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“Then maybe you need a friend to help you figure it out.”
She tossed her gaze in my direction, and her expression edged right back into playfulness. “You want to be my friend, huh?”
I took another swig of my beer. “It’s on the table if you want it.”
I was worried there might be a few other things on the table, too.
Affected amusement pinked her cheeks, though nothing about it seemed timid. Not when everything about her was bold. She inclined closer, her words little more than a breath near my ear, “We can be friends, Ezra Patterson. As long as you drop those overbearing ways of yours.”
One side of my mouth hitched up. “I’ve been working on that. Someone told me I might have a problem with it.”
Her giggle was short and deep, so goddamn tempting my cock tightened in my jeans. “Somehow I’m having a hard time believing you could be reformed.”
“The real question is if little trespasser’s can be reformed.” I quirked a brow at her, unwilling to just drop it when neither excuse she’d given me added up.
Her lips pressed together. “Well, I’m working on that, too.”
I knew I couldn’t press her too hard without sending her running, so I gestured with my chin to the empty spot on the table in front of her. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Maybe I was wrong, and chivalry really isn’t dead,” she drew out, her voice cut in the razzing as the smile on her face spread.
And I couldn’t help the way everything went soft and heavy, the buzz in the pit of my stomach and the pull in my chest.
“You are something, Savannah Ward.” It came out lower than it should have.
Sincerer.
With a meaning I didn’t really understand myself.
The humor in her features dimmed, almost darkening, like maybe some ignorant fuck had forgotten to tell her she was amazing. “I think you’re something, too, Ezra Patterson.”
I got stuck staring for too long, only to jump when Paisley was suddenly at my other side, jostling me when she leaned in to place a tray with a bunch of frilly shot glasses rimmed in sugar in the middle of the table.
“It’s lemon drop time, baby,” she shouted.
“We really are in trouble tonight,” I grumbled.
Paisley shoved at my shoulder. “Don’t you start, Mr. Straight-Laced. This girl has on her dancing boots, and she plans to make full use of them.”
She leaned around me and plunked one of the shots in front of Savannah. “One down and then we’re on the dance floor.”
Savannah giggled, this airy sound that still pilfered low. “You aren’t going to find me complaining. My new friend Beth here warned me I was going to need to cut loose after the long week at work. Turns out, she’s a psychic.”
Laughing, Beth slung her arm around Savannah’s shoulders and tugged her toward her like they were the oldest friends. “It’s not psychic, honey. It’s called experience. For all the hard work we do, we need to have just as much fun, and I had a feeling that you might want to have some of that fun with us. I mean, we are awesome, right?”
Beth lifted her shot glass.
Savannah was grinning this…awed smile that struck me somewhere deep, like she couldn’t quite process what she was feeling. Where she was or how she’d ended up here. Like she was terrified of a newfound hope. Finally, she lifted her shot glass in return.
“Yeah, you all are really awesome.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Dakota said. She held her glass in the middle of the table. Paisley and Chloe did the same, and Caleb, Ryder, Cody, and I lifted our own drinks to meet them all.
Glasses clinked as everyone shouted, “To Savannah!”
All the girls tossed their shots back.
“And Cody!” Dakota tacked it on as an afterthought as they slammed their empties down.
“I see this celebration is no longer about me.” Cody was all grins, no offense.
Dakota waved him off. “Oh, come now, big brother. I think you get plenty of attention, don’t you? Look at this place? How many women have you not gone home with before?”
Cody rocked back in his stool, all kinds of cocky and smug. “It’s safe to say I’m running out of options.”
Dakota curled her nose. “Eww.”
He cracked up. “Maybe I’m just searching for my soul mate.”
Paisley rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that’s it.”
Paisley and Dakota both squealed when the band changed songs.
“It’s my jam! Get those booties on the dance floor!” Paisley shouted.
Dakota, Beth, and Chloe clambered off their stools.
Savannah seemed bewildered by the sudden spectacle, though she was cracking up when Paisley hauled her off her stool by the hand and dragged her onto the dance floor. Paisley set Savannah up between her and Dakota, getting her into a line that Savannah had clearly never partaken in before.
She stumbled all over the place trying to keep up with the choregraphed moves, awkward and goofy and still having the best time.
