“You okay?”Knox asked, concern wrinkling his brow.
No, she thought.Not okay.But all she said was, “Fine.You guys want something to eat?”
They exchanged a glance, that non-spoken communication of long-term couples passing between them, and she felt a pang of envy.She wanted that with them, she realized, that level of knowing and understanding that came from years together.
She wanted years together.
“The soup’s really good,” she blurted out, burying the envy and the twinge of pain.“It’s creamy ham and potato with cheddar.”
“That sounds good to me.”Jesse was watching her carefully now, dimple nowhere to be seen.“You sure you’re okay?”
“Just a little tired,” she improvised.“I stayed up too late working on some new pieces.”
“Those?”Knox asked with a nod to her earrings.
“No, these are old favorites.”Hammered copper discs on thin wires, they were one of the first pairs she’d ever made.
“Your sister would like those,” Jesse told Knox.“You get her anything for her birthday yet?”
“Not yet, and she would,” Knox agreed.
“Do you replicate designs, or are they all like, exclusive, one-of-a-kind deals?”Jesse wanted to know.
“I could make another pair.”Chloe looked at Knox.“When is your sister’s birthday?”
“March fifteenth.”
“Beware the ides of March,” Jesse said dramatically.
Knox just chuckled.“Is that enough time to make another pair?”
“Sure.”Elbows on the bar, Chloe leaned forward and angled her head.“Do you want them just like this, or a different size?”
Knox leaned in, eyes narrowed.“I think that size works, but she tends to wear bigger pieces.What do you think, Jess?”
“Definitely bigger.”Like Knox, he inched closer to peer at the earrings.“These are what, about the size of a dime?”
“Close to that, yeah,” Chloe said.
Jesse lifted a hand to finger the copper disk dangling from her left earlobe.“Yeah, I’d definitely go bigger.”
Chloe tried to ignore the scent of him, basil and fabric softener and Jesse.“How big?Nickle?Quarter?”
“Quarter, for sure.”Jesse dropped his hand so it lay on the bar next to hers, close enough she could feel the warmth radiating off his skin.“Maybe even bigger.Knox?”
On her right side, Knox glided his knuckles along her jaw, nudging her toward the light.The contact brought his scent, the faint hint of basil that came from Jesse, the spice of his shampoo.
“Yeah, bigger than a quarter,” Knox was saying, his face so close to hers as he examined the earring that she had no trouble at all imagining turning her head to kiss him.“A quarter is, what, an inch in diameter?”
“Just shy of,” Jesse confirmed.
“I think you can go double that,” Knox said.“Would that be doable?”
God, they were so close.Knox on one side, touching her, Jesse the other, not touching butright there,with his scent and his smile and his dark brown eyes so full of shared secrets.Need rose up, and though she expected the spark of arousal and the tingle of desire, she wasn’t prepared for the emotion, thelongingthat had nothing to do with sex.It clogged her throat and flooded her eyes, and before she could pull back and blink it away, a single tear spilled free, rolling down her cheek to splash against the back of Knox’s hand.
He froze, his eyes darting first to the salty splotch on his skin and then to her face, concern and something akin to horror flashing in his misty eyes.“Chloe?”
Jesse straightened, altered by the sharp note in Knox’s voice.“What’s wrong?”
