"I was being friendly."
"You were being a caveman."
Cassie, who'd been watching this exchange with obvious glee, cackled. "Oh my god, you're jealous!"
"I'm not jealous," Beau protested, looking offended.
"You're totally jealous!" She pointed a finger at him. "The Dallas boy is jealous of Tyler Marsh! This is the best night of my life! I need popcorn."
"I'm not—" He stopped, sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "I wasn't. He was just looking at you like—"
"Like a friend," I cut him off. "Tyler's a good guy. We dated, it didn't work out, we stayed friends. That's it. There's nothing there. Zero sparks."
"Noted," he said quietly, taking a sip of his drink.
An awkward silence settled over the table, heavy and strange. I drained the rest of my beer, suddenly ready to leave before things got any weirder.
"Come on," I said, standing up. "Let's get out of here before you pick a fight with someone else."
"I didn't pick a fight!"
"You were about to. I saw your eyebrows doing that thing."
Cassie hugged us both goodbye—sloppily, because she was definitely drunk—and made us promise to come back next time. ThenBeau and I headed out into the cool night air, and I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head.
"Want me to drive?" Beau offered, dangling my keys with a confidence he absolutely did not earn. "You've had more to drink than me."
"You've had whiskey."
"Three glasses over four hours. I'm fine. Plus, I’m a bigger guy. Metabolize faster. Science."
I eyed him. He looked steady enough, and honestly, the tequila was starting to make the edges of my vision a little fuzzy. "Fine. But if you scratch the truck, I’m killing you. If you crash it, Pops will resurrect you just to kill you again."
"Understood. The truck is a holy relic. I will treat it with the reverence of the Pope mobile."
We walked to the truck, the gravel crunching under our boots. I climbed into the passenger seat, leaned my head back, and closed my eyes, waiting for the engine to turn over.
Instead, there was silence. Then a sigh. Then the sound of someone shifting in leather, followed by a very quiet, very confused, "Oh."
I opened one eye. Beau was staring at the gear shift like it was a live cobra.
"Problem?" I asked.
"Where is..." He moved his hand around the steering column, then down to the console. "Where is the 'Drive' option? There are just... numbers."
I sat up, a grin breaking through my exhaustion. "You’ve got to be kidding me."
"What?"
"You don't know how to drive stick."
"I know theconceptof driving stick," he said defensively. "I understand the mechanics. Clutch, gear, gas. It’s simple physics."
"Have you ever actuallydoneit?"
"I drive a Porsche in Dallas."
"Does it have a clutch pedal?"
