“Kissing me.” It’s easy enough to slip on a cocky grin and pretend I already know the answer. I’ve had plenty of practice, though it’s a strategy I’m more accustomed to using with industry blowhards than as a form of flirting. “You’ve thought about it, right?”
“Excuse me?” The annoyed edge to Eleanor’s voice is somewhat undermined by the way she can’t stop fidgeting.
I step closer, knuckles barely grazing the curve of her waist. She looks up at me through her lashes and her lips part. The air between us grows heavier, thrumming with tension.
“Tell me I’m wrong.” My voice drops basement low, turns the statement into a something like a dare.
She doesn’t tell me I’m wrong. For a long-drawn-out moment, she doesn’t say anything at all. She stares up at me andit feels like that moment before a live show, when the lights go down and the crowd goes quiet, breath held while you wait for the first chord to strike.
“?’Cause I have,” I admit. “I’ve thought about it.” Eleanor’s tongue darts out to lick her lips, and she gets that tiny crease back between her brows, and I’m holding my breath again, still, almost dizzy with anticipation.
I’m so completely wrapped up in this moment, in Eleanor, that I have a full-body jump scare when Mae pops up right in front of us again.
“See! What did I tell you!” She squeals at us, oblivious to the way Eleanor and I startle apart. “Total relationship goals.”
Mae presents us with an envelope stamped with the hotel’s insignia. When neither of us takes it, she gives it a little shake. Chips rattle around inside. I grab the envelope and nod my thanks.
“As promised, I’ve deleted the post,” she adds. I pull out my phone and open the app to double-check. Sure enough, the post has been taken down. “I really am sorry about all of this. You guys helped so much by staying in the game, though. We actually had one couple sign up for a tour of the venue.”
I turn my attention to the chips, opening the envelope and counting them, if only to distract myself from the dull sting under my rib cage when Eleanor refuses to meet my gaze.
It takes a moment for the chip in my palm to fully come into focus. “Wait, what is this?” I hold it between two fingers and raise a brow at Mae. “Nonnegotiable chips?”
Mae’s brow puckers slightly, as if to ask what the issue is. “That’s right.”
“Nonnegotiable?” I repeat, sounding much more exasperated this time.
“What’s the problem?” Eleanor looks from me to Mae. “You said the prize was twenty-five hundred, right?”
“That’s right,” Mae says calmly. “You can use them in any one of the hotel’s casinos,” she goes on, as if this is a selling point.
“You mean… we can’t cash them in?”
“Jesus.” My fingers curl around the chip, squeezing hard enough my knuckles blanch. My fist drops to my side, defeated. “We can only gamble with them.”
“Have fun, okay?” Mae says with a smile. “You guys are still in town another night, right? Hit me up if you want to get a drink tonight!”
With that last delusion, Mae moves away from us. We both stare blankly in her wake, until finally Eleanor turns to face me.
“It’s fine,” she says. “We can just… we can find someone to buy these chips from us, right?”
“Why would anyone want to do that?”
She massages her temples. “I don’t know.”
The feeling of failure settles over me with the weight of a familiar, well-worn blanket. It’s ridiculous, because I never expected to win in the first place. But getting announced the winner, and the kiss that followed, and the fact that Eleanor is now standing several feet away with her arms crossed—it’s given me whiplash.
I heave a sigh. “I’ll call in a favor.”
“Oh, suddenly you have a favor to call in? Why wasn’t that on the table earlier?”
“Because now we’re out of time.”
Dempsey will have loaded in and finished sound check by now. They’re probably already on their way to the brewery.
Eleanor eyes me suspiciously. “Who are you going to call?”
The urge to answer,Ghostbusters, is strong, especially because I know she won’t be any more appreciative of my actual answer. “Look, I know you don’t like him, but Billy will—”
