Free A Measure of Love by Sophie Jackson Page B

him hoped that maybe Lexie liked him in the same way, but apparently, with her going to the dance with someone else, he was deluding himself.
    “It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled before taking a giant swig of his soda.
    “Because of this Richards punk?”
    Riley snorted at the way his father spat the name.
    “So she picked him to go to this dance over you?”
    Riley rubbed his hands through his hair.
    His father hummed. “So what did she say when you asked her to the dance?”
    Riley frowned. “Nothing. I didn’t ask her.”
    Park narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t ask her,” he clarified, to which Riley shook his head. “But I thought you wanted to take her?”
    “I do. I did,” Riley blurted.
    “So why the hell didn’t you ask her?”
    “Because . . .” Riley tried to come up with an answer but was suddenly struck with the overwhelming feeling that he’d truly screwed up. “I just assumed she’d—”
    His words were cut off by his father’s loud belly laugh. It echoed around the yard and, despite it normally being an infectious sound, it caused a large bubble of annoyance to swell in Riley’s chest. “I’m glad you find this all so funny,” he griped.
    Park clapped a hand against Riley’s back before he got up and stormed back into the house. “Oh, Riley.” His father tried to calm himself by putting the back of his hand to his mouth. “Son,” he muttered into it. “Listen, if I had to give you only one piece of advice in your entire life regarding women, it’d be to never assume anything!”
    Riley grimaced in confusion. “But we’re friends and . . .”
    “And she was probably waiting for you to ask her.”
    His words slowly settled around them. She had been acting weird recently. She’d snapped every time the dance was mentioned and commented frequently about how she “didn’t want a new dress anyway.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “Yep,” his father agreed.
    Riley dropped his face to his hands. “What do I do now?”
    He didn’t care that he sounded desperate. He was desperate.
    “You go and ask her.”
    Wow. Didn’t that sound simple?
    “She’s not speaking to me,” Riley confessed. “I told her she was an idiot for going with Blake and . . . a few other things.” He cleared his throat, hating every barbed word he’d thrown at her the last time they’d spoken. “We haven’t talked since Monday.”
    His father sat forward, reaching into his jeans back pocket, and pulled out his wallet. From its depths he retrieved ten dollars and handed it to Riley. “Then my second piece of advice about women is, flowers always work as an apology.”
    Riley gaped. “You want me to buy her flowers?”
    Park nodded. “And apologize your ass off.”
    “Then what?”
    “Then you ask her to the dance.”
    “But what if—”
    “She won’t.”
    “But how can you be sure that—”
    “She will.”
    Riley stood, the ten dollars clenched in his hand. “Okay.” He pointed at his dad. “Flowers. Then I ask her.”
    Park stood, too, his smile wide and maybe a little proud. “Sounds like a plan.”
    ·   ·   ·
    Riley grabbed the flowers he’d tied to his handlebars before he dropped his bike on Lexie’s front lawn. He ran up the porch steps, lifted his hand to knock on the door, and paused. Christ. He was suddenly finding it hard to breathe and his heart thumped so hard he could hear it.
    “Grow a set,” he grumbled to himself, knowing that’s exactly what Tate would have said to him had he been there. He gathered himself and knocked twice.
    After a brief moment in which Riley took a few calming breaths, the door opened, and he came face to face with a blue-and-red plaid shirt and a waft of cigar smoke. “Mr. Pierce,” Riley muttered, looking at the man with a nervous smile. He hated that Mr. Pierce intimidated him, especially when he saw how nice the man was with his wife and daughters. Lexie found her father’s contempt toward Riley hysterical. But then, she was and