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Eva lit up at the nickname Noah had bestowed the night I found out about his tattoo. For weeks, I’d been trying to come up with a way to get a peek without straight up asking him to get naked. Turned out I simply needed to roll around in the mud.
I should thank Henry.
“I’m not sure that’s possible. Henry was born for chaos,” I belatedly responded.
His lips tilted up in the ghost of a smile. “Sounds familiar.”
Eva fanned herself. “Well, this is fun—standing here, also a part of the conversation.”
Noah chuckled and he eyed Eva, then the crowd surrounding us in a vague bloblike line. “Can I steal Chloe away from her duties?”
Eva straightened and lifted one eyebrow. “Depends. What are your intentions?”
He crossed his arms. “Not your concern.”
“Chloe is my concern, and as her bestie, I take my screening seriously.”
I raised a hand. “Chloe is standing right here and can speak for herself.”
“Shush, I’m helping,” Eva stage-whispered to me.
“I thought you weren’t going to get involved?” I hissed back.
She grinned and bent to scoop up a duck. “Can’t help myself.”
Noah shifted closer, letting a group of little kids scoot past him. “I promised to make the early morning worth her while.”
My inner muscles involuntarily clenched at the naughty potential of his words. The chances of him following through with multiple orgasms was low, but not zero. Eva eyed Noah while she leaned in to fill the food dish with a new scoop of pellets.
“You did promise that,” she mused.
As much as I wanted to dive headfirst into the possibility of alone time with Noah, new me had other responsibilities to consider. “I think I have a while longer here.”
Noah dropped an arm around Eva’s shoulders and pulled her against his sweaty side. “Eva can handle the rest of the day, right?”
She patted his arm with her free hand. “Clearly you haven’t been paying attention to the chaos Henry has wrought.”
I gritted my teeth, fighting the sudden jealousy at their easy interaction. “I’m happy to stay, Eva.”
With Eva’s attention elsewhere, Henry squawked in a very un-ducklike manner, flapped his wings twice, and promptly launched himself off the wiggly edge of the pool in an attempt to catch one of the bugs buzzing around. He missed, flinging himself onto one end of the food dish instead and flipping it on top of himself.
Noah shook his head, staring at the mess in awe. “It’s like you found your duck soulmate.”
Eva waved us away. “It’s only another two hours. Go on. You’re shit at duck-sitting while distracted, and I’m not looking to chase Henry out of another small crevice.”
I snorted, not about to argue the truth. Before I could ask about coffee later, the running royalty from earlier crossed the finish line en masse. Eva’s smile shifted into a scowl as she caught sight of the guy in the beanie.
He glanced our way and narrowed his eyes at Eva, or maybe at Noah—the target was unclear.
“Asshole,” she muttered under her breath, pulling free of Noah’s grasp.
The last time I’d seen him suddenly popped up in my mind. The coffee shop and Eva’s weird hatred. Noah followed her gaze with a frown.
“You know the hockey team?” he asked her.
Shit. No wonder they’d looked like athletes. The last thing I wanted was to come face to face with my previous drunken disaster of a hookup—the one who played on the hockey team.
Eva turned her back on coffee guy and replaced her glare with a sunny smile. “Nope. I’m a football girlie through and through.”
