Just then, Lara leans in with my second Long Island.
I should probably switch to water, but my hand wraps around the glass before I can think twice. Anything to untie the knots in my stomach.
She lifts her glass with that cocky grin of hers. “Something on your mind, Frey? Regretting the life of law and order already?”
“Just wondering how many of these I can have before I’m under the table.” I lift the drink Lara bought for me. “You know I’m a lightweight.”
The glass is cold and heavy, a good distraction from the jitter under my skin. I sip once, then again, faster than I should.
Somewhere between watching people dance and pretending not to check the door every thirty seconds, my glass empties itself. I blink down at the ice, the edges of the room a little warmer, softer. And finally, I breathe deeply again. That’s why they call the stuff liquid courage.
Lara’s brows lift. “I bet your mom is crazy proud of you.” She peers into a bowl of popcorn set out on the bar as if one puff might be better than the others. “Now you’re both boss bitches raining down justice on the world.”
Graduating was the proudest moment of my life. Fighting through those fitness tests as a curvy girl who hadn’t run since high school basketball took every ounce of willpower I had. And then seeing my mom—my hero, a badass district attorney—beaming at me the way she did? I barely made it across the stage before the tears hit.
I laugh lightly. “She is…and yeah. She needed the tissues last week for sure. It never really occurred to me that she’d rather see me on the beat than stuck behind a desk. She’s such an overachiever, I assumed she’d want me pushing paper and doing something nerdy, but I think she was actually a little jealous when I told her what I was doing.”
“Your mom would probably love being a cop.” Lara tosses a puff in her mouth. “She’d be scary as hell.”
She would be.
Lara sips her drink. “Anton’s proud of you, too.”
I arch a brow. “Funny way of showing it. Could he be any later?”
“There it is…” she says, smirking.
“What?”
“The real reason you’re off.”
The alcohol loosens my tongue. “Sue me. I want Anton here. He was the whole reason I took this step in the first place.”
“That’s the only reason you want him here? To thank yourteacher?” The word sounds sexy coming from her.
“Teacher?” I huff a laugh.
A dreamy look fills her eyes. “I do love a student-teacher romance.”
I roll my eyes but don’t deny it was something like that.
Whatever existed between us wasn’t friendship exactly, but it wasn’t anything else I could name either. Mentor and mentee. Repressed attraction. Too many late nights full of laughter andalmosts.
Too bad this town isn’t for me.
As if on cue, Gabriel, Lara’s fiancé, comes back from chatting with his brother near the jukebox, eyes on his phone. “Ant was at a meeting and got caught in some traffic.”
“Echo Valley traffic?” Lara muses.
Gabriel slips his cell into his pocket. “He had to drive through San Jose.”
I should have known he’d be here on time if he could have been. He’s not the fashionably late type.
And their company is branching out to the city? That’s good. Anton once told me he wasn’t sure the slower pace of life here would suit him, even though he really wants it to.He wants to settle here, but he admitted one night, there’s not enough chaos.
“Do you like to be driven crazy?” I’d asked.
He’d looked right at me, his gorgeous bass voice rumbling straight through my body. “Always.”
