Grant doesn’t answer right away.
He just stares down into his glass, turning it between his fingers thoughtfully.
The firelight glints against the rim, catching the faint reflection of his face and warping it slightly.
For the first time tonight, I see something slip in his expression.
The careful calm he always wears starts to crack around the edges. His jaw tightens, eyes going distant, fixing somewhere in that glass of red wine.
“That’s a loaded question,” he finally says.
She just meets his gaze, chin tilted slightly upward, her tone soft but steady. “I’m dying of curiosity.”
Grant’s head lifts.
When his eyes lock on hers, it feels like the whole damn room changes temperature.
It’s like watching two forces collide in slow motion, neither one of them backing down or willing to be the first to blink. She’s testing him, but not in a childish way.
It’s curiosity laced with challenge.
I’ve seen Grant command a room full of people without saying a word, make grown men stop talking mid-sentence just by looking at them.
But this is different.
She isn’t shrinking from it.
She meets his stare head-on, chin tilted up slightly, that spark in her eyes bright and unflinching.
It hits me then just how rare that is. Most people see Grant as the steady one, someone you don’t cross.
But Noelle is pushing forward, daring him to break his own rules like she wants to know what’s underneath the composure he hides behind.
And damn if it isn’t fascinating to watch.
He finally sets his glass down, the clink of it soft against the wood. “Maybe we should relax for a bit. Things are getting a little rowdy.”
Noelle laughs quietly. “Why do you say that? You guys are the ones that agreed to all of this. But now you’re getting cold feet? What’s with that?”
“Alright,” Cal says suddenly, his voice slicing through the haze. His elbows rest on his knees as his shoulders square, his grey eyes sharper than before. “I think we all know where this is heading…”
He’s not wrong.
There’s a pulse thrumming through the room, impossible to ignore and even harder to justify.
It’s electricity crawling under my skin, tugging at something deep in my gut.
I can’t tell anymore if it’s excitement or madness because if we cross that invisible line, there’s no going back.
And we all know it.
Noelle opens her mouth to say something, but whatever answer she was about to give us suddenly dies on her tongue.
I lick my lips, anticipation making me twitchy. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
Cal’s gaze flicks to me, then to Grant who meets his stare silently, then finally back to her.
For a second, I swear I can see the wheels turning behind his eyes. I brace myself for it.
