JENNIE

Donghyuk pulled his cue back and slammed it into the balls. I frowned. He wasn’t very good at this game for all he talked about how great he was.

I looked around at everyone else. They were staring at him like he was some sort of pool hustler or something. A couple of balls went in. One solid and one stripe.

“What did I tell you!” he whooped. “I sink my balls every time.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Joy was in here, after all, and she’d already lectured me once about how I needed to be nice to Donghyuk. As though the needed any more reason to be any more cocky than he already was.

He moved to take another shot and I cleared my throat. He looked up at me and smiled, his eyes running over my body in a way that made me feel like I needed a shower.

“Enjoying watching the master at work?” he asked.

“Actually it’s not your shot,” I said.

He blinked and people around the room started murmuring. I got the feeling I wasn’t supposed to correct him, but my dad didn’t spend years playing pool with me and drilling the rules into me for nothing.

“If you sink one of each kind in eight ball then the table is still open,” I said.

“That’s not true,” he said. “It means you get to pick which one you want and I pick solid because it’ll make it easier to sink this next shot and…”

I opened my mouth again. Looked to Joy who shook her head slightly. Yeah, she didn’t like me correcting him, but he was wrong.

“No, you’re wrong,” I said. “It’s my shot and I get to go for whatever I want.”

“Listen,” Donghyuk said, his voice taking on a patronizing tone. “It’s cute that you think you know how to play this game, but maybe leave this to the experts who know how to play?”

I bristled. I was going to lay into him when someone else spoke up. One of the football players.

“She’s right Donghyuk,” he said, holding up his phone. “You’ve been playing it wrong for years.”

That was good for a couple of guys around the table laughing and giving him a hard time. Maybe Joy didn’t want me correcting him, but the guys around the table sure as hell didn’t have any trouble giving him a hard time.

“Fine,” he finally said. “If you know the rules then you go ahead. Just remember our bet.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I hadn’t agreed to any bet. He was the one who said he got some time alone with me and he didn’t bother asking me if I was even okay with that.

So pretty typical for Donghyuk, really.

Well then. The only thing to do was make sure he didn’t win so I didn’t have to worry about him winning any bets I didn’t agree to.

The first shot was easy enough. He was right to go for it. Nice and easy. The next shot was more tricky, a bank shot off the end of the pool table, but really it wasn’t much more difficult than the first one. Especially considering my dad had taught me how to do all of that.

Five minutes later all the solid balls were in and all the stripes were still on the table. I smiled at my handiwork and leaned against my cue.

“So I guess that means I win, right?”

I grinned and turned to look at the rest of the room. I was expecting them to be happy or something, but they were staring at me like I was an alien from another planet. Donghyuk stared with his mouth hanging open, his gaze moving between the pool table and me as though he was having trouble believing I’d actually just done what I’d just done.

Everyone was astonished but Joy, that is. She simply shook her head. The meaning there was clear. She didn’t approve of what I’d just done any more than she approved of me telling Donghyuk to get lost out at the keg.

I sighed. If she liked the guy so much then why didn’t she go for him? The two of them were a match made in heaven, after all.

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Donghyuk asked.

“My dad was a pool shark back in his college days. He passed a few things onto me,” I said.

I figured I was in the clear. I figured Donghyuk wouldn’t bother me after that humiliating defeat. I figured wrong. His face broke into a huge grin and I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

He walked around the table and wrapped an arm around me. “You were pretty good there. Now why don’t you come for a walk with me and we can see how good you really are?”

I winced at the implication there. Did he really just use a line that cheesy on me? Did he really think a line that cheesy was going to work?

The only problem was he had his arm around me and there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get away from him if I wanted to. I shot a look over my shoulder to Joy but all she did was give me a thumbs up like I should be excited about this or something.

Damn it.

He pulled me out of the back side of the pool house and I saw that they had a hot tub on the other side. Which seemed odd considering there was already a hot tub on the pool side of things. This one looked out onto a small woods instead of a corn field and there was a single dim light providing illumination.

I suppose it was supposed to look nice or romantic or something, but really it just looked creepy.

Speaking of creepy. Donghyuk leaned in a little closer and his lips were puckering up like he was expecting a kiss or something.

Ugh. What was this guy’s problem? Couldn’t he take a hint?

I put a hand firmly against his chest and tried to push him away. Only he wasn’t having it. He just puckered up again and he was moving in like his life depended on locking lips with me.

Not the best situation to be in. His breath smelled like booze and I wanted to retch.

“What are you doing Donghyuk?” I hissed.