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Dylan glared at Eric. “Yeah, well, I don’t like him.” Which seemed to be a recurring theme for him with the men Serena had dated lately.
Eric’s laugh was filled with humor. “He seems like a perfectly nice guy. Besides, you don’t know him well enough to make that judgment call, unless it’s based on your feelings for Serena, which, in that case, I completely understand why you wouldn’t like him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dylan asked, fiddling with the buzzer on the table.
“That no matter what kind of guy she dates, he’s never going to be good enough, because you want Serena for yourself.”
Dylan did want her for himself. Oh, God, he really did. But when it came to Serena, his wants and desires were selfish ones because he just couldn’t give her the things she needed and deserved, and the chance to have the kind of marriage and family she longed for was the one thing he’d never take away from her.
A loud buzzing snapped Dylan back to the present, along with Coffee Bean Guy’s voice calling out, “Big toe!” and the emcee awarding him the point for answering correctly.
“Big toe?” he asked Eric, annoyed with himself for allowing thoughts of Serena to divert his attention from the game. “What the hell was the question?”
“In the human body, what is the hallux?” Eric repeated, then gave Dylan a pointed look. “I had no idea, but I thought you said you were good at this.”
“I am good at this,” Dylan argued, watching as Serena gave Grant a high five, which was something they’d always done. “I knew that answer.”
“Well, clearly you didn’t win the point,” Eric drawled.
Dylan swallowed a not-so-nice response and positioned his hand right above the red plastic buzzer, watching as Coffee Bean Guy said something to make Serena laugh. He heard the sweet, affectionate sound from across the room and a shaft of white-hot jealousy sliced right through him.
Another loud buzz rang out, and a woman yelled, “Millennium Falcon!”
“Fuck,” Dylan swore beneath his breath, and glanced at Eric, who was trying to hold back laughter. “I take it the question was, ‘What is the name of Han Solo’s ship’?”
“Yep,” he confirmed with a nod. “You’re kind of late on the trigger though.”
“Whatever.” Dylan gave his head a hard shake to completely clear it from all distractions and focused on the next round.
The guy holding the microphone cleared his throat before asking, “In what year was the fugitive slave law—”
Buzz! The question wasn’t even finished and Serena shouted out, “Eighteen fifty!”
“That’s right,” the emcee said, impressed that she’d guessed accurately. “Eighteen fifty was the year the fugitive slave law was passed.”
Dylan groaned as she was awarded another point and did that cute, excited shimmy thing in her chair that she’d always done with him when they won a round. He’d always sucked at learning history, while Serena had minored in the subject in college. What his nerdy brain hadn’t retained from school, her more refined one had, which was why they’d always made a such a great trivia duo. Tonight, she had a partner who was holding his own, and Dylan had a teammate who didn’t seem to know shit, or didn’t care if he won. The odds were not in Dylan’s favor.
Eric chuckled. “You are so off your game tonight.”
“Yeah, well, that’s all about to change,” Dylan said, his tone serious as he cracked his knuckles and blocked out everything but the questions that were being asked. No way was he going to let team Coffee Bean walk away victorious tonight.
For the next hour, teams battled it out. With each round, the questions became more difficult and other pairs started falling so far behind on points that the emcee dropped them out of the game, until it was just Dylan and Grant suddenly having a dick-measuring contest with the two of them trying to out-trivia one another, while Serena watched the ridiculous rivalry unfold, and Eric finished off his third beer. Dylan knew he was being a chest-pounding, alpha asshole, trying to one-up her date. And he didn’t care.
“Last question coming up,” the emcee announced, pulling a card with the final trivia of the night. “We’ve got two teams left battling it out for the win. Who is going to be this month’s champion and walk away with bragging rights and a fifty-dollar gift certificate to enjoy dinner and drinks here at the pub?”
“I am,” Dylan muttered, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he positioned his hand above the buzzer once more.
Across the bar, Grant did the same, both of them poised and ready.
“What type of charge does a neutron carry?” the emcee asked.
The answer to the chemistry question was a no-brainer for Dylan, and he slammed his hand down on the button, mere seconds after Grant hit his. The guy with the microphone turned toward Serena’s date to hear his answer, while Dylan prepared himself for defeat.
“A negative charge,” Grant said confidently.
“Nooo,”
the emcee said, as shocked as the rest of the players watching the end to the game. “That is not the correct answer, which gives your opponent the chance to steal the final point and win tonight’s game if his response is accurate.”
