No shit.
No fucking shit.
I hadn’t seen his face because he’d been wearing the Batman cowl at Comic-Con, but the voice, the easy demeanor, all of it was so like the Cay I’d met.
The guy I’d kissed.
That wasn’t possible, though, right? I ran my fingers through my hair before blurting out where I thought I knew him from. Clearly, this had to be some other Cay, and I was just superimposing several months’ worth of fantasies on this guy.
Except then his mouth slanted into a smirk, and my gaze homed in on his lips.
“Long time no see, Supes.”
My mouth went dry. When I looked back up, Cay’s eyes twinkled, and if I hadn’t been sitting already, I probably would’ve dropped to the ground. Fucking weak knees. I licked my lips and didn’t miss the way he stared back at me. Months of thinking about that day, and of course he showed up on my blind date. Million and one chances. Cay’s stare captured me, just the way it had back on the rooftop of Chicago Comic-Con.
“What’s going on here?” Alex asked, interrupting the moment. “This weirdness with the two of you?”
I snapped my gaze in her direction, heat rushing to my cheeks at getting caught all but gawking at Cay. But seriously, how the hell had he ended up being Tai’s client? Alex and Maisie were glancing between us, curiosity in Maisie’s expression while Alex’s brows lifted, clearly in wariness.
I scratched at my nape. “Uh, I actually already met Cay here a bit ago.”
“Where at?” the bulldozer continued. The positive about Alex? I’d just met her, and I already felt comfortable enough with her to want to throttle her. No wonder she and Tai got along. They were cut from the same cloth. What I wasn’t sure about was letting my geek flag fly yet.
“At Comic-Con,” Cay said, leaning back comfortably in his seat. Now that the shock had faded from his face, he was all the casual charm I remembered. Of course he didn’t give a damn about saying where he’d been. Even at Comic-Con, when I’d been having my internal breakdown, he’d just swept in, like being at a convention by your lonesome was no big deal.
“No shit,” Alex drawled as she dropped her menu. She glanced between the two of us. “So, instant besties, or what?”
Cay’s grinwidened. “Absolutely.”
Heat flushed my cheeks. What the hell was wrong with my body? All it took was a smile from Cay and some smooth comments, and my capacity for speech got chucked out the window.
“Why didn’t you realize you were meeting each other tonight?” Maisie asked, her head tilting to the side slightly. Her pale blonde strands shifted along her shoulders, those pretty eyes far too wide.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my slacks. Thank fuck they were black. “We never got each other’s contact info.”
“Not going to make that mistake again,” Cay said, his gaze settling on me.
I shifted in my seat and fiddled with the napkin around the silverware, placing it on my lap. Fuck, we were probably being rude to our dates. Granted, the second I realized it was my Batman sitting next to me, my focus was shot to hell anyway.
Well, notmyBatman. Whatever.
“How do the two of you know each other?” I asked, wanting to take the heat off us. It was a lot easier to listen than to supply answers.
“Oh, we’ve been best friends since high school.” Alex reached over to tuck a strand of Maisie’s hair behind her ear in a move smoother than I could ever pull off. Maisie offered her a private smile, her pretty blue eyes sparkling. I wrinkled my nose. Now I felt like I was the one intruding. Were they an item? Maisie leaned into the touch, andAlex’s hand lingered as she ran her fingers through Maisie’s hair a few times. I wanted to catch Cay’s eyes to see if he was watching this too, but then I’d have to notice him all over again, and that was already a danger zone.
“We grew up in the suburbs,” Maisie explained as Alex slowly brought her hand back. “But with Alex opening her mechanic shop here and the best salons for my work being in the city, we both ended up in Chicago proper.”
“Let’s be real. You moved to the city because Fuckface decided he wanted to barhop most nights of the week,” Alex said, rolling her eyes.
The server decided to swing by then, a slender guy all in black. Maisie and Cay already had drinks, so presumably, they’d been here just as long as I’d been nursing my water before I’d abandoned my table. Probably not my best move, but I’d panicked.
“Manhattan,” Alex ordered without a second’s hesitation.
“If she won’t let me buy her a drink, can I at least buy you one?” His eyes gleamed with amusement as he stared at me.
My heart thudded hard. It was a drink, no big deal, not like he was hitting on me or asking me out. Or bending me over the table to drive his cock into my ass.
My mouth went dry at that visual, and my jaw slightly dropped. The stare of the server still waiting for the order snappedme back to the present.
