Page 40 of Offside

“I was handling it.”

“I know.” I held her gaze. “He still had his hands on you.”

A beat. She searched my face. “You said I was yours.”

I held her gaze and did not look away and did not qualify it and did not take it back. “Yeah,” I said. “I did.”

The flush deepened. She dropped her gaze to her drink, then brought it back to mine. Whatever she’d been managing to keep off her face, she wasn’t managing it anymore.

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Okay,” I said, letting out a breath to calm myself and resetting.

I put my hand on the small of her back as we turned from the bar and guided her back toward the patio. She didn’t move away from it. I kept it there, my thumb tracing one slow circle against the fabric of her dress. Griffin had asked me to make sure she got home safe. I was pretty sure this wasn’t what he had in mind, but I wasn’t letting her out of my sight the rest of the night. That was for damn sure.

By the time we ended up back on the patio, the group had thinned. A few of the younger guys had moved inside or left, and it was Cole and Theo and Eli and two rookies. I pulled my chair close to Maren’s at the end of the table where the light was low and the conversation was easy, and when I sat I let my hand find the back of her chair. She didn’t move away from it, and I left it there.

Cole was telling a story about a promotional appearance that had gone spectacularly sideways. Voices, gestures, a dramatic pause before the punchline, and the table was laughing and it was a good night, and I was only half there because Maren was warm beside me and the fabric of her dress was thin and she kept leaning into me, a degree at a time, like she hadn’t meant to. I held onto every bit of it—the weight of her shoulder against my arm, the way she laughed with her whole face, the small sound she made when something landed perfectly.

Cole landed the punchline. The table erupted. Maren grabbed my arm and laughed against my shoulder, and I went completely still for exactly one second and then made myself act normal about it. I laughed at Cole’s story, made myself be a person sitting at a table with his teammates, and not a man aware of every breath she took.

I raised my head. Cole was watching me. Not with the wide grin he’d had a moment ago, but with something quieter and more careful, and he raised an eyebrow at me by one millimeter before looking smoothly away and picking up his beer.

He said nothing. Not speaking was, I thought, the most alarming thing Cole Westbrook had ever done.

Across the table Theo took in the exchange with his usual careful patience, and Eli was looking at the middle distance with no expression at all, which with Eli meant he’d seen everything and had decided to stay out of it.

I took a drink.

The night wound down around eleven. The rookies headed out first, then Theo, then Eli, who paused beside me on his way past, said nothing, and put a hand briefly on my shoulder. One beat, enough, and left.

Me and Cole and Maren, and then Cole stretched and announced he had an early morning and was getting too old for weeknights, which was a complete fiction because Cole Westbrook had never voluntarily left a social situation before it was over. He said goodnight to Maren with a hug, gave me one last look I was going to ignore, and left.

Just the two of us on the patio under the buzzing lights, the mister putting up a faint cool haze, the bar noise a low hum through the glass door.

“Thank you,” Maren said. “For earlier. Even though I didn’t need it.”

“Even though,” I agreed.

She turned her cup in her hands. “The Ashby Letters thing,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about the Sable theory.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“You’re very wrong. Sable is clearly the key to the whole third arc, which you would see if you weren’t so committed to being wrong about it.”

“I’m committed to being right about it.”

“Same energy, different outcome.” She propped her chin in her hand. “Text me your full theory. I want to dismantle it properly.”

It landed the way a good shift did. The ease of being exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. “Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

She smiled at me. The lights buzzed above us and it was an ordinary night in Phoenix and I knew exactly what this was between us and was no longer particularly interested in pretending otherwise.

I was getting my keys out when I realized she’d made her way to the front of the bar, phone out, pulling up a rideshare app.

“What are you doing?” I asked.