Truth or Dare Read Free Page B

altogether. It was uncool. And totally unacceptable, considering the only thing he was after from Apartment Two was the vintage sour and spite she served him straight up every time their paths crossed.
    At the landing, Maggie cast what she’d no doubt intended as a bored look over her shoulder. But something in her eyes said she was waiting…anticipating the next volley of trash talk, same as him.
    Instead of giving it up for her at the first glare, he strolled past, eyes on the beige-and-rust-flecked carpet running the hall and stairs. Only when the thin scrape of her key sliding home reached his ears did he look back.
    “Gotta say, I had you pegged for a spinster all the way, but Ford’s a real catch. Nice going.”
    Barely a beat passed and she was returning fire.
    “Aww, thanks. And what’s this I hear about you and Rosie Palms?” she asked with a pointed nod at his hand, the saccharine sweetness all but dripping from her fangs. “Picking out rings, already?”
    Nice one.
A classic that appealed to the undying adolescent within him. And all her narrow-eyed, arms-crossed action said she was ready with more. Could probably go head-to-head all night if he gave her the opportunity.
    Tempting. But being the stand-up guy he was, wholly committed to the advancement of Maggie’s annoyance, there was only one thing he could do…
    “Yeah, well, we’ve been exclusive for a while now,” he said, holding up “Rosie,” his right hand, and giving in to a grin as he started up the stairs. “Time to make an honest girl of her.”
    …Steal her thunder and leave her hanging.
    Boom.
    Maggie tried to cover with a cough, but her laughter—too quick—slipped free from beneath it, ricocheting up the stairwell after him and following at his heels like a taunt. It was exactly the reaction he’d been going for—knowing the last thing she’d want was to give him the satisfaction—only now having earned it, that soft, full-bodied mirth layered with too many hints about a woman he didn’t want to know any more than he already did suddenly felt less like a victory than a loss.
    It was a reversal of expectation that had become the standard in his life. One Ty ought to be used to by now but that somehow managed to continue blindsiding him.
    Girl-next-door…easy smile…great laugh…sharp tongue…soft curves…sweet to about everyone but him.
    Yeah, he knew too much about Maggie Lawson as it was. Like the fact that she was exactly the kind of chocolate-chip-baking fantasy he’d always gone for. The kind of woman he’d figured he’d marry someday…and might have, if not for—
    Shit.
Enough of that.
    Inside, the stillness and order of his apartment worked to smother the last echoes of Maggie’s reluctant laughter, tamping down those unwelcome details he didn’t have room for in a space already too full with everything he couldn’t have.
    —
    The keys hadn’t even finished their first revolution around the wide-mouthed catchall beside her front door before Maggie was hit with a condemning, “I feel dirty.”
    Ava. Shaking her head from her perch on the couch, where she’d no doubt been watching the closed-circuit security feed from the front stoop.
    She should have known. Because this night just got better and better.
    It wasn’t enough to have been within a hairsbreadth of tasting the physical manifestation of Ford’s disgust. Or that her least favorite sour-patch stud, Apartment Three, had gone and pissed all over her hard grudge by making her laugh. Flashing his bit of humanity and humor around like…like…like he was human or something. Which he wasn’t.
    The jerk.
    Nope. What she needed was another witness.
    Sliding her purse off her shoulder, Maggie tucked it on the secretary’s low shelf and then turned to face her accuser. “So maybe you shouldn’t have broken into my apartment to spy, huh?”
    Though on closer consideration, she didn’t actually mind Ava seeing that train-wreck-in-action kiss. If Maggie