Angel shrugged and smiled. “I have one of those faces.”
“No, you don’t. You’re unique. I’m probably just being weird.”
Merit huffed out a laugh. “You are that.”
“Ass.”
Angel’s shoulder nudged my side. I wanted to put my arm around him, but we didn’t know each other well enough for that yet, and I’d already made him uncomfortable once.
“Are you two together?” he asked, glancing back and forth between Merit and Creed.
Merit suddenly found the floor interesting, and Creed shook his head hard.
“They used to be,” I pointed out gleefully.
“Nice. Is this your payback for me talking about things you didn’t want to deal with?” Creed snarked. “Why don’t we leave you to your date? Come on,” he said to Merit, who stood with him.
Angel’s cheeks pinked up and he darted a glance at me. “Date?”
“We’re getting to know each other, right? No pressure.”
He scratched at his neck with one hand in a move that seemed a lot like a nervous tic, but still had the other hand stuffed in his hoodie pocket. Was that a nervous habit of his, too—the pocket thing?
The server from earlier sauntered over and gave Angel a real smile, where we’d only gotten a pretend one earlier. “What will you have, sir?” he asked.
Angel startled toward him. “Uh… what do you have without booze?”
The server’s smile cranked up a notch. “Blood Orange spritzers. They’re yum. I bet you’d like it. I’d make yours extra sweet.”
Was that little shit flirting with the man I asked here? I scowled at the server, and his smile died on the spot.
Angel jerked his head up and down once in a nod, and I found it fascinating that his shyness extended to more than just me, so that had me relaxing a bit. Maybe the way he was acting wasn’t entirely down to the incident earlier today. “I’ll take a refill. Scotch.”
The server shot me a glance that was nearly scared as he nodded and headed off to the bar at top speed.
“You don’t drink?” I asked.
Angel smiled and said something quiet that had me leaning down to hear him better. “Uh—sorry. I said that I might drink if we weren’t out. It’s not my favorite thing, though. Plus, I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“What do you mean? How old are you?”
His laughter was a genuine burst of amusement that transformed his tense features and had me captivated. “Nineteen. Do you want to take back that this is a date?”
I gestured at the small couch Merit had abandoned, and Angel settled down on one side while I took the other. Our knees brushed and part of me wanted to tell him that I probably had about as much date experience as he did, but that wasn’t the way to earn his confidence.
“You know, maybe I should be worried about our ages, but you’re cute, and you got up the nerve to come out with me after I was an asshole. That makes me interested. You’ve got balls, and I like that.”
Angel smirked and used his lips to play with the ball on his lip piercing, almost like I’d reminded him of it, working the metal back and forth with the tip of his tongue in a way that had me more transfixed than it probably should have at this stage of the game. “Do you do that a lot? What happened today? With the….” He waved his hand around in a big circle as if he could encompass the magnitude of my bullshit. I chuckled even though the tips of my ears heated and I felt about three feet tall.
It took me a second to make my brain function for more than fleeting fantasies of his mouth opened wide for my cock. That lip piercing was going to kill me. “Uh… more than I’d like, less than it used to. I’ve mellowed over the years.”
He cringed but nodded, and I wasn’t sure what I’d said wrong. The server came back, handed off a new glass of scotch to me, and then held out Angel’s curved glass to him, complete with a pineapple skewer. The drink was so large Angel was forced to take it with both hands or risk spilling it.
The instant I spied his swollen, red knuckles, I was worried. The sleeve of his hoodie slid up and his wrist was also streaked with a wicked red welt that was on its way to a dark purple in spots. I reached forward to grasp Angel so he wouldn’t pull away before I got a good look at his injury, and he sloshed some of his drink. The shock of cold liquid on my thigh had me zeroing in on the mess.
“I’m sorry. So sorry.” He shot a wide-eyed look at me and his shoulders heaved with his too-fast breaths.
The server gave me a pained smile that clearly communicated he wished he could chuck me in the lake. “I’ll get a cloth from behind the bar. No worries.” He took off like a bat out of hell.
