Bryce rolled his eyes. “It feels like it’s killing me.”
“Only because you’re keeping it inside.” Verity glanced toward the far wall of the club, and Bryce let his stare follow. He watched Holden climb the stairs, muscles flexing under the tight stretch of his plain white shirt. “For what it’s worth, the feelingismutual.”
“How can you tell?”
Holden reached the loft and looked down at the bar, smiling when he caught Bryce and Verity staring up at him.
“He looks at you the same way.”
“Does he?”
Holden finally looked away and Bryce let go of a breath he’d been holding.
“Does he?” Verity mocked. “Be serious.”
Thankfully, before Bryce could come up with a response, a handsome man in a suit walked up to the bar. He ordered three drinks and carried them all away, up to the loft and into the dark. Bryce rested his elbows against the bar and groaned, unable to pick Holden’s silhouette out of the shadows.
The night dragged on, and an hour later, Holden reappeared. His hair had finally dried and he walked downstairs slowly. Bryce watched as he made his way to the bar, setting down his empty beer bottle and pushing it toward Bryce.
“Another?” Bryce asked.
“I think one’s good. I want my wits about me later.”
“Why’s that?”
Holden’s lips quirked up at the corners. “I’ve got plans.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. They’re going to keep me busy until Monday night at the earliest, so I don’t want to spend half that time hungover and hating life.”
Bryce swallowed hard, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Monday?”
“If that works for you.”
“It very much works for me,” Bryce said.
Holden pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and set it down beside his beer bottle.
“Your brother won’t worry about your whereabouts?”
“He’ll assume the worst, which for him means I’m shacked up in a hotel with a married man or five.”
Holden’s expression darkened. “I don’t like the way he thinks about you. The way he sees you.”
Bryce thought about the conversation he’d had with his brother a couple of weeks before, when he’d gotten the job and told Merrick where he’d be working. It was hard for Bryce to reconcile his understanding of his brother with a version of the man he didn’t know. The mere thought of Merrick enjoying timeat Rapture was something impossible for Bryce to comprehend, and he imagined it was much the same for Merrick to do to him. There was so much about each other they didn’t know anymore. Maybe that had been unintentional or maybe it had been by design—they were too many years into their lives for Bryce to know for sure—but it cost him nothing to ignore the digs his brother made about his sex life and his enjoyment of it.
“He’s just projecting,” Bryce said without having any idea about what Merrick said about him when he wasn’t around. “Whatever he thinks about me doesn’t bother me at all, so don’t let it bother you.”
Holden studied his face carefully, obviously searching for any indication Bryce wasn’t being honest. He was being absolutely truthful about Merrick. There wasn’t anything his brother said in public that he hadn’t implied in private.
“I’ll see you after work then?” Holden asked. “Mine until Monday?”
Yours until forever, Bryce thought.
“Until Monday.”
CHAPTER 17
