Page 11 of The Best Shot

My cheek brushed his shoulder, and for a second the rest of the house seemed to fall back, the party carrying on without us.

Hale’s hand settled warm between my shoulder blades, and my face found the side of his neck, the scent of engine oil and neroli making something low in my stomach go strangely quiet.

I counted one breath.

Then two.

He let go.

I lifted a brow. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you change the subject.”

His smile was easy. “We should get back out there.”

“Yup.”

He grabbed two beers and headed back to the party without looking back.

I stayed in the kitchen. Finished my drink.

The warmth in my chest was from the wine, the evening, and twelve weeks of solitude taking a toll.

That was the explanation I chose.

I set my glass down and followed him back to the noise.

3

“I KNOW, RIGHT.”

YASMINE

By midnight, the wine had turned generous and the room had shrunk to fit.

I was in the armchair with my legs tucked under me, watching Annie hold court from her spot on the floor. She’d started with a story about her coworker and, through a series of escalations I’d only half tracked, arrived at her latest working theory about men who started sentences with as a man.

Tabby had gone half-horizontal across Nico’s lap sometime in the last hour, neither of them seeming to notice or care.

I’d missed this. The way a conversation could start somewhere, take three wild detours, catch a second wind, and still land exactly where it belonged. People who knew each other well enough that silence didn’t need filling, and teasing felt like love.

Ava had kicked off her slippers and was stretched across the couch, glass in hand, hair twisted into neat rows that sharpened everything about her face. She’d quit law not long ago to focus on her art, but the attorney still slipped through when she got worked up.

“I’m just saying,” Ava declared, pointing her glass at no one and everyone, “the phrase ‘as a man’ has never once led to anything I actually needed to hear.”

“Not once,” Annie agreed.

Tabby finally lifted her head off Nico’s lap long enough to add, “Soon as a man say ‘as a man,’ my spirit leave my body.”

Hale lifted a hand. “Now, to be fair, as a man, I think sometimes y’all⁠—”

The pillow Annie launched at him cut him off clean. “No.”

“Boooo,” Ava heckled.

“Denied,” Annie said.

“On sight,” Tabby muttered, eyes still closed.

Hale set the pillow aside and glanced around like he was reconsidering his company. “I was joking.”