’d probably be too busy for a long visit.”

“Never too busy for my boys, Aly Cat, but I do have to run.” Dad kissed Koa on the forehead and handed him back to me, lowering his voice so Aly couldn’t hear him. “Walk them out alright? I don’t like her being the center of attention in the locker room.”

“No problem,” I agreed, nodding at my father when he walked out of the office. It wasn’t until I caught the feeling of being stared at that I turned back to Aly, looking down when I noticed her gaze moving over my chest. Right there on my bare chest was the tattoo of Emily’s beautiful face, mesmerizing eyes and wings shooting out of her back. My angel, always, but seeing Aly’s long stare, the small hint of her pink tongue, left me feeling a little exposed. “Uh, I’ll go put on a shirt and then walk you out. Stay put,” I told her, putting Koa back in her arms.

“You don’t have to.” But I grabbed my t-shirt from my locker and stuffed it over my head before Aly could tell me to stop.

“Ransom, that your woman?” I heard, not bothering to look back to see who’d asked that question as I ushered Aly down the hallway and away from those loud jackasses cat calling after her.

“Sorry,” I told her when we made it outside of the gym locker room and walked toward my mom’s Armada parked in the Visitor’s section. “You’d swear they’ve never seen a pretty woman before.”

Aly snapped her gaze toward me, then looked away, readjusting Koa to her other hip. I noticed she deflected when anyone complimented her, and I made a mental note to compliment her more often. The next second, I wondered where the hell that feeling came from.

“Here, let me take him,” I told her, in need of a distraction from my thoughts and I laughed when my brother squealed at the small flip I gave his body as I placed him on my shoulders.

Aly’s half grin was small, not a smile at all, but there was a light in her eyes when she watched Koa that I appreciated. Mom had told me my little brother had really taken to Aly. Partners in crime, she called them.

“Your dad looked annoyed,” she said, stopping to unlock the Armada for me to put Koa in his car seat. “I hope everything’s okay.”

“Just team crap that will likely blow over after practice.” Koa wrapped his arms around my neck when I buckled him in and I ran my fingers through his hair. “I like it, brah. It’s all short like makua kane’s now.” With that closely trim cut he looked more like a mini-Kona than I ever had. “Think I should cut mine like that?” I asked him getting only a head bob in response. “I’ll see you this weekend, okay?”

Another nod and Koa offered me his small hand to fist bump before I shut the door.

Aly played with her phone and opened the driver’s side door, her lips tensed into a hard line.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, standing next to her.

“This is so big.” She nodded toward the Armada. “I’m petrified to drive it. It’s a tank. I feel like I have to climb up a wall just to get in.”

“Yeah,” I said through a laugh. She looked a little suspicious when I offered her my hand, but took it anyway, I guessed because her need for a push up into the SUV was a little greater than her suspicion. “Why do you think my dad bought it? He’s ridiculously paranoid about Mom driving anywhere without him.” I shut the door and leaned my elbows against the open window. “I think he likes to play caveman or something with her knowing damn well that she can handle much rougher shit than New Orleans traffic.”

Aly’s laugh was quick, but pleased. “Well, I can’t imagine what’s rougher than that.”

“You’ve never been to Nashville, have you?”

Lips pressed together, Aly still wouldn’t give me a smile, but she did smirk a little. “No. Never been outside of Louisiana.”

“Really?” I asked, ignoring that niggling voice in my head that reminded me I was going to be late for practice. “Man, I can show you pictures of some of the crazy places my mom’s dragged me to.”

“You ever been to France?” Her eyes got a little wider then and she adjusted in her seat to lean closer to me.

“Twice.”

“Shut up. You have not.”

When I nodded, Aly’s mouth dropped opened and I was surprised how much I liked her when she wasn’t introverted and closed off. “Germany too, and we went three times to the UK. London is very cool, real old, ya know, but nothing beats Scotland. Supposed to be the most haunted place in the world.”

“Did you see a ghost?”

“Nah. I don’t wanna be around that shit.”

“Shit!” Koa shouted from the backseat.

“No, sir, little man,” Aly said, glaring at him in the rearview.

Koa kicked the back of the seat, refusing to look away from Aly’s frown, but when she cleared her throat, the annoying thumping stopped

That was amazing. My little brother was a hellion most of the time and in under a month Aly had him behaving. Somewhat. I shook my head, smiling at her. “How the he…um…how do you do that?”

She adjusted the rearview mirror and shook her head. “Koa gets away with things from you guys because he’s so cute.” She looked back at me. “Cute doesn’t really go very far with me.”

“No? What about impossibly good looking?”

I wasn’t sure what to make of the look she gave me and I had no idea why I wanted to know her answer so badly. But for some reason I didn’t understand, I leaned closer, like I wanted to touch her, see if I could get that elusive smile. Aly stared back. There was a little buzz moving around us, some weird sting of electricity that I felt when she pressed her tempting lips together.

“Shit!” Koa said again, and I pushed back from the door.

“Koa! Non!” Aly fussed and I hid my laugh, giving my little brother a wink.

“We should go,” she said, disappointing me more than I thought was possible. I had no idea why I wanted her to stick around, but I didn’t think it was because I missed seeing my baby brother. That idea scared me, just a little.

“You gonna be at the lake house this weekend?” I asked.

“Yeah. Leann and Keira sweet talked me into helping out with the fund raiser.”

“How’d they manage that?”

Aly shrugged, starting the car and that slight grin almost became a smile. “Blue Bell Caramel Kettle Crunch ice cream.”

It was like someone else was driving my body, putting thoughts into my head, cravings that shouldn’t be there, but I leaned back again, just hoping to catch another whiff of the exotic, fruity smell of her perfume. “I’ll have to remember that.”

Aly tilted her head, gave me that cynical, small frown again. “You got plans to bribe me, mister?”

“I might.” I had zero plans and about a million immoral ideas. None I’d ever admit to her. “You never know.”

Aly shook her head, still withholding that smile I suspected she only offered to people who deserved them, but as she drove away and I watched her go, I couldn’t help wondering how the hell I could swing being one of those deserving lucky bastards and why the hell I wanted to be that bastard at all.

This close. That’s how damn close I came to knocking Mike Richard out that weekend at my parents’ lake house. I didn’t know why him looking at Aly, mumbling to Ronnie Blanchard about the way she looked in that thin, wispy little sundress, set me off the way it had.

“Shit, did you see her ass?” They’d been standing back away from the small crowd congregated around my father and our head coach at the fundraiser the coach insisted my father host. The boosters hob-knobbed and clinked glasses and we all stood around like debs on display, uncomfortable in our suits, getting the once over from rich, board, plastic-looking trophy wives and businessmen who had peaked when they’d played the game in high school. Richard talked behind his glass of beer, hiding that stupid smirk of his when Aly set out another tray of stuffed mushrooms, bending a little too far over the table to snatch up an empty tray.

“Just a little bit further, baby,” he whispered to Blanchard and they both laughed. I was going to join them, wondered what had them giggling like two twelve-year-olds at their first slumber party, but when I followed their low-lidded gazes and spotted Aly’s round, perfect ass right in front of those two knuckle heads, I curled my fists hard, stepping in front of them to block their view.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

They kept smiling, grinning like jackasses and Richard shrugged. “Come on, man, look at her. She’s hot.”

“And?” I said, moving right in his face, glancing once at Blanchard so he’d back off when he patted my shoulder. “That gives you a right to stare at her ass?”

“Ransom, man, seriously?”

“Seriously, asshole. You don’t get to stare at her like that.” My knuckles ached, had turned fainter than my complexion as I held my hand tight. It was Richard’s expression though, a little humbled, more than shocked by my reaction I guessed, that had me stepping away from them.

“Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were hooked up with her.”

“Hooked up?” What is wrong with you? That nipping at the back of my mind shook me, and I glanced over my shoulder, watched as Aly nodded to Kona when he spoke to her before I looked back at my two teammates. They weren’t looking at her. Instead they both frowned at me like my reaction was way out of character. It was and I scratched my chin, forcing my eyes to move away from Aly and her retreat into the kitchen. “I, I’m not with her,” I told them, rolling my eyes when I caught the doubt on their matching expressions. “I’m not.”

“Well, shit, Ransom you’ve got that whole jealous boyfriend shit down.”

“You…you know what? Fuck you both,” I told those two smug-smiling dumb asses, walking away from them to chug the warm beer in my hand.

The night progressed much the same way with me acting like a dick anytime I caught Richard and Blanchard with their heads together, nodding toward Aly as she moved around the lake house. I knew what kept their attention. She looked beautiful with her hair down her back, just brushing her waist and her strong, toned arms and legs on modest display in that fitted patterned sundress. That still didn’t mean they needed to ogle her and it didn’t explain why I kept doing a little ogling myself.

She moved around the room like she owned the world, not intimidated by all the boosters and their damn money or their shitty attitudes. Aly didn’t smile, but still had a friendly, soft grin on her face, one that drew the attention of others around her. She moved like no one could touch her, like just her swaying hips and the strong, confident gait told the world she knew who she was and no one could mess with that. Confidence goes a long way, and Aly was catching attention with hers. Me? I could not figure out why it made me mad that people were taking notice of her.

The lake house emptied a couple of hours later and when the head coach and his wife finally left and just my parents, Leann, Aly and I were left, we all seemed to breathe a little easier. At least, we could get out of our church clothes.

“Hope those bastards enjoyed that,” Dad said, coming behind my mother to rub her shoulders. “You should go sit down, Wildcat. We can take care of the cleanup.”

“I’d say to leave it but Aly’s head would explode,” she said, smiling at Aly when she took a handful of plates into the kitchen.

“Nope, we’ll get it.” Leann nodded for Mom to sit on the sofa. “Ransom will help, won’t you, little cousin?”

“You know,” I said, rolling up the sleeves of my dress shirt, “I liked you better when Tristian was around for you to bully.”

“Hush, I’m not that bad.” Leann turned my shoulders and gave me a push towards the kitchen, pointing to a stack of dirty dishes.

We cleaned the mess as my mother dictated from the sofa, rubbing her belly with her feet propped against the coffee table. She paused in her supervising to laugh at Leann dancing in the middle of the room after she turned the music up to something that would have had the boosters covering their ears and closing their wallets.

“Aren’t you almost forty, lady?” Mom asked Leann. “You shouldn’t be able to move like that.”

“Please, you don’t outgrow moves like these.”

That insane woman danced around the living room with a bag in her hand, shimming and shaking as she cleaned away the party mess and I rolled my eyes, heading back into the kitchen to deposit a stack of plates on the counter.

“I can do that, Aly, you don’t have to,” I said when I caught her unloading the dishwasher.

“It’s no big deal.” She moved to the music and I smiled. Leann had always done that too, most dancers did. It was something written into the genetic make-up, some weird instinctual coding that made them break out into a move, a twist, whatever compulsion it was that called to them. Aly did the same thing, I’d noticed, with or without music playing.

She did that just then in the kitchen with her hands on forks and knives, and her feet freed from the heels she had been wearing. I laughed at her when she twirled around that kitchen and laughed harder when I stepped back into the living for more plates, catching Leann doing some sort of weird twist with her hips that made me think she’d completely lost it.

“Work it!” Mom called, falling back against the sofa when Leann started twerking, moving faster the louder my mother laughed.

“Some things never change,” Dad said, stuffing trash into a bag when I headed back toward the kitchen.

“They were like this in college?”

He glanced at me, shaking his head. “They weren’t this bad in college.”

“Age gives you confidence, Hale,” Leann shouted.

My father loved bickering with Leann, said it was some residual throw back to their CPU days when Leann thought he wasn’t good enough for her sweet little cousin and Dad said and did shit just to piss her off. That certainly hadn’t changed in the years since then.

His laughter followed me into the kitchen, my arms weighed down with dirty champagne flutes, but then I caught sight of Aly and my mind went blank. She reached to the topmost cabinet with a cup in her hand, stretching, trying to get it onto the shelf. As she twisted up and lifted on the tip of her toes, that dress she wore caught on the countertop and rode up further than it should have, giving me a clear view of the curve of her naked ass.

It was firm, perfectly round and I tightened my grip on one of the flutes, hearing it splinter as Aly cursed low under her breath. Then it became apparent that my mind wasn’t the only thing I had no control over as my dick got twitchy the longer I stared at her.

Behind me, my father’s voice drifted, then completely stopped, but I didn’t hear him, was too caught by the sight of Aly’s bare, beautiful skin. My head moved forward and I nearly dropped the flutes when my father popped me in the back of the head, catching me in my creepy gawk and scaring the shit out of me.

Dad’s glare was enough to deflate my twitchy dick and I deposited the flutes in the sink, barely hearing my father offer to give Aly a hand.

Later Leann pulled Aly from the kitchen to dance with her, my parents laughing at them from the sofa and me staring from the open bar near the den. It made the memory of her bare ass and my knotted up emotions worse. I laughed right along with them at first as Leann moved her hips, tried like hell to match what we’d all seen in the Shakira video when she sang about her hips not lying, but she couldn’t quite manage that twist and shimmy. Aly could and set about showing my cousin how to move her hips in impossible angles.

“No, bend your knees more, cheri. Straighten one leg, then, boom…shimmy.”

Jesus did she. That short little dress moved, flashed against her thighs, perfect, smooth tawny skin teasing with every shake, but my eyes were transfixed, unmovable as Aly turned in a circle and her hips went up and down, up and down. Boom indeed. Boom went my heart as she moved, boom went that thud in my stomach, the one that told me I needed to get myself together and stop acting like a little punk about this girl.

She was hot. There, I admitted it, but that didn’t give me the right to stand around watching her like I couldn’t control myself.

Aly turned in a complete spin and those hips worked faster, the shimmy so mesmerizing my damn parents clapped and cheered her on. My eyes went a little dry because I didn’t blink, couldn’t.

Nope. I couldn’t control myself around her at all. So I disappeared to check on Koa as he slept, using the pretense of making sure the music hadn’t woken him to give me the space I clearly needed from Aly.

You’re so weak, that voice hummed and I swore it sounded smug.

“I damn well know it,” I said, brushing back the hair from my little brother’s face, wishing I could sleep as peacefully as he did.

Maybe it was all of that—me acting like a jealous asshole to my teammates, me drooling after Aly in the kitchen, seeing that evil seduction her hips worked in me while she danced—that all led to what happened next.

Maybe I was just a horny idiot incapable of any kind of self-control when I was around her.

Whatever it was, I somehow ended up leaving Koa’s room later than I’d wanted, finding the living room empty and Leann’s Cadillac missing from the driveway. I figured Aly had driven back to Metairie with her. Guessed that she thought I’d crashed and didn’t want to wake me before she left.

She’s not your girlfriend, dumbass. Why would she say goodbye?

“Damn,” I said to the empty room, leaning against the piano.

“Ransom?”

She stood in the kitchen doorway, her feet bare, wearing an old Kona Hale Fangirl t-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts I knew were my mom’s. “I thought you left,” I told her, feeling like an idiot for just gawking at her the way I did.

“Keira has an early doctor’s appointment in the morning. They’re worried about her feet swelling.” She walked toward me with her arms across her chest and that subtle brush of her hand up one arm had me realizing she wasn’t wearing a bra. “She asked me to stay the night since it was so late by the time we got everything cleaned up.”

Son of a bitch.

Nodding, I sat at the piano, trying like hell to block out the cluster of stupid that moved around my head. I wanted her to sit next to me. I wanted her to leave my house and never come back. I wanted to find out if she really went commando tonight or if she was wearing a thong.

I really wanted to not to care about any of that.

“You alright?” she asked me, coming closer toward the piano to rest her elbows against the lid. “You disappeared.”

My fingers went across the keys slowly as I played something soft. Rhiannon. A song Mom always sang with me when things got too much for me and I was too angry for anything to make sense. I wasn’t angry just then, but Aly being there, Aly just being Aly definitely had sense out of my reach.

“I’m good,” I said, coming to the chorus, keeping my gaze on my fingers.

“You’re good.” She sounded like she didn’t believe me.

“Yeah.” One glance at her frown and I looked back down at the keys.

Aly wasn’t the type to coddle you. She was nice enough, could be downright sweet—at least to Koa, and I got that it wasn’t in her nature to get you to open up when you pretended you just wanted to be left alone. She wasn’t going to drag anything out of me because she didn’t pry. But she also wasn’t the type of person that would handle much bullshit. It was one of the things I liked most about her.

You don’t like her, I told myself, thinking that if I said it enough, it might become true.

“Night, Ransom,” she said, through a breath and though I’d just been thinking about wanting her gone, right then I could only think about how badly I wanted her to stay.

“We could go over your song if you want.” I tried making my tone light, like I didn’t care either way if she left me alone or came and sat next to me on the piano. It was stupid and childish, but damn if attraction, a little bit of desire, doesn’t make us all act just like kids fumbling through their first crushes.

I could do smooth, had done it plenty in the past, but didn’t quite pull it off that night.

“I mean, I’m a little wired tonight and no one is here.”

She looked down the hallway where my parents and little brother slept as though checking to make sure we hadn’t woken anyone up.

“Won’t that bother them?” She moved closer, stretched her arm across the piano and I tried not to think about the silent chant in my head that urged her to sit next to me.

“No,” I said, still attempting and failing to sound ambivalent. “Mom used to stay up all night writing songs so she doesn’t bat an eye when I play late into the night and Koa has been hearing music and loud-mouthed people since he was born.” I smiled at her when she sat next to me. “I’m sure you’ve caught on to the fact that he sleeps through anything.”

“Alright.”

Popping and stretching my fingers, I started to play the tune she’d become familiar with. Keyboards worked better when teaching chords, the transitions easier to follow than when I played this song on the guitar. Weeks into practicing and Aly already knew the intro to “Wild Horses,” the perfect pause and release of when to sing. And, she had gotten so much better, was a fast study and already her tone was solid and that natural, the high pitch didn’t wobbled nearly as much as when we’d first started singing together.

It was that open, honest expression on her face, how she closed her eyes as though the lyrics, the melody were private, something she wanted to keep in her mind and behind the darkness of her close lids that had me slowing my fingers. She’d spun a web without even realizing it and had already caught me tight in that silky snare.

Her body put off a warmth I could feel on my arms as I played, and that scent, that delicious, strong smell from her skin, her hair, hit me when she brushed her shoulder free from those wavy tangles. When my fingers slowed even more and the slow progression made Aly miss the chorus, she opened her eyes and stared at me as though she didn’t know if I’d messed up or she’d done something wrong.

But she didn’t ask what had happened. Aly just stared back at me, because I’d stopped playing, because I’d created the awkward tension that started to fill up the room. I knew what she saw on my face. How could she not, but Aly couldn’t even take a compliment. No way she’d ask why I looked like I wanted to kiss her.

Instead, she looked down at the keys, brushing my hands aside to play. She was a stronger singer than a piano player and it took me a minute, one I spent staring at her profile, watching her hard focus on the keys before I left bench, coming to kneel behind her and move my arms so that my hands were under hers.

When she started to move her arms back, to move her hands, I leaned closer, taking in a deep breath. “Keep them there,” I said, trying not to groan at that scent I’d come to love so close to me. “I’ll show you the right tempo.”

There was a small shake in her arms that I tried to ignore. Her long, slender fingers rested lightly on top of mine, moving when mine did like I was some sort of puppeteer guiding her hands this way and that. But no one would pull Aly’s strings. In fact, if anyone was pantomiming it was me—acting as though the warmth of her skin, the smell of her hair and the sweet, lulling sound of her voice wasn’t affecting me.

“It’s a rhythm you keep. Not just the notes. It’s got to be deep, Aly. So deep that it feels like a heartbeat.”

We continued to play, her humming under the notes, giving up the pretense that she wanted to practice and I didn’t comment, didn’t point out that she wasn’t singing. Instead I shifted, moved closer so that my chin was on top of her head. I couldn’t help but notice how perfectly she fit under me, how the bend of her body filled the arc of mine.

“Heartbeat,” I said again when she began to follow my fingers on the other end of the piano.

“Like sex again?” she said, grinning as she glanced at me.

“No, not like sex.” I looked down at her hoping that the grin would grow. “Like…like love.”

“Oh,” she said, moving her hands into her lap.

“Why’d you stop?”

“That’s why I can’t play it right.” I didn’t move my hands from the keyboard and she didn’t ask me to. Aly shrugged, her usual unconscious movement and wouldn’t look me directly in the eyes. “I…I don’t know love.”

“Everyone has been loved, Aly,” I said, not wanting to test the waters quite that much.

“Not everyone, Ransom.”

My chest ached a bit then and I wasn’t sure if I felt sorry for her or pissed off at any family that wouldn’t love a girl like her. She was smart and strong and beautiful, and so damn determined. What parent wouldn’t love her? Be proud of her?

But I pushed back that anger and moved one of her hands back over mine. “Come on, slacker,” I nudged her free hand, “No rest for the wicked.” She followed my lead, her arms less rigid, like she was becoming comfortable being so close to me. “It’s not just being in love that counts. That heartbeat comes from the people who love us. The people who are important to us. Being in love is just a bonus to all that.”

“Not sure if I want that bonus,” Aly said turning to face me when I stopped playing. She had an eyelash underneath her left eye and I brushed it away, noticing that tonight her breath smelled like strawberries.

“You don’t want to be in love?” I held my breath, not really sure why I did. Aly shook her head, but didn’t speak. “That’s too bad.”

“Why? Is the sex better or something when you’re in love?”

God, she had no idea, but I wasn’t about to talk about that or how deeply I’d fallen at sixteen or why I’d suddenly felt that tattoo burning on my chest. She would hate me then, and I wouldn’t get such a close view of the small shine on her bottom lip or the smattering of goose bumps that covered her arms and ran up her neck.

“It’s a lot better when you’re in love.”

“Guess I’ll never know,” she said, leaning into me when I brushed my face against her shoulder, inhaling that exotic scent.

“Guess…” I moved closer, something about those lips, the small peek of her pink tongue drawing me closer, wanting to take, wanting to keep taking. “Guess not.”

She was inches from me and I took my hands away from her arms and slid my fingers into all that thick, wavy hair, closing my eyes when I gripped several strands between my fingers. I was going to kiss her, take again something too good, too perfect for me, but just as I grazed my lips over hers, before I could apply any pressure at all, a loud groan came from my parents’ bedroom, followed immediately by the sound of my father shouting over and over “Fuck, Wildcat! Fuck!”

“Son of a bitch,” I said, laughing right along with Aly when the noisy scream hit our ears. “God,” I said, resting my forehead on Aly’s shoulder before I stood. “They’re worse than teenagers.”

“Oh I’m aware,” she said, standing off the bench.

“You’ve heard them?” She nodded. “Do they know?”

“They don’t even try to hide it when they come out of the room and realize I showed up early or Koa and I didn’t spend enough time at the park.” Aly waved off my wrinkled nose, still laughing. “You can’t blame them.”

“Uh, yeah, I can.”

She leaned against the piano, shrugging again. “Keira is still young, so is Kona and they’re stupid for each other and they’ve got a lot of years to catch up on. Besides,” she moved away from the piano and crossed her arms again as though she just remembered she wasn’t wearing a bra, “if I had a man who looked like your dad, I’d keep him in the bedroom.”

It wasn’t something I hadn’t heard before. Women, no matter their age, went a little fangirl over my father. “Typical,” I told her. “But you know,” I said, resting my elbows on the piano. “I look just like him and I’m younger, have more energy.”

Aly shook her head, like she thought I was a little pathetic. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

And when she walked down the hallway, leaving me alone, I couldn’t help having the smallest hope that she’d remember the heartbeat and that one day she wouldn’t laugh when I told her what I could give her. What I thought I wanted to give her, not some dancer, not some faceless woman. Just Aly.