Page 8 of The Best Shot

“Mostly?” Sophie asked.

Annie lifted her glass. “Depends on how fragile you are.”

Sophie took a fortifying sip of her wine and sat, tucking one leg beneath her.

Tabby and Nico filtered in a few minutes later, Tabby already talking, Nico a step behind her, quiet as always. She crossed the room fast, braids loose, and pulled me into a hug that was mostly hair.

“You’re here. Missed your face.”

“Same here.”

“Three months. One text.”

“Yes.” Apparently my one text had been a topic of discussion.

Nico hugged me next, brief and solid, then drifted toward the back window and the meat grilling beyond it.

Tabby watched him go, fond. “I really thought he was above the whole man-and-smoker thing.”

Ava refilled my glass, handed it over, and dropped onto the arm of the couch above us. I finally folded down onto the floor beside Annie, and Havoc rearranged himself across both our laps with great ceremony, like he’d been waiting all night for the spot to open up.

Then the front door opened again, and Hale appeared.

Jeans, boots, a twelve-pack loose in one hand. Deep brown skin warm under the entry light, locs pulled back off his face.

“You’re late,” Ava said.

“Thirty minutes. Basically on time.”

“It’s not.”

“Ava, honey, stereotypes exist for a reason. It’s the South.”

She pointed at him and lowered her voice. “Sophie’s here. Be charming. What am I saying, you’re always charming. Be good.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He was still scanning the room when his eyes found mine, and his face went warm and open. It felt different from the smile he’d walked in wearing.

Or maybe I imagined it.

“Well,” he said. “Look who’s back.”

He crossed the room in that loose-limbed stroll, never in a hurry about anything, and crouched down beside me.

“Hey.” The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Glad you made it home, darlin’.”

“Takes more than Patagonia.”

“I missed you.”

“Did you?”

“Absolutely. You’re the only one ever remotely on my side. Your friends don’t regulate well without you around.”

“Hey, we do okay,” Annie said beside me.

His brow went up.