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Damon chokes on his beer, and Brandi sits straight up, pure glee lighting her face. “This might surprise you, but they’renotin a fraternity.”
“They’re overpaid children,” Damon grumbles. “Not much of a difference.”
“You know them?”
Brandi barks a laugh. “Know them?He’stheir boss. And that one,” she elaborates, pointing to a scruffy blond male who’s waving his arms above his head with a beer in each hand. “That one is all mine.”
I smile, not one bit relieved that the spunky redhead and this entirely too attractive stranger aren’t an item. “Life of the party, I see.”
After a few sips, Damon finishes his beer. “We’re on a work retreat.”
With my buzz wearing off a little, I find myself tapping to the steady beat now playing from the DJ booth.
His employees are tossing back shots, competing to see who can take theirs the fastest. When one of them chokes on a turquoise shot before spewing it out onto the floor, I raise a brow to Damon.
“Do I even want to know what kind of business those men do?”
Brandi pops her mouth open to speak but narrows her gaze when Damon nudges her.
“We work in IT,” he says simply.
“Ah, tech nerds gone wild,” I say with a laugh.
“They’re professional,” Damon says. Brandi’s man squats down to let his buddy jump onto his back, and a muscle tightens along Damon’s jaw. “Most of the time.”
My knee brushes his leg, a detail I may not have noticed twenty minutes ago but now can’t seem to ignore.
“You know what?” Holding my hand flat above my eyes, I squint. “I think I’m starting to see them in a whole new light.”
“Chuck, Chuck, Chuck,” the men chant.
Whoa.
When I turn a smile back to Damon, he’s somehow inches closer than he was just seconds ago. A twitch tugs his lips, and his scent is clean and heady.
“You know, Kate,” Brandi begins. “Damon happens to need a date for a little get-together this Friday. Maybe you’d be interested in helping him out?”
We both swivel toward her.
“Brandi,” he warns, but the troublemaker just shrugs.
“What?”
All that swagger and those cute, dimpled smiles… I don’t believe what I’m hearing.
“You’re telling me that you, with your”—I pause to motion at his physique—“you know, don’t have a date?”
I swear I detect a bit of embarrassment from him, but it’s gone the moment it appears.
“Don’t mind Brandi,” he grumbles, casting her a sidelong glance. “She talks too much.”
I freeze, heart thundering so loudly that I’m certain they both can hear it, when Damon’s fingers brush the right side of my face.
“G-good. ’Cause I’m sort of on a no-men vacation.”
That earns a husky laugh.
“Funny, me too.” Damon produces a tiny paper umbrella that was tangled in my hair.
