Evan's Addiction (45 page)

     The glass door leading to outside opened and Blake stepping in
wearing clothes and a scowl. He pointed at me menacingly. “When you least
expect it, Limp Biscuit.”

     I was sitting at the kitchen nook…that wasn’t all that nook like
with six of us squeezed in it…with my arm around Shaw and I just gave him an
arrogant grin.

     “Uh-oh, what did we miss?” Noah asked.

     Blake walked over to grab a plate. “Evan decided to start a prank
war.”

     Three male groans filled the air.

     “Evan, what the hell…o.” Seth grunted, correcting his language.
“The last one caused a couple thousand in damages. I thought we decided after
that one to lay off them.”

     “That was before Blake was living with us and we never did give
him a proper introduction into the house.” Forking a sausage I brought it to my
mouth while moving my hand from Shaw’s shoulder to her knee, and squeezing. She
jolted and gave me a flushed evil glare that only had me squeezing higher. She
started and compressed her legs together.  

     Nic swung his fork between Blake and me. “Make sure Carrie stays
out of your path of destruction.”

     Shaw snorted…which was cute as fuck…and I also observed Carrie
roll her eyes at his over-protectiveness.

     Carrie gave him a small elbow nudge. “I’ve never been part of a
prank war; it sounds like fun.”

     He massaged her neck. “It starts out in fun and relatively
harmless, but it always escalates. We’re talking about laxatives in the juice,
Habanero sauce injected in the fruit, smeared creams and food on every surface,
and then it moves to having your entire bedroom moved to the back yard.” Nic
glared as we all laughed.

     Shaw looked at Nic with a smirk. “Let me guess; the bedroom was
yours?”

     He scowled. “Yes, and it took me hours to put everything back.”

     “It still sounds fun, although time consuming.” Carrie laughed.

     “You guys must have done it off-season, because I don’t know how
you would have found the time otherwise?” Samantha commented.    

     Landon nodded from the across the table, pressed up tight to
Maya’s side. “Yeah, we had way too much time on our hands in the off-season. It
turned us into juveniles.”

     Maya coughed, appearing to cover up a grin. “Yeah, I’m sure that
was the reason.”

     Landon did something under the table that caused Maya to jerk,
squeal, and elbow him.

     “I’ve always thought there was something seriously wrong with that
Y-chromosome.” Shaw shook her head somberly, eyes twinkling. “Two pairs beats
an XY any day.”

     “You tell it, sista.” Nadia raised her hand and they slapped
high-fives.

     Then of course all the girls had to voice their consensus.

     And in retaliation the guys squeezed and poked the women next to
them making them squirm and yelp. 

     “Okay, enough of the touchy-feely. You all are going to make me
sick.” Luka groaned. Most likely Seth’s touchy-feely towards his sister was
making him sick. “Are we hanging out here again today?” He stood and took his
empty plate to the sink.

     Shit, that kid was huge for only being seventeen. He was as large
as Seth, but a blonde, Russian version. He was on the wrestling team at his
high school, but I knew he’d been getting some lacrosse sessions in with Seth.
I’d heard he was thinking about trying out for a walk-on position next year at
UVA. The kid already had a scholarship for his wrestling so maybe he was
planning to do both.

     “If anyone’s interested I’m taking Shaw to the Air-Dome today.” I
announced.

     Shaw glanced at me in confusion. I gave her raised eyebrows and a
smile in return. I hadn’t told her our plans today because I’d wanted to
surprise her. 

     “What’s that?” Luka leaned forward looking particularly
interested.

     Noah jumped in to explain. “It’s a facility that has a large fan
that can make soar; kind of like if you jumped out of a plane, and I am so in
on that.” He declared with ‘
whoop’
.

     Everyone else was up for it as well. Just then the Cruz brothers
walked in and when they heard our plans they rushed through breakfast to join
us. It appeared Greg hadn’t come back to the house last night so Maya sent him
a text to inform him of our plans, and the grandparent’s said they were fine staying
back to babysit Nola again.

     I had reserved a time for ten-thirty so with everyone on the same
page it wasn’t long before we were hustling out of the house so we wouldn’t
arrive late. Blake gave me the finger before hopping into Landon’s Mustang. I
gave him an air kiss in return…like I was upset that he didn’t want to ride
with Shaw and me. It just gave us more time alone together.

     “So, does this fan send you really high into the air?” Shaw asked.

     Faint nervousness colored her tone. “It can send you up a little
over two-stories, but the sides are padded and the bottom is like a trampoline,
so it’s almost impossible to get hurt.” I gave her knee a squeeze. “I wouldn’t
take you to a place where you might get hurt.”

     “But what if I’m scared of heights?” 

     Well, that
could
be a problem. Glancing over at her I saw
her smirking like she was messing with me, but I didn’t miss the hint of
anxiety in her eyes.  

     “You’re not scared of anything.” I encouraged, rubbing her leg.
She seemed to cough, laugh, and choke all at the same time. “What was that
for?”  

     She wheezed, scrunching up her nose endearingly. “Everyone’s
scared of something.”

     How true I thought eyeing her up and down.

     “I bet the things you’re most frightened of are computer viruses
and a possible Y2K.” I teased.

     She grinned, but there seemed to be a veil over her eyes, and I
suddenly remembered what she’d said to me on our first date. She had a fear, a
fear that I would hurt her. Her words had been like bullets firing into my
chest that night and they weren’t something I was going to forget.

     “Thinking about them does bring on a smidgen of hives.” Her
features turned curious. “What are you afraid of; besides faulty latex and two
blue lines?” 

     I gave her the evil eye for that but she just smiled innocently.
My mechanical response was to say ‘nothing’, because hey, I’m a guy and
naturally we’re not scared of shit, but I wasn’t going to be flippant because
it wasn’t often she asked me personal questions.

     “I’m not too fond of…snakes.” I confessed.

     Stopping at a red light I looked over at Shaw and watched as she
cocked her head in curiosity. “Really?”

     The light changed and I pressed the gas. “Really.”

     “Like all snakes, or just the venomous ones, because I think most
people aren’t too fond of the venomous ones.”

     “They all kind of freak me out.” I grinned self-mockingly.

     She arched her brow. “A normal kind of freak-out, or high octave
screaming freak out?”

     I adopted an offended expression. “Nothing that even closely
resembled a high-octave scream has ever left my mouth. But…I do have a kind of
automatic, uncontrollable reflex of running hell-bent when I see one.”

     A giggle left Shaw’s mouth that erupted quickly into laughter, and
once again hearing it had something exploding in my chest. “Please at least
tell me that your arms flail hysterically?”

     “You’re displaying an inappropriate amount of amusement for my
phobia.” I inform her sternly.

     She clutched her chest and chortled. “I’m sorry. I so don’t want
to make fun of your fears, but the image popped in my head and I couldn’t
contain it.”

     “It’s not that bad.” But it was pretty close.

     Shaw’s laughter tapered off and she attempted to give me an
apologetic face, but I could see her lip twitching with leftover hilarity. “I
am sorry for laughing. It’s not right to make fun of someone else’s fears.” She
gave me a side-ways look. “Even garden snakes?”

     My lip tweaked at her doggedness. “Yes, even garden snakes.”

     “Their so harmless though.”

     “It’s an involuntary reaction I tell you, I have no control over
it.” I griped.

     Some kind of cough-giggle erupted from her throat. “Being a city
boy you probably haven’t had too many run-ins with those dastardly reptilians.”

     “You’re hilarious.” I responded drolly with a squeeze to her knee.

     She squeaked and grabbed at my hand trying to stop me. The
Air-Dome structure was coming up on the left so I had to let up to down-shift.
I turned into the lot and parked near the entrance. 

     Turning to Shaw I grabbed her nape and hauled her in for a deep
kiss before pulling away slightly to stare her in the eyes. “My mom’s the only
other person who knows about my fear of snakes. Are you going to keep my
secret?”

     Her eyes widened. “The guys don’t know?” Her minty breath
whispered across my mouth.

     I could see she was shocked and puzzled that I’d never told the
guys and was wondering why I was revealing it to her. The guys and I were
close, like brothers, but there was no way I was giving them that kind of
ammunition. I would have found live snakes in my bed in their efforts to scare
the shit out of me.

     “Nope.” I brushed my answer over her soft lips.

     She took a moment to answer. “I promise to take it to my grave.”
She breathed. “But I can’t promise that I won’t use it against you if the
opportunity presents itself.”

     I gave her a grin and one more kiss to that delectable mouth. “I
figured.” And I did, but I was trusting her with my fear to let her know she
was special…singular.   

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

SHAW

     Evan moved around the front of the car taking my hand straight
away. He was constantly touching me now so I was getting more accustomed to the
unexpectedness of it, and while the concept of holding hands and hugging was
still alien to me, I didn’t go all robotic at his touch.

     I actually liked it…a lot.

     Walking into the Air-Dome I was still puzzling over why he’d
revealed something personal to me he hadn’t to his best friends, but it looked
like I was going to have to shove my bewilderment to the side and ponder later
because Evan was trying to pay my fee to play under a big fan and I couldn’t
let him do that. He’d been paying for everything since before and after this
dating thing.

     I also didn’t like the way the woman behind the counter was
looking at him, or the way he smiled at her. She had to be at least a decade
older than him.

     Grabbing my debit card I pushed it in the shameless cougar’s face.
“Here
Ma’am
. I’m paying for him and myself.” 

     She turned a glower my way…
didn’t like that title did she
…and
I was pretty sure I heard a choking laugh from Evan.

     “Shaw, I made these plans so I’m paying.” He cleared his throat,
holding out his card.

     Shoving his hand away I waved my card under her big nose. “You’ve
paid for enough; I got this.”

     Two-hundred dollars was a shit-load of money to me, but it was
only fair. I had a few thousand saved up. I wasn’t a tight-wad…okay, I was…but
I could spare a little now and then. I wasn’t expecting Evan to pay for
everything; although, I did like that he wanted to. It was sweet.  

     The cougar snatched the card from my hand, probably tired of
waiting as well as staring at my face, and swiped it through the machine.

     “Dammit Shaw.” Evan growled.

     “Quit whining.” I shot back while gifting the cougar with a fake
smile when she returned my card.

     “I don’t whine.” He grumbled.

     Snorting, I punched in my four digit code. “All men whine. I think
you all have a ‘whine’ gene, and its connected to the ‘pout’ gene, which is
adjacent to the ‘bellyache’ gene.”

     The cougar’s sour face actually cracked a smile at that…and now my
life was complete. It was possible I was seeing more to their smiles than what
was there…wait…she was staring at Evan with that smile again, and it definitely
didn’t look like standard professional counter girl smile. That smile was
calling on an entirely different profession. My gaze narrowed back on her.

     Evan’s arms wrapped around my waist and he hauled me into his side
to grunt in my ear. “I’ll let you get away with it this time, because it
appears you’ve already gotten away with it, but next time when I set up a
surprise for you let me pay, alright?”

     My nerves went on hyper alert at being so near him. “I’ll think
about it.” I covered up my jitters by tucking my card in my pocket.

     Carrie rushed up to the counter holding out her card. “Jeez, I
never thought about just shoving my card under the cashier’s nose to pay for
things. Thanks Shaw.”

     Nic was right behind her with his card out. “Carrie, don’t you
dare.”

     Evan spun me out of the way before I got trampled by women trying
to pay their own way, because it appeared I started a feminist war. When that
all got figured out the lady directed us further into the building and handed
us over to two men who provided us all with flight outfits and began going over
safety instructions.

     I’d never done anything like this before. Heck, I hadn’t ever been
to an amusement park so I wasn’t sure how I was going to take to the high
adrenaline situation, but I had to admit I was excited. Skateboarding and bike
riding were my only real adrenaline highs.