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The silence stretches again and I’m about to clap him on the shoulder, say “Good talk,” and walk away, when he says, “I don’t think she was saying yes to me when I asked her out.”
I cock my head and squint, but nope. I don’t see it.
“I saw the two of you at the bar when we arrived. Before you saw us. When I asked for her number later, she told me she hadn’t dated in a long time. I think when she said yes to me, she was signaling she was ready. To you. I was never going to get more than a drink with her.”
Huh.
Nah. He doesn’t know Mina. She doesn’t do subtle well. If she’d wanted me to know she was open to us, she would’ve done something.
Unless she was scared. Because as much as I love this woman, she’s a chicken. If she was scared, she wouldn’t make a move. She’d stand there, waiting and hoping I’d figure it out, like…
Wait a second.
Like at the bowling alley. When I almost kissed her. If she hadn’t wanted me, she’d have smacked me for being handsy and presumptive.
Danny interrupted us.
Dammit, things might have worked out differently. I could’ve had Mina and my job, maybe. No accident. No retirement. Beer roils in my stomach as I imagine everything I lost in that one moment of hesitation.
I should’ve jumped, not waited.
I want to hit something. And that something is my old boss.
Already looking around the room for my target, I clap Dex on the shoulder. “I have to murder Danny. All the best, Dex.” I mean it. Theall the bestpart, not the murder part. Dex reminds me enough of me that I hope he can reach the top, even if it means he erases me.
That lasts all of ten seconds before I admit to myself those hopes are lies. I don’t hope he’ll be better than me, but I do accept he might be, or someone else will.
I’m halfway through the restaurant, headed toward Danny when Nic steps directly into my path.
“I have to say it,” he says in his most authoritative voice.
I’m tempted to blow past him, but might as well get whatever this is over with now. “Say it.”
“You didn’t train to be a stunt driver because I asked you not to.”
Okay…not what I was expecting. I narrow my eyes at him. “Yeah, and the whole wide world of every other stunt was there for me at the time. What’s your point?”
“I’m asking you. As your friend and as the person who doesn’t want to be blamed for your death by your twin sister, who will look up the most painful ways to end me—don’t ever do the type of shit you did tonight again.”
I laugh it off. “That wasn’t a stunt. And Jessie—”
“Doing acrobatics between wobbly restaurant chairs on a concrete balcony does not prove dick size,” Nic snaps, interrupting me.
I shake my head. “You don’t know that, though. Have you seen Danny naked? More inches than the internet attributes to you.”
Nic doesn’t laugh. “If you won’t do this for me, do it for Mina.”
“You don’t know a thing about Mina.”
“I was worried she’d hurt you,” he says, “but you’re going to hurt her.”
I’m never going to hurt her. That he would even suggest it pisses me off. And how dare he assume she’d be on his side? She knows me. She trusts me.
“I’m only going to say this once,” I say to him through gritted teeth. “I’m going to live my life and that might involve jumping off my balcony into the pool, or doing some backflips off a chair, or fucking Mina on a poorly installed sex swing.”
A muscle in Nic’s jaw ticks and he looks five seconds from violence. “Timothy, you almostdied.”
“You need to trust that I know what I can safely do, and that I’ve judged a situation to be low-risk. If you can’t do that, mind your own fucking business.”
