Dare You to Resist the Bull Rider (Rock Valley High Book 4)

by Lacy Andersen

  “Hey, I haven’t given up yet. There’s a reason my sister calls me the most annoying person in the world. If I can’t charm my way in, plan B is to keep asking until they give in. No worries.”

  He pressed his lips together for moment and then sighed. “For the record, I don’t find you annoying.”

  “Yet.” I held up a finger. “But you barely know me.”

  “Yet,” he repeated back to me. His lips maintained a serious expression, but I could see the glint of laughter in his eyes.

  He searched my face and at once, all the air squeezed from my lungs. I didn’t usually get so nervous around guys. I mean, they were kind of a dime a dozen at my school. All fun to flirt with. Never worth getting serious for. I’d dated more than my fair share of the soon-to-be junior class boys and then parted as friends. Always leave them wanting more, that’s was my policy. They were as replaceable as the color-of-the-week lipstick tube in my purse.

  So why was Zane giving me heart palpitations?

  “Well, just remember that I don’t always look like this,” I said, patting my cheeks nervously. My skin had dried, but there was no telling how many of my acne scars were showing.

  “What? You don’t always walk around looking like a butterfly?”

  “What? No!” I wrinkled my nose. Shoot! In my anxiety over my foundation, I’d totally forgotten about the face paint job I’d done on myself before the party. Zane probably thought I was the weirdest person alive. “You know what? I’ve got a better idea. Just forget that you saw me today.”

  “Why?” Zane pressed his lips together in thought, his gaze still taking in every inch of my face. “You look just as beautiful as the other night when we met.”

  Electricity surged through my abdomen at his comment. I stared at him, waiting to see a hint of irony or sarcasm in his face, but he was as sincere as ever. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I’d never met a guy like him. This wasn’t flirting. He didn’t have an ulterior motive. That had been a true compliment. For the first time in a long time, blood rushed to my cheeks in embarrassment.

  “You’re sweet.”

  He shrugged and then pushed off the bench to walk toward the nearest window and stare out it. “No, just brutally honest. My dad says it’s a flaw I got from my mother. He says I need to learn how to bend the truth to my advantage.”

  I winced as I watched Zane grimace at the rain. Ouch. My parents went through a rough divorce, but they never said something that mean to us kids. I didn’t even know Zane’s dad, but I already didn’t like him.

  “Are you a crew member on the movie or something?” I stood up to join him at the window. The storm had begun to let up and the clouds had cleared in the distance. The beginning of a rainbow arched over a patch of bright blue sky. “That’s so cool you get to do stuff like that.”

  He chuckled softly, rubbing a hand over his chin. “Something like that. We move around a lot, so it’s not as fun as it seems. There are definitely sucky parts. You’re lucky to live in one place for so long.”

  “Like what parts?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and stared expectantly at him. I would’ve loved to travel around, working on movies. It was my dream. He was really going to have to sell it to convince me leaving Rock Valley forever wasn’t a dream come true.

  He shot me an amused grin. “Well, for one thing, moving around a lot means I never get to meet girls like you.”

  Oh, he was good. Real smooth. But I was, too.

  “I hate to break it to you, but there are no other girls like me,” I said, lifting my chin proudly.

  He arched a single eyebrow and then chuckled, plowing a hand threw his hair. “I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.”

  Biting back an approving smile, I leaned onto the window screen and inhaled the wonderfully fresh scent that only came after a hard rain. It was combined with the citrusy scent of Zane’s cologne. I closed my eyes for a second, enjoying it with every fiber of my being.

  What had started as a natural disaster had turned into an amazing time with a boy who seemed to give as good as he got. He was a bit more brooding than I usually went for in a guy, but I liked seeing his eyes light up when he looked over at me. I had the feeling he didn’t smile often, but each and every smile was worth the effort. I wouldn’t mind earning a few more...

  But then the rude buzzing of a phone broke the silence. I opened my eyes to see Zane pulling a phone from a pocket in his shorts, then grimace as he read the message to himself.

  “My dad’s here,” he said, nodding his head toward the parking lot where a black SUV had pulled up. “I’ve got to go.”

  He took a step toward the door, but I instinctively grabbed for his elbow. He couldn’t leave like this. Not when we were just beginning to get to know each other.

  “Wait – when will I see you again?”

  Something about Zane had me tied up in bows. I had to know that he’d be around. I wanted to know more about the mystery boy with the strange habit of saying exactly what he thought.

  “I’ll be around.” He made a face and then shuffled his feet. “But I’m not really supposed to go anywhere. Especially with a girl. It’s against the rules.”

  Now it was my turn to make a face. I’d heard of girls not being allowed to date because of overprotective fathers, but I’d never heard of a guy not being allowed. His dad was something else.

  “Well, we could just hang, you know, as friends...”

  I gave him my most innocent smile and earned a chuckle from him.

  “I’m not sure that would be possible, Lexi.” He bit his bottom lip in a sexy way that had my insides melting. “You’re pretty irresistible and exactly my type.”

  For the second time in a matter of minutes, he had me blushing. I never blushed. It wasn’t a thing for me. Zane seriously had me tripping.

  “Fine.” I stomped my foot in mock frustration and then tapped my finger on my chin. “What if I happen to sit on a random park bench and you just happen to sit on the other side of it? Totally accidental. Would that be against the rules?”

  He took a step toward me, bending his head to look at me, his lips holding back a smile. “I wish.”

  I stepped back, until my back was pressed against the window frame. “What if I happened to go eat at Pizza Ranch and you just happened to find a spot at the table next to mine?”

  Zane closed the distance between us with another barely suppressed smile and leaned his hand on the frame above my head. “I do love pizza.”

  “Hmmm.” I nodded, never taking my eyes off of his face. “Me, too.”

  “But it would never work.”

  I frowned at him. “Why not?”

  “Because.” He ran a tongue quickly over his lips. “Because tomorrow, when you go to school, everything will change.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. Junior year wasn’t amazing enough to distract me from the beautiful blue-eyed boy standing in front of me. But just the way he talked made me want to grab ahold of his t-shirt and never let go. It was so crazy. I hardly knew him. But there was a magnetism between us that I’d never felt with anyone else.

  “Nothing will change for me,” I said, tipping my chin up. “I promise.”

  His lips quirked a bit in a sad smile. “I wish I could believe that.”

  And I thought I played hard to get. This guy was a master. I’d definitely met my match.

  “Fine.” I shook my head sadly. “Goodbye, Zane, my-mystery-boy. You were sweet. I could’ve fallen for someone like you.”

  His eyes flashed as he pressed his lips tightly together. “Goodbye, Lexi Black.”

  He began to move away, but hesitated for a moment, his eyes darting directly to my mouth. I hitched a breath as he quickly leaned in and brushed his lips gently over mine. It was barely enough contact to count as a kiss, but every nerve in my body lit up like a pinball machine. I gasped as he pulled away and then stroked my cheek tenderly with the tips of his fingers. Normally, I would’ve crin
ged at such a touch. It was the only place I felt truly vulnerable. But at that moment, I didn’t care about my acne scars. It was nothing but him and the scorching heat of his touch.

  “Zane!”

  The sound of his name came the other side of the shelter. Zane dropped his hand from my face and then spun to reveal a tall and broad-shouldered man in an expensive black suit hulking in the doorway. I could only assume this was Zane’s dad. He had the same dirty-blond hair as his son, although his was longer and slicked back with some kind of product. His thick jaw quivered with disapproval as his brown eyes landed on me for a mere second, and then immediately dismissed me as he returned his attention to his son.

  “Zane, to the car, now,” he barked.

  All the passion went out of Zane’s face. His shoulder’s drooped and his mouth formed a deep frown that made him look much older than a high school boy. It was strange to see him go back to that brooding, disinterested guy under his father’s attention. The warmth that he’d filled the shelter with had disappeared. I shivered and wrapped my arms around my torso.

  “No worries, Dad,” Zane said, marching toward the door without so much as a look back. “I was just about to leave.”

  His dad nodded and then shot me one last suspicious glare before turning to follow his son. I ran to the window to watch them as they descended the hill to the parking lot. All the while, I prayed Zane would glance back at me. One last look, to tell me that what had happened between us wasn’t a complete hallucination brought on by a near-death experience.

  The further away he got, the heavier my heart became, until I was scolding myself for letting me think this boy was any different from the dozens I’d flirted with before. Staying detached was my job. I wasn’t about to start letting them have the upper hand now.

  But then, as he went to open the passenger-side door of the SUV, Zane looked over his shoulder one last time. My heart threatened to explode as I drank in the hint of a smile on his face and the half-wave goodbye, hidden from his dad’s sight.

  I hadn’t imagined it. We really had connected.

  And as they drove away, I practically skipped over to my face paint set I’d left sitting on the table. So maybe Zane’s dad was a hardhead, but I knew one thing: Zane was just about as irresistible as a sale on my favorite lip stains. He’d said that tomorrow, everything would change, but he didn’t know just how stubborn a girl I could be. Where there was a will, there was a way.

  I was going to make my way onto that make-up crew. Knowing that Zane would be there, too, was only icing on the cake. Yummy blue-eyed, muscular, gives-me-shivers kind of icing.

  It was like the universe was daring me to try.

  I couldn’t let the universe down.

  Chapter Two

  “You know, I’m starting to think this friendship has serious perks.”

  I rested my ballet flats up on the dashboard and filed my nails as Beth Frye pulled her car into the Rock Valley High parking lot for the first day of our junior year.

  She glanced over at me, amusement dancing in her vivid green eyes. “Oh yeah, like what?”

  “Like the fact that I don’t have to ride the bus to school anymore.” I bit my bottom lip and tried to hold back a grin. “You make an awesome chauffeur.”

  Beth rolled her eyes and blew a blonde curl out of her face. She’d worn a black t-shirt for the first day of school with a cartoon character plastered on the front from one of her weird video games. A pleather bracelet hung from around her wrist and lighting bolt earrings swung from her earlobes. It was totally geeky and totally her.

  We’d only been hanging out for the summer, since our sisters practically forced us to be friends, but I’d gotten to know Beth well enough by now to realize she was a fashion force of her own. There was no use trying to mold her to my ways. Besides, it seemed to help her stay under the radar. She was stunningly gorgeous, even without a speck of makeup on. That kind of thing drew attention, something that she didn’t seem to like.

  It was another thing about her that made us total opposites.

  I wouldn’t have minded drawing a little attention today. There were two reasons behind that. One: I was on a mission to hunt down the head makeup artist today and beg her to hire me for some real world experience. And two: to dazzle mystery boy, aka Zane, when I ran into him on set and reminded him of the awesome connection we had yesterday in the rain.

  Gorgeous, wonderful Zane with the melt-me smile.

  I could just eat that boy up.

  “I think there are more benefits to this friendship than just free car rides,” Beth said, drawing my attention back to her.

  I gave her a devious smile. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “Like having people around to call you out on your hallucinations.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “Are you sure you kissed that boy yesterday in the rain, or were you just high on the fumes from your face paints?”

  She’d been reading my mind. I snatched an unused napkin from the cupholder beside me, balled it up in my hand, and tossed it at her. It bounced off her nose and she didn’t even blink. She just grinned at me, raising her eyebrows in a challenge.

  “Yes, I’m sure.” I’d spilled to my friends yesterday over a group text what had happened with Zane. It wasn’t a hallucination. It’d been the single most amazing moment of my short life. “And I’m going to find him on set today, just as soon as I secure my spot on the makeup team. You’ll see the sparks fly. Believe me.”

  “And you’re sure he’s not just another flavor of the week?”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Are you calling me boy crazy?”

  “Um...yes.” She laughed. “I’ve never met any girl who goes through as many crushes as you, Lexi. So excuse my skepticism.”

  “Well, this one feels different. Trust me. We’re walking off into the sunset together.”

  Beth pulled into a parking spot, put the car into park, and then turned to look at me. “Could you cool it with the eternal optimism? I haven’t even had my morning caffeine.”

  “Hmm...nope.” I smiled sweetly at her. “Sorry, but when life hands you lemonade, you have to shout about it.”

  Her head fell back and she made a sound like she was clearing phlegm from her throat. “Pretty sure that’s not how the saying goes.”

  “It is today, girl.”

  Nothing was getting me down. Not the rainstorm of homework and pop quizzes coming my way with the start of another year of high school. Not even Beth’s morning sourness. I hopped out of the back seat and glanced across the lawn stretching out in front of the white limestone school. Was it my imagination, or was the grass a more brilliant green than usual? And that clear sky...it was as blue as Zane’s eyes the moment before he kissed me. There were all signs that today was going my way.

  “Alright, Little Miss Sunshine, let’s get to English Lit.” Beth shrugged her backpack onto her shoulders and nodded her head toward the front doors where a steady stream of students had already begun to file inside. “Mr. Garret isn’t afraid to give out tardy slips on the first day.”

  I shuddered and hugged my bag to my stomach. English Lit was bad enough. English was my worst subject. But Mr. Garret was like the human version of a blackhead smack dab in the middle of my nose. He hated me. And I hated his class. We were in a mutual hate-itude. Nothing would change that.

  I fell in beside her as we walked toward the entrance. “Okay, fine. But I’m sitting in the back, as far away from mister spits-a-lot as humanly possible.”

  “Deal.”

  Beth pulled her phone out of her pocket and glanced down at the screen, disappointment flashing in her eyes when no new notifications popped up. She’d been doing that a lot lately, and not just because of her never-ending obsession with her video games.

  I hadn’t quite gotten the full truth out of her yet, but I had the feeling she’d been talking with a boy. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready to spill her guts, but I was ready and willing to discuss all the juicy details once she was. I
lived for that kind of stuff.

  I’d already succeeded of getting one of our friends together with the love of her young life. Maybe it was my destiny to find us all love by the end of our high school careers – a girl could only dream.

  “Lexi! Beth! Where have you been?”

  The moment we strolled through the doors of the school, Charlotte practically tackled us. She had her phone in her hand and was bouncing up and down like an energizer bunny on caffeine. Charlotte was my matchmaking success story and the final piece in our friendship triad that our sisters had built before they went off to college. Her brown hair was pulled into a low ponytail and she had a new spattering of freckles across her cheeks from spending every free moment this summer learning how to barrel ride with her boyfriend’s horse. It was her new obsession.

  Charlotte released us from the hug and grinned madly. I giggled into my hand at the sight. She wasn’t usually so bouncy. That was my role.

  “Did you see the news this morning?” She waved her phone in front of us, but moved it too quickly for me to see. “Oh my gosh, I about died when I saw it. I can’t believe we met a real, live, movie star. I thought that party had been a total bust. But we just didn’t know. And then you spilled shrimp sauce on your shirt. But he was there for that, too, wasn’t he?”

  I squinted at her, trying to understand her babbling rampage. Giving up, I leaned over to look at her boyfriend standing behind her with his hands stuffed in his jean pockets.

  “Hunter, can you translate for your girl?”

  He shook his head and grinned softly. The boy was country, from the rodeo buckle holding up his Wrangler jeans to his blue flannel shirt. His hazel eyes shone with fondness as he draped an arm over Charlotte’s shoulders.

  “What Char Char is trying to say is the guy we met the other night at your dad’s work party is one of the actors in the movie they’re shooting.”

  “Wait.” I held up a hand. “Who? What are you talking about?”

  Charlotte’s eyes grew wide as she finally stopped bouncing. “The boy. The one that thought you were the paparazzi.” Her eyes darted around the busy hallway before she leaned in closer to whisper. “The one you...kissed.”