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“Hey,” Shawn said with a sweet smile. “You’re here.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “I told you I would be.”
He shrugged. “You could have changed your mind. How was your week with your family?”
“It was good. Tiring. How have you been?”
“Fine. I’ve been working as much as I can to save up for when school starts in September.”
We talked at the bar for a while about Shawn’s carpentry school and my family’s “party” last night. I even told him about Freddie and how I might have misjudged him in the past.
Shawn was a great listener and didn’t seem bothered by me talking about other guys in my life. He honestly didn’t seem interested in anything from me but friendship. It was refreshing, but there was still a part of me that didn’t believe he’d act this way if he knew my real name.
“You want to dance?” he asked, holding out a hand to me.
I smiled. “Sure.” I loved the fact that he’d ask even though he made no secret of his belief that I was way out of his league on the dance floor.
Dancing at Youngblood beat the ball last night by a landslide. The smile on my face was one hundred percent real the entire time. There were no rules, no cameras to worry about. It was just fun. Shawn was good at laughing at himself, and he was equally good at making me laugh. He made all the complications of my life feel distant. There was no pressure with him.
“So you think you’ll date him?” he asked me as he twirled me under his arm.
“Who?”
He chuckled. “The guy you think you misjudged.”
“I don’t know. He might be my best option. In my real life, where I’m not Adeline, my dating prospects are pretty dismal.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound like you’re super interested in this guy.”
“I don’t really know him that well. I mean, I’ve known him for years, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the little things, you know?” I wrapped my arms around Shawn’s neck. “Enough about me and my drama. What about you? Anyone special in your life?”
“Nope. Focusing on work and school at the moment. You’re about the only friend I’ve made in Boston so far.”
“I can’t really imagine leaving my life here. I’m used to having a lot of family around. Thinking about not having them so close makes the whole traveling thing sound so much harder. I mean, I’d like to someday, at least for a little while, but honestly the idea terrifies me.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I’m not sure. Probably somewhere in South America.”
“I feel like I need to point out that I moved about an hour from my family. Moving out of the country would be a different story. That takes a different kind of courage.”
Shawn stopped moving, his gaze trained on something behind me.
“What?” I asked, following his gaze to an alcove in one of the back corners.
A man with dark skin and buzzed hair sat on a couch, a bottle dangling from his fingers. He was dressed in distressed jeans and a loose T-shirt. He looked relaxed and at home in the alcove that no one ever occupied, the one that was reserved for the boss who had never once made an appearance while I was in the club. Was this him? I could believe it even though he was probably only ten or so years older than me. Except I was pretty sure I’d already met him. Unless I was confusing him with someone else, this guy was a bouncer.
My gaze moved from him to the man sitting beside him. Tonight Samuel was wearing a white button-down with the top few buttons undone, showing just enough of his chest for me to see the dusting of hair there, and a pair of black pants. His dark eyes locked on mine, and my heart stuttered in my chest.
He was here.
I told my feet to move, to take me back to the bar or anywhere other than here really, but my body refused to obey me. I felt like a deer in the headlights, trapped by Samuel’s gaze.
A silver chain caught the light and shone at Samuel’s neck as he leaned closer to the dark man and whispered something to him. Now both of them were looking at me.
I swallowed hard. I felt the weight of their gazes like a physical pressure.
Samuel stood and stepped out of the alcove, the bouncer following behind him like a bodyguard.
