But playing with Knox, he looked like him. The same guy who’d made me trip over my own feet with a sip of lemonade. Was that how his charm worked? Could he just turn it on to get women to drop to their knees in front of him?

A foreign flutter rippled through my stomach. I dropped my hands across it and couldn’t take my eyes off him.

I got it now. The Dare Destruction. It wasn’t just on the field. He’d streaked a path through the town with that damn smolder. How many other girls had experienced those lips?

“You’ve never even thought of leaving the lights on when you change at night?” Piper held onto the curtains, throwing model poses, and talking in a way that let me know I’d missed a few minutes of her monologue on how I could seduce him through my bedroom window.

“I’m not doing a striptease for him.” He’d already seen me in a towel.

She looked at me with disbelief written all over her face. “Why the hell not?”

“My cheerleader body upgrade got lost in the mail.” A red splotchy neck and chest to match my t-shirt had been another reason I wasn’t sure him dropping my towel wouldn’t have ended with me yelping and running for cover. All those other women he’d kissed—how many looked like me?

“Dudes don’t care.”

“I care. Can we get back to work?”

She flung the curtains open wider. “Oh my god, he’s looking up here. Shielding his eyes to see.”

“What? No!” I grabbed her around the waist, wrestling her away from the window.

“He’s going to think it’s me perving on him.”

Her grip on the curtains was tight.

“Piper, stop it!”

“He wants a show, I’ll give him a show.”

I braced my feet against the bed and tugged her, wrapping my arms tight around her. The fabric and cross bar popped out of the brackets and fell on top of us. She fell on top of me, our foreheads collided.

Dots of light swam in front of my eyes.

“Bay!”

“Piper! What the hell?”

“You’re no fun.” She pouted, rubbing her forehead.

“I could kill you.” I shoved her off me and stared at the flooding light pouring in through my window and the dismantled curtains laying on my bed. I had to get those up before my mom came home, but no way was I struggling with them in front of the window with him down there.

“Then you’d have no one to help you through bio.” She grinned.

“It’s the only reason you’re still alive.” I leveled my pencil at her like a weapon.

* * *

There was a thud at the front door.

I peered out the window and Dare’s car was parked in the driveway. He passed by the window and I jerked open the door.

“Wait.”

He skidded to a stop and half turned. “Your mom let me borrow that a little while ago. Mine broke and I didn’t have a chance to replace it.” He gestured to the wrench sitting on the top step with a note.