Page 64 of The Perfect Deception

“Why?” he asked.

“Be­cause you can’t tell a per­son some­thing like that while they’re drink­ing.”

“Should I have texted it in­stead?” he asked with a wink.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re im­pos­si­ble.” But her neck heated at the thought of the con­tent of those texts and she tried to dis­tract her­self. “Do you have any?”

“Dirty texts?” He pulled out his phone and Dina squeaked.

“No!” Peo­ple around them turned their head and she ducked, hear­ing Adam chuckle softly. “Sib­lings. Broth­ers or sis­ters.”

His re­laxed ex­te­rior changed once again, tight­en­ing and grow­ing wary. His jaw vi­brated, as if he were clench­ing and un­clench­ing his teeth. “No, just me.”

“I’ll bet that has its ad­van­tages.”

He shrugged, star­ing into his hot choco­late. “I never thought about it re­ally. What’s it like hav­ing sib­lings?”

“Com­pli­cated. It’s like be­ing in an un­end­ing com­pe­ti­tion, where the stakes are con­stantly raised.”

“At least they pro­vide a dis­trac­tion.”

She waited for him to ex­plain fur­ther, but he re­mained silent and she could al­most see him rais­ing his walls. Only this time, they weren’t quite as high. She’d knocked a few down and she was de­ter­mined to tackle the rest. If he’d let her.

Adam forcibly re­laxed each part of his body—his neck, his shoul­ders and his hands—and tried to clear his head. He’d given away more about him­self than he’d in­tended, but he’d learned more than he’d ex­pected about her as well.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Why? Don’t you want to skate some more?”

“Not un­less you do.”

He led her out to the car. He went to turn it on, but she stopped him with her hand on his up­per arm. “Why don’t you like to talk about your fam­ily?”

His hand gripped the key and he forced him­self, once again, to loosen his grip. His chest tight­ened and his gaze trav­elled from the key to her hand, up her arm to her vi­o­let eyes, un­blink­ing and kind. Crap.

“There’s noth­ing to say.”

“You don’t act like a man with noth­ing to say.”

The air in the car grew heavy and he needed space to breathe, but short of open­ing the car door, there was nowhere to go. He pulled at the chest strap of the seat­belt, un­til he felt more pres­sure on his other hand. Now it was be­tween both of hers and she was stroking it, like one would a fright­ened puppy.

He had noth­ing against pup­pies, un­less he was be­ing com­pared to one.

Swal­low­ing, he tried to grin at her, but it came out as more of a gri­mace. “You’ve met my fa­ther.”

“And I’m still here.”

Good point.

“It’s not your fault your mom left.”

He rubbed his other hand, the one Dina wasn’t hold­ing, across the top of his head. He needed a hair­cut. “You can’t pos­si­bly know that.”

“It’s never the kid’s fault. Have you talked to your dad about it?”

He choked on a bit­ter laugh he tried to swal­low. “He likes the con­ver­sa­tion even less than I do.”

“That must have been hard for you to deal with.”