“Me three,” Aidan added, with Mel chiming in, “Make that four.”Jamie asked for water, and Cam filled him a glass from the sink while Eddie filled pints.On the last glass, Cam’s, Eddie paused.Palm resting atop the tap handle, his dark eyes sparkled with mischief.“There’s something else I should get you a taste of, but Nic’ll kill me.”
“My boss first, you second,” came a voice behind them, sharp enough to cut glass.Nic stormed in, jacket bunched in one hand, yanking his tie loose with the other.
Eddie had a pint of the pilsner ready for him by the time he reached the bar.“Drink.”
Nic grabbed it and chugged, the beer snob guzzling his precious liquid gold.That good a day, then.
“It’s like I don’t even know you.”Eddie shook his head with exaggerated disgust.
Cam laughed.“You win your motion?”
“Of course I did.”Nic lowered the half-empty glass.“You got something to nail Bowers?”
“Of course I do,” Lauren chirped from where she sat at the table.
“Good, because if his ass isn’t nailed to the wall by the time this is all said and done, I’m going to?—”
Eddie slapped a hand on the bar.“Wait!Let me get out of the room before something you say becomes not privileged.”
“You taught him well,” Aidan said.
“No,” Nic replied.“He just slept with half my law class.”
“And a few of those prosecutors too.What can I say, men in suits are my crack.”Consistent with the man who seemed to have condoms stashed everywhere.Stretching over the bar, Eddie yanked Nic’s tie the rest of the way off, laughing, then shoved it into Cam’s palm.“But don’t you worry, yours is one suit I never touched.”He shook his ass as he shimmied out from behind the bar to raucous laughter.
Even at his expense, Cam appreciated that Eddie’s joke had loosened the stubbled jaw on his favorite suit.
But it wasn’t enough to turn all of Nic’s anxiety off.“We set on extra security?”he asked Eddie before the brewmaster escaped.
“Yep.Team members are going to chip in this week and weekend.And those three”—Eddie waggled a finger at Mel, Jamie, and Lauren—“double-checked and updated the security system.We’re set.”He held out a fist for a bump.“Taste your brew and leave me notes.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Nic said, bumping back.
Eddie disappeared down the hallway and Cam came around the other side of the bar, glass in hand.
“Your brew?Or my brew?”At home, between the pages of a romance novel he’d snagged from his mom in Boston, Cam had preserved the airplane napkin Nic had given him there, on it a drawing of the logo for Gravity’s Fighting Boston Irish Stout.A new imperial brew formulated with Cam in mind.
The mention of it now dissolved more of Nic’s tension and drew him closer, an affectionate, sexy smile sneaking out.“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Okay, lovebirds.”Lauren strode past on the way behind the bar for a top off.
“Was that you and Agent Cole I saw taking a coffee break together this afternoon?”Nic asked.
“Maybe it was.”She held a pinky to the corner of her mouth, waggling her brows, oblivious to the foam on her top lip, which destroyed any semblance of evil mastermind.
Nic wasn’t buying it either, looking like he might object, and Cam, realizing he hadn’t brought him up to speed, laid a hand on his back.“She chose those words deliberately.Let the woman work.”
Nic raised a brow.“She’s playing him?”
Cam directed him toward the tables.“I think so despite the whole failing at Dr.Evil thing.”
“Where’s Moore?”Nic asked, as they claimed their chairs.
“Dinner with the mayor and DEA’s deputy admin,” Aidan answered.
“Do we know what that’s about?”
Cam had a speculative answer, but then he lost it, whatever he was going to say flitting away as Nic stretched an arm across the back of his chair.It wasn’t anything new, but it was something normal after forty-eight hours full of abnormal.Until that moment, Cam hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed that too.He’d been so worried about Nic, so focused on doing whatever he could to keep Nic grounded and to move the case along, that he’d barely taken the time to breathe himself.They’d been so deep into Attorney Price and Agent Byrne mode that Nic and Cam felt too far away.So if he lost his thought, took an extra moment to lean back into the warm comfort of Nic’s arm and pretend everything was normal, Nic and the rest of the team would have to forgive him.
