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West looked over to the others watching our conversation and motioned toward me. “Can I get some backup here?”
“Hehasbeen a little off,” Donovan said from where he leaned against the chest of his massive boyfriend, Kelly, and when I shot him a look of surprise, he shrugged. “What? I didn’t say it was abadthing.”
Daire grunted beside me. “They’re trying to fuck with your head for the game. Don’t let ’em.”
Not wanting them to read more intowhyI’d apparently been sporting a goofy grin, I decided to follow Daire’s suggestion and focus on the game. “Who are we playing first?”
“That would be me,” West said, strolling over toward the empty table, and then he lifted his chin at Kelly. “And this guy, if he can manage to let Van go for an hour.”
“Eh, maybe half an hour.” Kelly dropped his hands from around Donovan and smacked his boyfriend’s ass.
I couldn’t exactly fault him for that, since if Archer was anywhere near me, I wouldn’t want to keep my hands off him either. I let my thoughts wander back to him only for a minute, just long enough for West to rack the balls for our table.
I nodded for Daire to take the first shot. “You can break.” He had enough power in his shots that he never failed to get at least a couple of balls in.
The thought made me snort out a laugh, though, because…well…apparently I’d reverted to immaturity at playing with a couple balls.
West gave me a strange look, like he’d caught me doing something out of character, and shook his head. But before he could start back up with the smack talking, Daire managed to sink three balls on his break, and West cursed.
Daire wasn’t much of a smiler—that would probably freak most of us out—but he looked satisfied as he met my eyes across the grey felt. “Stripes.”
I nodded and scanned the table for where to make my shot. When we played teams, we alternated play within our twosome until we missed a shot, and I didn’t want West to even get a chance at the table. He was being too much of an instigator tonight already.
I easily sank the eleven ball into a corner pocket, allowing Daire to come in behind me for his.
“What the fuck,” West complained when we were down to two stripes on the table.
From the other side, East smirked. “Looks like you won’t be getting a turn tonight. Feel free to come chalk up my stick if you want to make yourself useful.”
“I’m not getting anywhere near your stick,” West mumbled. As I leaned down over the table, he hovered over me in an attempt to distract.
I wished I could say it didn’t work, but I barely skimmed the side of the ball I’d been aiming for, getting it nowhere near a pocket.
“Hah! Success.” West’s pout quickly turned into a massive grin as he shoved me aside to start playing the game. Finally.
“You’re such a damn aggravatus, West,” Daire said. He plucked two shots off the tray the bartender carried, downing them in quick succession before I could grab my first.
I hesitated taking the shot, remembering the last time I’d thought doing shots was a good idea.No. Not tonight.
I waved the bartender by, and as he headed to our opponents, East called out, “What’s wrong, Preston? Have a few too many the other night?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we had a good time.” Mischief gleamed in his eyes. “Scared of round two?”
“I’m not doing that again,” I said, shaking my head. “That was called stupidity.”
“That was called a good time. I’m not surprised you don’t recognize it, but what was the reason for that again? You never did say.”
I could remember all too clearly the irritation I’d been feeling at that moment over Archer’s texts calling me a mistake. No, the mistake had been getting East’s help to make me forget. Then again, if he hadn’t, would I have shown up on Archer’s doorstep? Definitely not. Which meant it never would’ve led to more, to last night and this morning…
I definitely wasn’t amistaketo him anymore.
Shrugging, I said, “I’d just had a bad day.”
“Seemed like more than that to me.” East’s eyes practically bored a hole into the side of my head, but I ignored him.
“Was it a bad day last night too?” West asked. “You didn’t come out after dinner with your parents.”
