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“And thank you.”
“For what?”
As he stands, I smile at him. It’s sincere, meaningful. “For always saying the right things.”
“It’s something I’m working on,” he says lightly, and we share a small laugh together as we make our way downstairs, praying that Verity quits with the skeptical looks.
WESTON
“Hey, you’d be slamming tequila too if you had your arm snaked down someone’s toilet all afternoon,” Adam mutters, pointing his shot glass at me before he drinks it. He’s still in his work pants, his shirt greasy. It’s perfectly normal for Adam to hit the bar straight from work. “And my right hand hasn’t been the same since I hit that incredibly solid bone structure of yours.”
Adamishilarious, even though I hate to admit it. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “It’s a shame I didn’t leave any lasting damage. A permanently bruised eye might have looked quite badass next to that nose of yours.”
Cameron chuckles as Adam flips me the middle finger. It’s been a few weeks since our fight at the club, and although this is the first time I’ve seen him since, there’s zero animosity there. It’s easy to clash with Adam, but equally easy to forgive him. I’m glad I decided to meet him and Cameron for a beer tonight. It’s been a while, and it’s nice to be back in our favorite bar together. There’s a good crowd here and the atmosphere is relaxed. The only thing missing is Brooks, but it’s not often he joins us anyway.
“Right, when are you getting your ass back into the gym?” Cameron asks, eyeing me over the rim of his beer bottle. “Because those arms of yours are losing definition. You’re going to lose your street cred on the force if you have scrawny arms, you know.”
Adam looks me up and down. “Yeah, he’s right. Did they stop providing donuts at work?”
“Give me a break,” I say. “It’s been a rough couple weeks. I’ll hit the gym again soon.”
“And I’m going to make you suffer,” warns Cameron with a gleeful smirk. As a personal trainer, he thrives off of making his clients’ legs tremble when he forces them into the hack squat machine. He isn’t joking – hewillmake me suffer when I have my next session with him.
“Hey, are you still training that hot housewife?” Adam asks Cameron.
As they chat, I swig my beer and absentmindedly scroll through my phone. I click on the Instagram app by accident, immediately swipe back out of it, then pause. There was something on my usually blank home page. I open the app again, and I grin way too hard at my screen. Gracie is the only person I follow, and she’s finally posted her first photo to this new account of hers. It’s a picture of her and her sister that I took of them earlier today in Santa Cruz, their arms around each other’s shoulders and smiling happily. The caption reads:cute genes.
“Hey.” Cameron clinks his beer on the table in front of me to break my focus. When I glance up, he and Adam both stare at me. “What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing,” I say, but before I can lock my phone and put it away, Adam launches himself across the table and snatches it straight out of my hand. “Hey! C’mon, man. Don’t be a dick.”
Adam is, of course, a dick. He studies my screen and arches one single brow. “Since when do you have Instagram? And Gracie Taylor? Isn’t that Elena’s friend?”
“Elena?” Cameron looks at Adam, perplexed. “That girl you brought home with us the night you fought with Weston? You actually remember this one’s name?”
Adam screws up his face in sarcasm and says, “Haha. Original. But let’s focus on Weston.” He turns my phone around, showing off Gracie’s photo to Cameron and me. “Why are you grinning like a weirdo at a photo of some chick you said you weren’t interested in? Did you take my advice on board? Are you banging her? If so, put it here.” He holds up his palm for me to high-five, but he’s met with a steely glare instead.
I rip my phone out of his hand and shove it into my pocket. Adam makes it so easy to want to punch the living daylights out of him, but I keep my temper in check this time. “I’ve been seeing her, okay? But it’s not like that. We’re friends. She’s a nice girl.”
Cameron rolls his eyes. “Friends.”
And maybe I can’t argue with him, because I’m not sure if I even believe it myself anymore. I press my beer to my lips and think of that kiss with Gracie earlier. I wanted to kiss hersobad. As I held her in my arms, it felt right. An urge I couldn’t fight, and I could see it in the shine of her blue eyes that it felt right for her, too. Fuck, I hate it when she cries. It brings out this intense protectiveness in me that I’ve only ever felt with my mom, my sister, and Charlotte.
When I drove Gracie back to San Francisco to hit up the DMV office, she was adorably giddy and a little nervous. She filled out the application, passed her vision test, got her photo taken, and even took the knowledge test right there and then after skimming through the California Driver’s Handbook on her phone during the journey home from Santa Cruz. When she pranced out with her shiny new provisional license, her grin seemed permanently etched onto her cheeks.
“I’m your friend and you don’t smile at photos of me the way you just smiled at that photo of her,” Adam says to me, his voice relentlessly mocking.
“That’s because she’s cute and you ain’t,” Cameron says, and I nod in agreement.
“I’ll grab another round,” I tell them, and polish off the remainder of my beer as I stand from the table. It’s the perfect excuse to end the conversation, because Adam will never turn down another drink.
I head up to the bar, but it’s still pretty packed. I squeeze into a gap in the crowd and wait patiently with my elbows resting on the bar top and my credit card in my hand. Honestly, I don’t mind the wait. The barman is already working at speed to get everyone served, so I watch the baseball game on the flatscreen above.
“Tell me about it. I shouldn’t have gone back there last night, but c’mon. You’d do the same, right? You’re drunk and there’s no decent women at Alchemist, but it’s alright because you’ve got a girl at home who’s still in love with you. I was being resourceful, and exes smash all the time. It’s not a big deal.”
My ears prick up. I keep my eyes set on the TV, but I’m now fully tuned in to the conversation next to me. It sounds awfully familiar, and my pulse quickens with adrenaline. There’s no way there are really guys out here talking about their exes so disrespectfully. Charlotte may have left me, but I could never, ever say a single bad word about her. How, when I love her?
“I could have her back like this,” the guy continues, snapping his fingers together, “so she’s still an option. And, honestly, I’ll probably go back to her eventually once I get bored.”
