“I feel safe with you. Everything is falling apart. I want us to be okay.” I follow the neck of his T-shirt with a single finger.
Flip folds my roaming hand in his. It feels good to have him touch me like this, to have his focus on me. “How about I get you some water?”
I don’t like that he’s treating me like a child, even if I’m behaving that way. “How about you stop acting like my daddy, Phillip?”
“I’m trying to help you make good choices, kitten.” The dark look on his face, his gravelly tone, and the surprise term of endearment all send a thrill through me.
So I keep pushing. “What if I don’t want to make good choices?”
His nostrils flare. “You’re a problem tonight, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m supposed to protect you from guys like me,” he whispers. The DJ cues up a song I like, and another great alcohol-fueled idea forms.
I slide off Flip’s lap and move to stand between his legs. He doesn’t stop me as I run my hands up his thick thighs. “Then I guess you have to come dance with me.”
“Haven’t you had enough dancing tonight?”
“Never.” I bat my lashes and push my lips out in a pout. “Pretty please?”
His gaze moves over me on a slow sweep. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Fine. I’ll ask Quinn or Kellan. I bet they’d like to dance with me.”
He shakes his head. “Not if they know what’s good for them.”
A shiver skitters down my spine as he slides off his chair. The front of his body brushes mine as he rises to his full height, fingers skimming the length of my arm. It feels intentionally intimate. “You’ll be my bodyguard?”
“I’ll keep the worst of the wolves away.”
He lets me pull him to the dance floor, which is rarely used for its intended purpose. It’s mostly full of our friends standing around, chatting. Dred arches a brow at us, but I don’t care. All I want is to stay inside this little bubble with Flip and nothing else matters.
The DJ at the Watering Hole usually sucks, but I can dance to anything.
I spin to face Flip, which on any other day I would manage with grace. But the shots finally hit me, and the room spins too. I trip over my own feet, falling into a set of arms.
“Whoa, hey.” Quinn Romero rights me, hands on my hips.
“Sorry.” I pat his chest. “I’m a little tis-pee. Tippy. Tipsy.” I close an eye so there’s only one of him and hold my fingers apart.
“That you are.” A dimple appears high on Quinn’s freckled cheek.
His eyes are a warm seafoam green, and his jaw is angular.
“How are you single?” I blurt.
He laughs. “Oh, you’re really drunk, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. But seriously, you’re gorgeous, and you’re nice, so you should totally have a girlfriend.” The room is spinning inearnest now, so I clutch his bicep to stay upright. “Prolly time to go home,” I mumble.
Quinn’s expression softens. “I can take you. I was getting ready to leave anyway.”
“No.” A strong arm snakes around my waist, and I stumble back into Flip’s hard chest. “I’ve got her.”
“I’m fine.” My stomach roils dangerously, as reality sets in. “I’ll just take an Uber.” I don’t want to throw up on Flip, or in his car, and I’m worried both options are possible with the way the world has turned into a tilt-a-whirl.
All the things I’ve done tonight in the name of sidelining the shitstorm that is my life tumble down in a hailstorm of embarrassment. I sat in Flip’s lap, and he let me. He let me pull him onto the dance floor. He called me kitten.
