“A Jack and Coke, please.”
Her voice naturally snags my attention through the bass of some song.
As soon as there’s an opening beside her, I take it. Our arms brush, and I’m already buzzing.
A second passes and then another.
My lip hitches when she pretends to ignore me.
“A Corona,” I say to the other bartender.
Tessa laughs under her breath and mutters, “Weak.”
“Excuse me?”
She tracks the bartender with watchful eyes. “Nothing, it’s just…a weak drink.”
Or a safe one.
After all, I’m sort of on duty.
I say nothing but continue to stare at her. The shimmer on her cheeks draws attention to her face. Even from the side, she’s alluring.
“Do you need something?” she finally asks.
“Just keepin’ an eye on my engineer.”
This time, she turns to face me. Her eyebrows draw together, an angry line in between them. “Did my brothers put you up to this?”
I squint. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The bartender places a cup on the bar in front of her. “Jack and Coke.”
Tessa switches like the flick of a light. She turns to him, smiles sweetly, and thanks him.
He eyes her for longer than he needs to, and a hot streak of something unrecognizable slashes at my back.
To steal back her attention, I reach forward and grab her drink.
With wide eyes, she gasps. “That’s mine!”
“And now it’s mine.” I wink. “Enjoy your Corona.”
I force myself back toward Dylan and the team, some of them near the bar and some of them joining Beck on the floor with strangers.
I rest against one of the reserved high-top tables and sip on Tessa’s drink with my focus impenetrable, doing what I do best: observing.
I have Tessa in the forefront of my brain, with her brothers whispering in my ear, and in the back of my head, there’s Vinny and Beau, who just so happened to walk in the door.
Chapter Twenty-One
TESSA
Unbelievable.
Instead of four sets of eyes on me, now there are five. How is that fair, and why does Rome even care what I do when we’re not at work or on the track?
Ugh.
