“Exceedingly idealistic.” His lips twitch.
“Did you Google it when I went to pee?” I narrow my eyes, and he laughs, deep and guilty.
“You cheater!”
“You can’t prove anything,” he counters, that smug smile still in place.
“Still not going to save you from losing.” I lay down JEZEBEL across a triple word score with a flourish. “Again.”
He studies the board, then me. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.” The word I won the last round with.
“Competitive, are we?”
I tilt my head side to side, then take a sip of my water. “Not usually.”
“So, I bring it out in you?”
I hitch a shoulder. “Guess so. What’s the score?”
I’m confident in my victory. Still, I wait as Miles leans over the paper, tallying our points. His eyes flick up, one rogue curl falling over his forehead. “You won.”
“Ha!” I shoot out of my seat, arms raised, then lean against the table between us. “Are you ready to admit defeat yet?”
“Not competitive, huh?” There’s an amused smile on his lips. “One more.”
I fall back into the booth. “You don’t know when to quit.”
“Guess not.” He rolls up his sleeves, carefully folding the cotton into neat cuffs and exposing his corded forearms.
“What?” The tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth tells me I’ve been caught staring. Not that I was trying very hard to hide it.
“Nothing.”Just the completely inappropriate urge to lick your forearm.
“You sure? You looked like you had… thoughts.” He holds out the tile bag. “Ladies first.”
“Oh, I have thoughts.” I pick my seven letters, keeping my eyes on him.
I hand the bag over, and he digs in with a level of concentration wildly unnecessary for Scrabble. But considering he’s about to lose again, I can’t blame him.
“If I pull the Q, I’m walking out,” he mutters, choosing tiles one by one.
“You wouldn’t.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, then back up to hold mine.
“No.” His voice drops. “You’re right.”
The words settle somewhere low in my stomach. Before I can decide what to do with that, the music dips, and the bartender announces last call.
“Already?” I glance around, surprised to find the bar nearly empty.
Miles cleans up the game, squaring the pieces inside the box until everything sits just right, then closes the lid.
I reach across the table and lay my hand over his where it rests on the box. “What do you want?”
His eyes dart to our hands before lifting to mine and holding. The chatter of the bar dulls to muffled noise, so when he murmurs, “Not to say goodnight,” it sounds loud in my ears.
