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A harsh intake of breath follows my words, the rest of the gang in the garden watching in rapt silence. If I expect her to run, or cry, I’m sorely disappointed when a wide grin tips her lips. “You know what, Nash. I think I’ll take you up on that drink.”
Nash rushes over to the other side of the garden, pumping his arms in excitement as he pulls up a chair for her to sit in before he grabs her a beer, which she tucks into her hands.
She settles in, but there’s still that same nervousness humming around her.
And why do I hate that she isn’t comfortable here, and why do I feel like shit for saying those words?
Chapter Twelve
Beatrice
“ThisisnotwhatI had in mind when I said you had to grab your keys,” Maisie says, sliding into the seat beside me. I play with the beer can Nash handed me, my eyes moving over the garden.
“Honestly, I think I blacked out, and now I’m stuck here just to prove a point.”
“And what’s the point?”
“I don’t even know.” I laugh. “Something snapped when he said what he did. The thing is, he’s not even wrong. I did ruin his life for a minute. But instead of apologizing and walking away, I doubled down and now here we are.”
“Well, since you don’t owe him a single apology, I approve,” she tells me, something she regularly does, but I can’t seem to get my head around it. Clinking her bottle tip to rim of my can, she winks. “Honestly, it’ll do him some good to get his head out his ass for one night.”
“Would we be talking about His Highness?” I glance up at one of Maverick and Nash’s roommates, Gray, I want to say is his name, as he slides onto the ground in front of us, not caring about the pale-blue jeans he’s wearing as he sinks into the grass.
His brown eyes light up in excitement as he flicks his gaze between Maisie and me, and his dark skin glistens under the dimming sun when he folds his arms over his chest.
A small fire crackles in the center of the garden, heating an already hot night. “You’ve known him since you were kids, right? Anything juicy to tell us?”
“Err, nope,” I say, popping the P and keeping my gaze trained forward despite the way my body wants to turn, to look at Maverick while he talks to the pretty girl to his right. “Nash is your expert on all things Maverick Brady. They’ve been friends forever; I was just a tagalong from elementary.”
“My favorite tagalong,” Nash says, ruffling my hair as he takes the empty seat next to me. “And I’ve told you guys all the juicy shit there is to know about Maverick, which ironically is basically nothing. He’s boring as fuck.”
“That can’t be true,” Gray says, snapping his gaze to mine with a raised brow.
“Sorry to disappoint.” I shrug, a jovial laugh falling from me as he pouts.
Truthfully, there are so many stories I could tell about Maverick Brady. Like the time he lost a dare and had to streak through the neighborhood, or when he reversed his car into his neighbors’ drive and told his parents it was stolen, and someone must have brought it back—they didn’t buy his lies, which only made it even funnier as he kept digging himself into a hole.
Maybe even the time he played in the championship game on the high school football team, and one of the other players convinced him he had to pray to the football gods, offering them a raw chicken and some weird voodoo chant . . . which he did, much to my amusement, since it was only me he invited to witness that show.
But it doesn’t feel right to give those moments away.
They belong to us.
He glances over at me as if he can hear my thoughts. His eyes burn into mine as he halts his conversation with the girl—Harlow, as I’ve learned. There’s something different in his expression as he stares at me now, no anger or frustration, but it’s something I can’t read, and he looks away too quickly for me to even try.
When he laughs at something Harlow says, the dimples in his cheeks make an appearance, and my heart stutters. The guys and Maisie continue to talk around me. Nash gives them his own tales of the two of them growing up, but I can’t peel my gaze from Maverick.
His hair is tucked under a backward baseball cap, his jaw dotted with day-old stubble. He wears a plain gray tee that clings to his sculpted body, and his dark blue jeans mold to his muscled thighs.
And he’s smiling and laughing. Something I didn’t realize I’d missed seeing so much until right at this moment. That guy sitting here tonight, surrounded by his friends, that’smyMaverick.
The same Maverick who taught me to drive a stick and introduced me to crime shows on TV. The one who held me when I was twelve, cuddling me tight to his body, when it was storming outside. The one who took me to the beach for the first time without my parents. That was the day he gave me my safe space, even if he didn’t know it then.
And tonight, he’s still that same boy, in a man’s body.
“Wait, what about that time you beat him at football on your first try,” Nash starts, his laughter following every word as he pulls my attention back to the conversation. It takes me a moment to catch up as I force the memories to the back of my mind. “I swear the dude looked like a tomato.”
“So not what happened,dude,” Maverick says, stalking over toward us. He drops onto the arm of Nash’s chair, his arms over his chest as his eyes flick to mine. My cheeks heat under his scrutiny, my eyes dropping to the ground as I chew on my lip. “Now tell them the real story.”
