Too close for me to pretend this wasn’t happening.
Up close, they were even more intimidating than they’d looked from across the room.
Big. Broad. Tattooed. Heavy boots. Dark denim. Leather cuts worn open over shirts that did absolutely nothing to soften the amount of muscle involved.
One was blond and looked like he smiled before fights.
One had dark hair and a permanent expression of mild irritation, like the world rarely entertained him.
Another had longish hair pulled back and the kind of stillness that made me think he was probably the one who noticed everything.
One was scrolling through his phone even as he sat down, which should have made him seem less threatening and somehow did not.
And then there was him.
The dark-haired one.
He didn’t sit immediately. He stood there for half a second too long, eyes on me in a way that made something hot and unsettled move low in my stomach. Then his gaze dipped briefly to the table, the empty can near my hand, and came back up to my face.
One brow lifted.
Just slightly.
My cheeks heated.
I looked away.
Smooth, Emma. Very smooth.
“Evening,” one of them said, his voice easy.
Maya lit up like someone had flipped a switch. “Hi.”
And there it was.
The version of Maya I knew was coming.
She turned in her seat, smile bright, posture open, every inch of her suddenly tuned toward them. Her laugh came easier. Louder. She pushed her hair over one shoulder in a way that looked absentminded if you didn’t know it was absolutely not absentminded.
The blond one grinned first. “You ladies enjoying yourselves?”
“We are now,” Maya said.
I closed my eyes for one brief second.
Not because it was shocking.
Mostly because it was exactly on brand.
The men laughed.
I took a very measured sip of my drink and focused intently on not making eye contact with anyone.
Maya, meanwhile, was in full form.
She leaned toward the blond one. “Your arms are insane.”
He laughed again. “That right?”
