Read Truth or Dare for Free Online Page A

annoyed.”
    Forearms folded on the bar in front of him, Ty slanted a look over at her. “You want to talk?”
    She shouldn’t. Only as she sat there, running her fingers back and forth across the bar’s smooth finish, she realized that yeah, she did.
    “I want to know what your problem is.”
    He didn’t say anything, but the sudden hardening of his jaw told her he’d heard.
    “I don’t need to be your best gal pal. Trust me, I’ve got plenty of friends,” she assured him. “But, I don’t know, for a while there, it seemed like maybe we had something?”
    He shot her an alarmed look and this time, Maggie was the one letting out the laugh. Another sidelong glance and she sighed.
    “See, here’s a perfect example. That look of unparalleled discomfort on your face right now is all but begging me to let the wrong idea you’ve latched onto sit awhile, just so I can watch you squirm. It’s what I would have done before, because that kind of sporting bitchery was our thing. And I was good with it. But then suddenly, everything’s different and you haven’t got an insult to spare. So here I am, obliged to clear up a rather spectacular misconception. Which stinks.”
    Ty’s eyes closed and, rubbing his palm over his mouth, he muttered something unintelligible she was fairly certain had four letters and packed a decent punch. But even behind that big hand, she could see the way the lines of his face had changed—the relief and amusement pushing his features around and digging creases where they hadn’t been before.
    With his left arm resting on the bar, he shifted on his seat, turning toward her and bracing the right over his leg. His eyes landed on hers and held in a way that made her heart skip a beat. Because suddenly Tyler wasn’t shutting her out at all.
    He was
connected.
    “So what you’re saying is, you miss me,” he said, the deliberate twisting of her words warming her heart and spurring her to push farther.
    “Yeah. I pass you on the stairs and it’s barely a nod. I miss the way you used to look at me. With all that pent-up cranky, like you couldn’t wait to find the right weakness to exploit. What happened to the jabs and cheap shots, Apartment Three, what happened to us?”
    She was expecting a mouthy retort. A sharp dig, just to show they were good.
    But instead, Ty let out a slow breath and looked down at the floor. “I didn’t want to be an asshole. Not a real one, anyway—but back at Ford’s with the cookies, it felt like I crossed a line. I thought if I backed off, stopped acting like a prick, maybe we could coexist in the same circle. You know?”
    Yeah, that cookie business had thrown her for a loop, too. But where she’d thought a little mutual trash talk would get them back on track, apparently Tyler had thought it better to pretend she wasn’t there.
    “I guess I do. But wouldn’t it have made more sense to, I don’t know, try being nice? I mean, as a rule with guys like you, I’m not really into that kind of thing. But it seems like maybe something you might have at least thought about. Since it looks like apparently we
will
be sharing circle space.”
    She was trying to play it off like a joke. But the truth was there in her too-quiet delivery of the last word, in the way she couldn’t make herself look away from his face for fear she’d miss some telling clue to help her understand why. Because it bothered her that Tyler seemed to fall into fast friendship with everyone else she knew and yet, from the first minute with her…not interested. That’s what he’d said.
    What was it about her—aside from the months of name-calling, cheap shots, and relentless antagonism in general, because deep down, she knew he liked that stuff as much as she did—that bothered him so much?
    And what was it about
him
that made her actually care?
    A muscle jumped in Tyler’s jaw and something she thought might be regret filled his eyes, but her phone lit up, breaking the contact between