“Calendars?” Normally, Linc would joke along, but Derek’s face pissed him off and they’d only just gotten here.
“Yeah, like those sexy firefighter calendars. Take your shirt off, hold a puppy in front of your junk. Chicks love that kind of thing.” His eyes narrowed. Yeah, Linc knew that look. He was testing him, looking for soft spots. Linc had been hiding for a long time—and he used more than a puppy to do it—but he’d never met anyone who zeroed in on him so fast. Was he slipping? His mind raced back through the very short list of things he’d said and done since arriving and turned up with nothing.
Maybe the problem wasn’t something Linc had done, but who he’d come with. The thought made him sick. “You lived in Seacroft long?”
“Oh, yeah. My whole life.” Derek was wiry, with scruffy brown hair, and a beard that covered too much of his neck and not enough of his jaw.
“So, you’ve met Avery before?”
Derek smile was lazy, his eyes like a snake’s. “Ever since his aunt and uncle smuggled him in like a refugee, back when we were in tenth grade.”
“Smuggled him in?”
Derek sneered. “I heard his dad used to hit him or something, and he wound up here.”
Linc barely registered the last part. His pulse boomed in his ears as his whole nervous system went on alert. On the dance floor, Avery’s red hair bobbed in and out of a growing crowd of people. Was that what he hadn’t said when Linc had asked about his mom?
“Hey!” Two new people arrived at the table and were greeted with cheers and hugs. Linc excused himself while the new arrivals distracted Jordan and Derek. He’d meant to head to the bar. Instead, his feet brought him to the edge of the dance floor.
“Linc!” Chelsea flung her hands over his shoulders, pulling him out toward where Avery and Emma were still dancing. Linc wasn’t much of a dancer, usually preferring to stay at the edges and let people who knew better do their thing.
The last time he’d danced with someone—really danced—had been Mickey.
The bar spun in a haze of bright lights and a bass line. But Chelsea and Emma didn’t seem to care he didn’t bring a whole set of moves with him. Emma, in particular, was happy to do all the dancing for him. She swayed her hips and lifted her hair off her shoulders. He knew the smile in her eyes. In the past, on other nights, in other bars, he might have even encouraged it. It would give him room to breathe. She turned her back to him, letting their bodies bump against each other from time to time. If he put a hand on her hip or on her shoulder, she’d know the invitation, and no one, not Derek or anyone else, would bug him for the rest of the night.
But as Emma dipped lower, Avery’s wide smile came back into focus. He was still giving it his all. His hair was slicked down to his forehead, and he looked like he was having the best night of his life.
If only Linc had half the guts to be himself in public that Avery did. Then someone like Derek would have no power over him.
He took a deep breath and stepped to the side, away from Emma, so the four of them almost formed a little square, with Linc between Emma and Avery, and Chelsea across from him.
Emma moved in again, but this time she spoke over the music and into his ear. “You guys are so cute together.”
Despite his burgeoning courage, if he’d been moving his feet at all, he would have tripped. “What?”
She winked at him. Then Avery bumped his hip, but the surprised expression on his face said he hadn’t meant to do it. Linc had to put a hand on Avery’s waist to keep them both from careening into Chelsea. When he glanced over his shoulder, Emma was still watching them, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she smiled.
“Sorry,” Avery said breathlessly.
Linc growled softly in the back of his throat. Avery’s body under his hand was warm and alive.
Friends. Just friends.
Unfortunately, the dance floor continued to be the safer option. Back at the table, the more Derek drank, the louder he got, and the more Jordan drank, the less he seemed to care what his friends said or did.
“You’re a great dancer,” Avery said, cheeks flushed and eyes bright.
Linc sighed. Even if they were only friends, two guys dancing together in a place like this would raise a few eyebrows sooner or later—and not just from Derek.
Avery leaned into him, the perspiration on his skin glowing in the dim bar light. “I’ll be right back.”
Linc watched him go. A line of sweat trailed down the back of Avery’s shirt, drawing Linc’s eye to the curve of his ass as he made his way through the crowd.
He jerked back. He needed to get off the dance floor.
A cheer went up at Jordan’s table, where they had moved on to tequila shots.
Maybe they should go. If Derek was drinking tequila too, he might get even sloppier, and Linc hadn’t liked the way his eyes kept drifting to Avery on the dance floor.
