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“You look good, too. That looks like the shirt I borrowed,” I said, running my hand along the collar.
His smile widened. “I never got that one back from you. What did you do with it?”
“It’s somewhere in my room,” I said dismissively. “Do you want it back?”
He leaned his elbow on the bar. “Not if you want to keep it.”
I flushed at the words. They hadn’t even been dirty or antagonizing or anything, and somehow, they still made me flush. “What would I do with a shirt that’s three times too big?”
“You tell me.”
Blaire covered her mouth to keep from laughing. She slid me a Bombay and lime. “Here you go.”
“Hey, add these to my tab,” Hollin said to the bartender.
“Sure thing, man,” the guy said.
“You’re the birthday boy,” Blaire protested. “Aren’t we supposed to buy you drinks?”
“Please, the Wrights are covering my tab.”
I laughed. “Of course.”
Blaire winked at me. “Have a good time.”
Then, she disappeared back to our friends.
“Well, she’s subtle, isn’t she?” I said, taking a sip of my drink.
“She knows about us?”
“Don’t your friends know what happened?”
“I told Julian. He thinks you’re out of my league.” Hollin rubbed the back of his head. “He’s probably right.”
I was stunned by the comment. That he’d even admit that. He wasn’t self-deprecating. Normally, he was pure arrogance.
“That’s not the Hollin I’m used to fencing with. I thought the sun shone out of your ass or whatever.”
He grinned. “I mean, obviously, it does. I’m awesome.”
I snorted. “There you are.”
“I’m glad you made it, Piper.”
I took another drink of my gin. “Me too.”
We returned to the rest of the party. Everyone was carefully trying not to notice that we’d had an entire conversation without arguing. Or that Hollin kept looking at me as if he might eat me for dinner. And yet he hadn’t made any of the crude remarks I’d anticipated. I’d anticipated at least one birthday-sex reference, but nothing. Not one sexual reference directed to me, not one push to get under my skin, not a single button pressed. I didn’t know what to make of it.
“I can’t believe we’re almost to the first game of the season,” Julian said.
I blinked and pulled myself back into the conversation. “For the soccer team?”
“Yep,” Jordan said. “FC Lubbock opens the season for their first ever match. I’ll get you all tickets if you want to go.”
“And we’ll all be at the gala,” Hollin said.
“I’ve already given everyone tickets for that,” Jordan said.
“I can’t wait to see what Peyton has put together for the show,” I added.
“She’s performing?” Jennifer asked.
I nodded. “She’s going to do a solo and a pas de deux from one of her New York City Ballet numbers.”
“Oh, it’ll be amazing,” Blaire said. “She’s so talented.”
“Weston will be there, too,” Julian said.
Weston Wright was the biggest shock that Lubbock had had in years. He was Jordan and Julian’s half-brother. It’d turned out that their father had a secret family in Seattle while they grew up in Vancouver. Not just that, Weston was a twin, like me. He had a brother named Whitton and a much younger sister, Harley. Sometimes, I still couldn’t wrap my head around the duplicity. I’d grown up with a strict family, but we all loved each other. I could never imagine someone from my family doing something that terrible to me.
The guys had gone to visit Weston and meet Whitton and Harley in the last year. But none of them had traveled to Lubbock again. This was a big deal.
“That’s great!” Hollin said. “It’ll be good to see him again.”
Julian and Jordan exchanged a glance. There was something else they weren’t telling us. But they nodded and changed the subject away from the gala.
The night continued, and Hollin and I didn’t have one single argument. Was it because I wasn’t fighting him on every little thing? Was it because he wasn’t trying to push my buttons? Was it possible that the two of us could spend a whole night together in each other’s company without me wanting to strangle him?
I’d known there was sexual tension between us. I enjoyed that. I sometimes even enjoyed the fighting. But this was all new.
Later in the night, I used the restroom and reapplied my burgundy lipstick in the mirror. When I came back to the party, Hollin was missing.
I looked around, trying to locate him, and even asked Julian, “Hey, where did Hollin go?”
“I don’t know. He was at the bar with Tamara.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t see Tamara either. She’d been flirting with him all night. Hollin had been mostly ignoring her attempts, but now, they were both missing. Coincidence? I didn’t believe in them.
A knot formed in my stomach. Why the hell was I stressing out about this? If he wanted to hook up with someone else, he was well within his rights. We weren’t exclusive by a long shot. We were nothing. Just two people who had hooked up…twice…sort of.
