“A reason you keep avoiding me.”
“I work here. This is the opposite of hiding.”
“Then I need a better excuse for why you never let me buy you a drink.”
“You’re twenty.”
He winced. “That was cruel.”
“That was legal.”
“I could buy you a lemonade.”
“Nothing says seduction like citrus and compliance.”
His grin widened. “I’m willing to start slow.”
Behind him, Easton’s eyes moved from Gage to me.
The shift was tiny, almost nothing, just a tightening at the jaw and a stillness around his mouth, but I knew that face. I knew it better than I knew most laws, most prayers, and most lies I had told myself to get through the last seven months.
Easton had been my first interracial relationship-ish situation, and based on the emotional property damage, I could not in good conscience recommend crossing racial lines, team rosters, or men who used eye contact like a felony.
Gage was gorgeous and fun, with the kind of smile that probably worked on women who had not once been kissed against a porch railing by Easton and ruined for men who didn’t look at them like surrender was a language.
I gave Gage a smile anyway.
Easton did not get to hate me and keep every part of me frozen in place.
“I’ll start you with wings,” I said. “Lemonade if you behave.”
Gage leaned one elbow on the service counter. “What happens if I don’t behave?”
“Then I let Bliss make it.”
His eyes flicked toward Bliss, who was currently threatening Briggs with a bar spoon for trying to steal cherries from the garnish tray. “That feels dangerous.”
“You have no idea.”
A shadow fell across the counter before Gage could answer.
I knew it was Easton without looking. My skin knew, and my stupid heart knew too.
Gage straightened slightly, not intimidated exactly, but aware in the way men became aware when another man stepped into their space without asking and somehow made the room rearrange around him.
“Wade,” Gage said. “Congrats on the C.”
“Thanks.” Easton’s eyes moved from Gage back to me, and whatever had almost been nothing in his face cooled into something I recognized too well.
“Congratulations, Easton,” I said.
His hand tightened once around the glass Bliss had set in front of him. “Don’t.”
The word hit harder than it should have, mostly because he didn’t raise his voice.
I kept my smile in place because that was easier than letting everyone watch it fall. “Don’t congratulate you?”
“Don’t pretend you’re happy for me.”
