Cruz lifts one shoulder in a loose, easy shrug. “It’s Coco’s party. We’re all here.”
I snap my gaze back to him. “Allof you? Bishop and Rafe too?”
He leans in a little, just enough for a piece of dark-blond hair to fall across his forehead. My fingers twitch—an old impulse to brush it back, something I did without thinking when we were teenagers. Five seconds near him and my body is already reaching for muscle memory I thought I’d buried.
“Would that be a problem?” he asks. It’s not warm or teasing, but measured. Like he’s taking stock of me.
I let my gaze linger a beat too long, catching the curve of his mouth just as it tilts into that infamous Cruz grin—danger sharpened into amusement. “Not at all. It’d be nice to catch up with your brothers.”
“Hm.” The sound he makes is soft, unreadable. Like he’s filing that away.
Before I can untangle what any of that means, Gage drops onto the lounger across from mine, sitting sideways so he’s fully facing me.
“For you,” he murmurs, holding something out.
A cold cherry Coke in a glass bottle in one hand, and a red velvet cupcake swirled high with cream-cheese frosting in the other.
Two of my favorite things. Two things I haven’t had in years.
My breath catches. “Gage.”
Cruz laughs quietly, stretching his legs out. “That looks like a stoner snack.”
Gage doesn’t pull his gaze from me. “It’s not. They’re her favorites.”
Heat crawls up my throat. I look away too fast, and it only makes it more obvious.
Cruz lifts a brow behind his sunglasses. “Interesting.”
Gage doesn’t move. Both forearms rest on his thighs, shoulders angled toward me like he’s bracing against something. There’s a faint flush at the tops of his cheeks, barely there, but I see it.
“Don’t tell me that in six years you just suddenly stopped loving your two favorite things,” Gage teases.
“No. I’m just surprised you remember.”
His smile blooms—slow, boyish, and fucking devastating. “Some things aren’t easy to forget.”
The air between us tightens and warms, filling with the weight of everything we aren’t saying.
Gage holds the bottle out. Our fingers brush—a soft, electric graze along the side of my thumb—and something flares through my chest so fast it knocks my breath sideways.
“Here.” He flicks off the cap with a bottle opener he must’ve palmed from somewhere, the metal snapping with a clean crack.
Cruz shifts next to me, bumping the side of my leg with his. “Well. This just got more interesting.”
I take a sip. The sweet, crisp cherry Coke floods my tongue. Nostalgia wraps its arms around my shoulders. It’s embrace warm, familiar, and entirely unwelcome. Like a hug I didn’t know I’d been starving for.
“So,” Cruz says, leaning back on his palms, sunglasses glinting, “how’d you do it?”
I lower the bottle. “Do what?”
Cruz studies me like he has all night. Like he has nowhere else to be. “Relax,” he murmurs. “He didn’t tell me anything. Yet.” His gaze flicks to Gage, then back to me. “Though I am curious how he knew it was you. And more importantly—why he didn’t tell us.”
Gage stiffens.
Cruz’s mouth curves, a barely there smile. “But that’s between us brothers.” His attention settles fully on me now. “WhatI’mmore interested in is how the fuck you beat us to it. Have you been following us, Bells?”
The air between us crackles, thickening like humidity before a storm. Accusation braided tight with heat.
