Worth the Risk (The Game #4)(43)
Author: Emma Hart

“That was a movie kiss,” she mumbles.

My lips twitch and I touch my nose to hers. “Tell that to your mom.”

Roxy stands and looks at her house. Myra’s face is poking out from the corner of the curtain and there’s a smile on her face – the first real smile I’ve seen since getting back.

“I don’t think I need to tell her anything,” Roxy muses. “Perhaps some explaining, but no telling.”

I laugh and kiss her again, normally this time, and swat her behind gently as she walks to her house. Ray opens the door and points a finger at me, a frown on his face.

“What you doing keeping my girl out all night?”

“Dad,” Roxy groans. “Really?”

“Who do you think you are?” he insists.

Another laugh leaves me, and I salute him. “You don’t scare me, old man!”

“Dammit.” He shrugs. “Worth a try.”

~

I grin at Iz as she walks around the kitchen and makes lunch. She keeps glancing at me and every time my grin widens a little more. She’s going mad trying to work out why I’m doing this – trying to work out what I know. Winding her up is probably my favorite thing ever.

Next to kissing Roxy.

Iz rounds on me, pointing the butter knife in my direction. “Alright, I’ll bite. Why the f**k are you looking at me like that, you little creep?”

There we go. I don’t say anything, just smile at her. God, this is fun.

“Kyle.”

Grin.

“Kyle!”

I scratch my nose.

“Kyle!”

“I was just wondering if you enjoyed making out with one of my best friends.”

“Funny, I was wondering the same thing.” She waves the knife.

“I do. Very much.” I wink at her.

She screws up her face. “Mmph.”

“Si. Why Si?”

“Seriously? You want to know how my brain works?”

Not really. “I just never pictured you two… You know. Flicking each other’s tonsils.”

“God, a frat house is doing nothing for you, is it?”

“Good job I’m moving out next semester.” I shrug. “Seriously. Why Si?”

Iz smiles slowly, the corners of her lips seeming to reach her eyes. “Because he has this a solid chest that could make a girl weep and an ass so tight it hurts to look at it. And judging by—”

“Alright, alright!” I hold my arms up. “I do not need my sister’s evaluation on the size of my friend’s dick.”

“—judging by the way he kisses, he probably f**ks like a  p**n star.”

I snort loudly. “A sorority is doing nothing for you, is it?”

“Good job I don’t give a flying, tap-dancing monkey then, isn’t it?” She rips off a bite of her sandwich.

“I actually need to ask you something.”

“Aside from the sexual attraction I have to your friend?”

“It probably doesn’t bother me nearly as much as my attraction to Roxy bothers you.” So I’m bluffing. I’m the one who has a poker face – Iz couldn’t bluff her way out of a kindergarten class. They’d figure her out in seconds.

“Whatever. What do you want?”

I tap my fingers across the table. How do I ask her what I haven’t even fully thought about myself?

“How…” I pause and, crap… Spit it out. “How do I convince Roxy to come to Berkeley with me next month?”

Iz stops with her mouth still full and stares at me. Slowly, she chews and swallows. “Did I hear you right?”

“I dunno. What did you hear?”

“You want Roxy to move to Berkeley. With you.”

“At least you don’t need your ears cleaning out.”

“Goddammit, Kyle! This shit is serious.” She slaps the table.

“I know, Iz, alright? I know.” I run my hands through my hair. “I just… I can’t leave her here. Not now.”

My sister sits opposite me, her eyes flicking over my face, and smiles.

“Fuck off with your psychobabble.” I glare at her.

“You love her.”

Goddamn psycho body language skills.

“You do.” Her eyes widen. “You actually do.”

“No need to look so surprised,” I say dryly.

“I’m not. I don’t think. I just.” She tilts her head slightly. “I dunno. You really want her to go to Berkeley with you?”

My head bobs slowly. “It’s Roxy, y’know? How am I supposed to go back there without her?”

“It’s not that far.”

“If I can’t walk there in half an hour, it’s too f**king far, Iz.”

She sighs and rubs her face. “I don’t know. Have you tried asking her? See if she’ll apply there when she decides she’ll go. She’d get in – she’s smart, Ky. She’s just a little off course.”

“I know. And of course I haven’t asked her – if I had would I be asking you?” I raise my eyebrows, and Iz shrugs. “Exactly. I just… I love her, Iz. Fuck. I don’t even know. I just want her to come to Berkeley with me.”

“Well, you have to ask her,” she reasons. “But what if she doesn’t?”

I say nothing. Let her use her psycho-shit and work this out herself.

“Kyle Michael Daniels.” Iz says my name slowly and carefully, injecting as much question into it as she can. “Don’t tell me you’ll stay here if she doesn’t go.”

I tap my fingers against the table again and whistle.

“You’ve wanted to be a doctor since… well, forever. You can’t seriously say you’d give that up? I know it’s Roxy, but… Seriously? You would?”

I meet her eyes, the ones that are the exact shade of mine. “I know I have, but she’s more than a dream, Iz. Roxy is everything and she’s real. Without her there is no dream. So, yes. If I have to I’ll stay here. With her. For her. I’d do anything and everything for that girl.”

Chapter Twenty-One – Roxy

I start my laptop and open my internet browser. What undergraduate courses do you need to be a vet? On impulse, I type Berkeley after the question. UCLA was on my original list… I know its Southern California, and Berkeley is Northern, but whatever. This is only research, after all.

Basic science courses and advanced courses in animal biology and behavior among other things. Easy pickings. Science has always come naturally to me – and these science classes would lead to working my dream job.