“Nice. You kiss your mama with that mouth?”

Now it was EJ’s turn to smirk as he glanced at her lips. “It’s really not any of your business what I do with my mouth.”

“What if I wanted to make it my business?”

His words caught her by surprise. Almost as much as the hunger in his gaze did. She felt like Little Red Riding Hood being eyed by the Big Bad Wolf. Except…he was kind of a hot wolf. Hayden took a step closer, and even though everything in her screamed for her to back up, to go back in the house and hide where she was safe, she just couldn’t talk herself into moving from where she stood.

“EJ, you coming to the track with us or what?” Coop called out from over by the barn, effectively breaking the trance Hayden had somehow put her in.

She released the breath she’d been holding as discreetly as possible. “Be right there,” she hollered back.

“You like his groupie or something?”

Her neck nearly snapped from all the abrupt emotional changes Hayden caused. Irritated. Embarrassed. Turned on. Nervous. Back to irritated. She pinned him with a glare as she passed. “You like jealous or something?”

He shrugged as he pulled the screen door open. “Or something.”

With one last huff of obvious annoyance, she left Hayden to go inside and clock out. Her expression eased into a familiar smile as she walked toward Coop. This was the boy she was supposed to be walking toward, instead of the jerk who’d distracted her on the porch.

“You gonna keep time for me tonight?” Coop asked as she approached.

She nodded, trying her best not to get all beside herself just because he was paying attention to her. “You know it. Try not to suck.” She winked as they walked to the barn, where her brother was unloading bags of mulch and pallets of brick pavers.

“I almost beat my record last week. What do I get if I beat it tonight?”

“I don’t know.” Anticipation fluttered in her belly. He’s flirting with me, isn’t he? She took a deep breath and nudged his arms with hers. “What do you want?”

“Oh I’m sure you can think of some—”

“What the hell, EJ? I thought you were going to Hillside with us?” Her brother’s questions interrupted whatever Coop had been about to say.

“I am,” she answered. “I’m ready when y’all are.”

“Like hell you are. Get your ass in the house and get some real clothes on. And hustle up. We need to get moving.”

EJ fought the urge to glance down. She knew what she was wearing. A navy blue Mason Landscaping tank top that was just tight enough to hug the new curves she was so proud of and cut-off shorts she wore all the time. She raised a hand to her hip and stared her older sibling down. “I’m not changing. You’re being an idiot.”

Kyle took a step in her direction. “Then you’re not going with us. Plain and simple. Throw on some jeans and a T-Shirt and you can come. Otherwise, you can stay your ass here.”

“Get a grip, man,” Coop said barely loud enough to be heard.

“What’s your freaking problem?” EJ asked her brother, shamed by the tears stinging in her eyes. Coop was never going to see her as anything but a kid sister if Kyle kept insisting on treating her like one in his presence.

“My problem is—”

“Hey, sorry to interrupt. Uh, Mrs. Mason asked for whichever one of you is Kyle to come in the house. She said she’s posting your naked baby photos on Facebook if you don’t make it in there in the next two minutes.”

Kyle turned the force of his angry laser beam stare from EJ to Hayden.

Hayden grinned and held his hands up. “Just passing the message along. I’m Hayden by the way. Your shitty stand-in according to most people around here.”

Kyle’s glare relaxed into a grin and EJ felt the tightness in her chest relax. “Hey, man. Yeah, Mom mentioned you. Hope they’re treating you decent around here.”

“Eh, I can take it.” Hayden’s eyes flickered toward her. She wondered if Coop noticed. He was standing off to the side with his fists clenched.

Kyle didn’t seem to notice, which made her wonder if she’d imagined it. Usually he got all ’roid ragey if a guy so much as nodded in her direction. But he shook Hayden’s hand and thanked him for passing the message along.

“EJ, when you go inside to change, tell Mom to give me a few minutes to unload the rest of this mulch.”

“I’m not going inside to change.”

She watched as Coop stepped between her and her brother. “Dude, relax. She’s not dressed any differently than any of the other girls that will be there. It’s ninety damn degrees out here.”

EJ was torn between watching Hayden leave and the interaction between Coop and Kyle. Maybe this was it. Maybe Coop was finally going to man up and tell him they were into each other. She sucked in a breath, praying she was right. She’d already named their kids—it was probably time for some forward progress.

And this was good. They could tell him together, present a united front and all that.

Apparently, her brother was ready to press the issue. “Oh yeah? What’s going on, Coop? You got something to tell me? Like maybe that you enjoy seeing my sister nearly busting out of her clothes?”

Coop took a step back. “No. For God’s sakes, Mase, she’s like a sister to me. I’m not into incest.”

He might as well have grabbed a bag of mulch and swung it at her with all of his might. The force of his words hit her just as hard.

Incest. He thinks of me as a sister. Incest is repulsive. The thought of us together is repulsive to him.

Now she knew why he’d looked so conflicted about kissing her not so long ago. Maybe he hadn’t been about to kiss her at all. Maybe he’d just been comforting her and she’d let her imagination run wild.

The contents of her stomach threatened to rise into her throat. A far away ringing sound began to drown out whatever else was being said.

“You know what? I’m going to skip the track after all. You two have fun.” Backing up so fast she nearly tripped over her own two feet, EJ beat it out of there as quickly as she could manage without full-out sprinting.

She hated that she was in flip-flops instead of running shoes, but the tears were coming hard and falling fast. No way she could suck it up long enough to go inside and change shoes without her mother asking a million questions.

Thankful that she had the path to The Ridge memorized, she made her way there, blinded by the moisture in her eyes.

Dropping herself down onto the edge of the cliff above the steep incline to the railroad tracks, she let loose one loud sob before swiping at her tears with her hands.

All these years she’d been dreaming of the day when Coop finally saw her. Finally looked at her in that way. And now it was never going to happen.

She cursed herself for the hours upon hours she’d spent fantasizing about what it would be like to kiss him, to call him her boyfriend. God, Lynlee was going to laugh her ass off at her. A million times her friend had told her to grow a pair and make a move. While EJ was pretty sure she never wanted to “grow a pair,” she had been putting serious thought into making a move.

She glanced over at the setting sun. If there was any type of silver lining to having her heart splattered all over the barn, it was that she hadn’t followed Lynlee’s advice. Because how horrifyingly humiliating would that have been? She shuddered at the thought.

“You cold?” a deep male voice asked from behind her.

For one stupid second, she let herself imagine that it was him. That he’d followed her to comfort her. To say he didn’t mean it.

But a quick glance over her shoulder was enough to put the final nail in the coffin of any fantasy she’d ever had about being anything more than friends with Coop.

“H-how long have you been here?” she asked the boy standing behind her.

“Long enough to hear you imitating a wounded animal.” Hayden took two steps before he plopped down beside her. She was strangely reminded of a nursery rhyme her mother had read her as a kid. Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet…along came a spider and sat down beside her…

He’s not a wolf and he’s not a spider, she told herself. He’s just a guy. She cleared her throat and took one last swipe at any remaining evidence that she’d been crying. “And you have a hard-on for damsels in distress or what? Because I honestly came out here to be alone.”

She watched him flinch at her words. “See, normally I would make a rude comment about you being interested in what gives me a hard-on. But since I know you’re upset about your brother’s wuss of a friend acting like such a douche back there, I’m going to give you a pass.”

“Gee, thanks.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

“So what’s the deal? You and your brother’s friend a thing or what?”

She sniffled. “Didn’t you hear? That would be like incest as far as he’s concerned.” She tried to ignore the painful stab to her heart that word caused.

“Yeah, I heard. I also heard enough to know he’s full of shit. And he’s given me enough dirty looks any time I get near you to let me know he’d like for me to back off. Too bad I don’t much care what he’d like.”

“What? Coop doesn’t give anyone dirty looks. He’s like the nicest guy on the planet. Everyone loves him.” Some of us more than others.

“Oh yeah? Well what does that make me? ’Cause I gotta say, I’m not all that impressed.”

EJ bit her lip. Maybe Hayden was onto something. Maybe Coop thought of her as a sister now, but maybe, just maybe, a few well-placed interactions with Hayden would make him realize what he was missing.