Come On Closer Read Online Free Page B

the poopy diaper game. I’ve got a couple of guessing games, but no fake poopy diapers. I drew the line.” She looked at Shane with a flicker of a wicked smile. “We will be making a hat out of ribbons. I suppose you could wear it until—”
    â€œNope.” He hopped off the stool so fast that he almost knocked it over. “No, I’m good. I promised Larkin some fries, and I’m hungry. You have fun with all the, ah . . . girl stuff.”
    â€œWe will,” Brynn said sweetly. The hug she gave Larkin was more genuine. “Thanks again, you. Karaoke this week? I owe you a drink, at least.”
    â€œAbsolutely,” Larkin replied. “I’m going for it this time. Larkin channels Eminem.”
    Brynn let out a half laugh, half wail. “Oh God. No.”
    Shane looked between them, confused. That familiar sense of being on the outside looking in bubbled back to the surface, as frustrating as it ever was. What kind of mysterious female things did Larkin and her friends get up to when nobody else was around?
    â€œEminem?”
    Larkin looked smug. “I keep telling these girls I know all the words to Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself.’ They don’t believe me.”
    â€œWe
do
believe you,” Brynn said, leading the way to the door. “We’ve just begged you not to demonstrate.”
    â€œYou’re no fun. And you can’t stop me.”
    Shane snorted. “I want to see this.”
    â€œDon’t encourage her. Besides, if you come to karaoke night, you have to sing,” Brynn informed him. “Those are the rules.” She clearly thought that would deter him. But as clever as she was, Brynn Parker didn’t know everything.
    Shane lifted one shoulder in a shrug and smirked. “Pretty sure I could manage that.”
    She lifted her eyebrows, and he felt Larkin’s hand on his back, pushing him out the door. “Quit telling him not to do things, Brynn. It’s like waving a red flag.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” he asked once they were crunching down the front path to the driveway. “You think I do everything people don’t want me to?” He was more curious than offended. He still wasn’t quite sure how she saw him. He only knew that whatever she saw didn’t seem to bother her.
    â€œNo,” Larkin replied. She stopped beside the van and turned to face him, her breath rising as steam in the cold air. “I think that you enjoy proving people wrong.”
    Sure.
He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice when he replied, knowing she wouldn’t understand just how impossible he’d discovered it was to prove people’s expectations wrong where it really counted. She didn’t need to. “Is that why I’m so popular?”
    The smile turned into a grin that made her eyes sparkle. “No. You’re so popular because you’re stubborn
and
obnoxious. As if you didn’t know.”
    â€œI told you, I know everything.” He considered for half a second and took a chance, moving in just a tiny bit closer. He’d danced with her at Jake’s wedding, sat close enough to her that they’d touched, but still she always somehow felt just out of reach. “Anyway,” he continued, “you like me. So somebody around here has taste.”
    She smelled like frosting and sugar. Shane’s muscles tensed in familiar frustration, fingers curling with the need to touch her. Every time he’d ever thought she might close the distance between them, she’d pulled back at the last second. But if he could just slip past those defenses . . . if he could just know for sure whether he was alone in this attraction . . .
    Larkin looked up at him, head slightly tilted, a curious expression on her face. When she watched him this closely he never knew whether to be glad or nervous. It was like she was looking for something.