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Nolan raised an incredulous eyebrow. “So, beige?”
“That’s not beige. That’s . . .” King cocked his head, like he was searching for a better word.
“Beige?” Nolan repeated, amused despite himself.
“No. It’s . . .” King snapped his fingers. “Tan.”
“So dark beige?”
King narrowed his gray eyes. “You’re impossible.”
“I’m impossible? Says the guy about to nab himself a three-hundred-dollar souvenir cup—for free, I might add—that he’s never going to use again.”
“Little do you know,” King said as they stepped forward in line. They were up next. “It’s going to replace my reusable water bottle at the office.”
“It’ll get stolen for sure.”
“Please. My colleagues either respect me or fear me.”
Nolan believed it. King worked for a marketing agency that serviced big-name clients nationally and internationally, like Tiffany & Co. and Mercedes, a couple of large fast-food chains, and even Sport U Apparel—the company whose name was on the side of this building. He’d been there for more than a decade, so he had clout with the clients and with his colleagues. Everyone he’d worked with for years respected him, and the recent grads just getting their feet wet after receiving their bachelor’s in business administration were a little afraid of him.
Didn’t help that King was six-three and heavily muscled, with the kind of broody face that belonged on a luxury watch ad—stubbled and chiseled jaw, intense gray eyes, a patrician nose, and a slight curve to his eyebrows that always made him look like he was frowning. Hair the color of burned coffee fell over his forehead, and the whiskers on his upper lip and jaw were very Don’t you want to buy this watch and get laid by someone who looks like me?
The irony being that in his entire career, King had never represented a watch brand.
Nolan bought him the souvenir cup, a glass beer stein engraved with the Trailblazers logo. It wasn’t anything fancy, but when they said all-you-can-drink, they meant it. King could bring the mug back to any future Trailblazers home game for as long as he lived for up to three beer refills per game.
It wasn’t a bad bet considering tall cans and drafts were anywhere from twelve to sixteen dollars. On the lower end, the souvenir cup paid for itself in twenty-five refills. Worth it for season ticket holders or fans who attended multiple games per season.
Not so worth it for King, who lived a seven-hour drive away.
Not so worth it for Nolan either, considering he didn’t get to keep the cup.
Once Nolan had paid for it, he stood aside while King hemmed and hawed over what kind of beer he wanted and texted Eli back.
Nolan:
King says his favorite color is the fur of a lion lounging in the Serengeti.
Eli:
*thinking face emoji* What is that? Light brown? Dark beige?
Nolan laughed long and hard.
Eli didn’t want to be nervous about meeting Nolan’s best friend, but he very much was.
He walked into the same sports bar he and Nolan had visited last fall—when Eli had gotten spectacularly drunk and landed on Sandro Zanetti’s doorstep after midnight to lament about Nolan’s astrophysicist girlfriend—and paused just inside the doorway. He still wore his post-game suit, though he’d left his tie in his car, a move he was thankful for when he caught sight of the guy Nolan sat with at a high-top table tucked into a shadowy corner.
Golden skin, scruffy stubble, wavy hair long enough to fall over his forehead and curl behind his ears, high cheekbones, and deep-set, light-colored eyes. King was lean yet obviously muscled without being body-builder thick.
He kind of looked like a Mediterranean pirate who’d discovered skincare. Sexy in the way expensive cologne was sexy, but all Eli could think was This guy is Nolan’s BFF?
King was . . . intense. Definitely didn’t give off an air of approachability or friendliness. Instead, he came across as someone who knew he was being looked at and was perfectly comfortable with that.
Next to Nolan’s friendly-professor energy and steady, quiet confidence, King felt sharp-edged and restless, even from across the room. It was like looking at a college professor and the troublemaking student he’d caught drawing dicks in a reference book.
King looked like the kind of guy who could talk his way into trouble and somehow convince others to join him.
