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Given the way the sparks were already flying, though, I was guessing chemistry wasn’t going to be a problem.
Good.
“Of all the gin joints in all the world,” I said when he was near enough. “If it isn’t Anthony Massimo.”
He leaned in and brushed his lips across my cheek instead of answering, letting them linger right below my ear, and I fought to keep from moaning out loud.
“Brooks Peterson,” he murmured. “I see you’re making friends as quickly as you always have.”
I cast a quick glance at the man I’d had to put down and shrugged when he drew back. “He thought he could take advantage of me. I had to teach him a lesson.”
Anthony grinned. “He obviously had no idea who he was dealing with.”
“Exactly. He must be new in town.”
Anthony barked a laugh at that and threw a hand up, getting the bartender’s attention. “Must be. What are you drinking?”
“Whiskey. Top shelf.”
“Same old Brooks.” He placed our orders and then turned back to me. “So, what are you really doing here? Because I’m in this bar every week and I’ve never seen you here before. I’m guessing, therefore, that it’s not one of your usual haunts. Right side of town, wrong address.”
Right. I mean, I should have known he’d notice that I’d never been here before. And he was correct; this was the right side of town for me. But I kept to Rossi and Brennan territories, and this was...
No Man’s Land.
Where I stood out like a sore thumb.
Time to lie.
I put my finger in the middle of his chest and drew it slowly up, savoring the hard muscle under my fingertip and the slight dampness that came from him having been under the lights for so long. I dragged it up further, brushing it over his neck, and when I reached his chin, I tipped it up. “Maybe I heard you were going to be here and wanted to see how you’d grown up.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Is that so?”
I tipped my own head, not admitting to anything. “Could be. Or it could not. What do you think?”
He pulled back enough to leave my finger in the air by itself, then leaned forward and pressed his lips to it once, his eyes dancing. “I think you know exactly why you’re here. And I don’t think it was just to see me. That’s too obvious. And you, Brooks, have never been obvious.”
I snorted at that and turned to the bar, clutching at the whiskey the tender had set down there. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Anthony. I don’t do subtle.”
He turned as well and leaned into me. “Subtle? No. But I learned a long time ago that you never tell the full truth. Not unless it serves your purpose. That said, if you’re just here to catch up, I’m game. Let’s sit.”
He led me to a booth in the corner where we’d get at least some privacy and I followed, somewhat surprised that my plan had worked so quickly, and reminding myself that I couldn’t trust him.
Because if I was the opposite of subtle, Anthony Massimo was the opposite of trustworthy. He’d smile in your face and stab you in the back while he was doing it. And you’d die still thinking he was the most charming man in the world.
He might know me well enough to know how I operated.
But I knew him even better, and I knew I couldn’t trust a single thing he said or did.
Which was going to make this night very, very interesting.
* * *
Half an hour later, I was sliding my card across the table and leaning toward Anthony. We hadn’t done anything more than catch up and reminisce about some of the things we’d done when we were young, and he hadn’t asked again what I was doing in his bar. He’d been watching me through narrowed eyes, though, and I’d been doing the same thing to him. Neither of us trusted the other, and we were both right on that score.
We’d known each other too long to trust each other.
We’d also known each other long enough to know that if we acted on the tension stretching between us, we’d get in trouble. He was a Massimo. I was a Rossi—or close enough to it. We weren’t supposed to be meeting. We could never be seen in public together. Hell, we shouldn’t even admit toknowingeach other. If Sloane and Joseph had been born on opposite sides of the track, Anthony and I had been born on different worlds.
