"That was a defective bottle."
The Drop filled up the way it always did—bodies crowding the bar, voices fighting the jukebox, and smells of beer and fryer grease. I followed Jake to a corner table.
The floorboards by the pool table had a sticky patch that had been there since before I joined the team. Nobody knew what it was. Nobody wanted to know.
Home turf. Except Adrian was coming.
Adrian, who'd caught me singing to a dog in the snow. Adrian, who'd watched me spray myself in the face and then held my arm like it was nothing. Adrian, who'd called me someone worth watching in a voice that made my ribs feel too small for my lungs.
The door opened.
I didn't look.
I absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent did not look…for thirty seconds.
When I finally peeked through my fingers, I saw Adrian scanning the room until his eyes landed on me.
I looked down at my water glass.
Jake steered him toward our table. Adrian looked different at The Drop—no camera, no equipment bag. He was careful, the way you move through someone else's house when you're not sure which rooms you're allowed in.
Jake ran through introductions. Evan shook Adrian's hand a second longer than necessary—measuring something, the way he measured everything. Adrian didn't flinch.
He moved toward my side of the table. Plenty of open seats remained that weren't directly beside me.
He sat next to me anyway.
Close enough that I could smell him—clean soap and cold air still caught in his jacket—and close enough that when he shifted, his shoulder brushed mine.
My skin registered it through two layers of fabric. Held onto it.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey." My voice came out normal, which was a miracle, because my entire left side had apparently decided to secede from the rest of my body.
"You're not teaching a dog to sing."
"Night's young."
He laughed—short and surprised—and I liked that I could make him laugh. I also liked the way his knee hovered near mine under the table, and approximately thirty-eight other things I shouldn't have been thinking about a man here to do a job.
I reached for my beer.
The chair wobbled.
Not a big wobble. Most wouldn't notice.
I did.
I shifted left. Tilted. Shifted right. Same thing.
Ignore it,I told myself.It's just a chair.
Jake's monologue moved from a Hog knitting incident to the time Evan organized the equipment room by color and cried when someone moved a roll of tape.
"I didn't cry," Evan said. "I expressed firm disappointment."
"Your eyes were wet."
