“Seriously,” she said, reaching out and grabbing his bicep like this was a normal thing people did within thirty seconds of meeting strangers. “If you hugged me too hard, you’d probably crack a rib.”
That got a bigger laugh from two of them.
I nearly choked on my drink.
But she wasn’t done.
Of course she wasn’t.
Maya tilted her head and added, “You look like you could throw me over your shoulder and carry me straight out of here.”
I turned my head so sharply I felt the movement in my neck.
What the hell?
The blond one looked delighted.
The dark-haired irritated one smirked into his beer.
The man on his phone finally looked up.
And him—
The dark-haired one at the center of all my problems—didn’t laugh right away.
He looked at Maya once, like he was acknowledging the sound coming out of her mouth.
Then he looked at me.
And there it was again.
That tiny, knowing pull at the corner of his mouth.
Like he’d seen my reaction.
Like he found it amusing.
Heat crawled all the way up my throat.
I looked down quickly, mostly because if I didn’t I might accidentally make a face.
From this close, I could finally see the small patch stitched over the pocket of his cut.
President.
My pulse stumbled.
President of what?
I had a pretty good guess.
And somehow that didn’t make him less attractive, which felt like a personal failure.
Maya kept talking.
Laughing.
Touching people.
