Chase:I should get back to work. Was just thinking about you.
Me: I might’ve been thinking about you, too.
Chase: Of course you were. You want my tongue again.
Me: God, I hate all of you.
Chase: Maybe, but you love my tongue.
Me: Going now. Bar to run. Hate lawyers. Blah, blah.
Chase: LOL. Have a good day. Good luck with the game.
I looked up from my phone to find Mark and Jacks still staring at me. Neither had moved. I was fairly certain neither had breathed.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re doing it again,” Mark said.
“Doing what?”
“The face thing,” Mark said.
“I am not—”
“You are, boss,” Jacks added, grinning. “It’s cute, though. Don’t stop on our account. Get that big D, man.”
“For the love of . . . I hate you both.”
The Lightning scored three minutes into the second period, and the bar erupted.
Literally erupted. I was pretty sure the windows rattled.
“THREE MORE VODKA SODAS!” someone shouted over the noise.
“COMING!” I shouted back, already grabbing bottles.
Next to me, Benji was making four drinks while also explaining the history of the Moscow Mule to a customer who absolutely did not care but was nodding along because Benji’s energy was impossible to resist.
“—invented in 1941 at the Cock ’n’ Bull pub in Hollywood, and fun fact, the copper mug isn’t just aesthetic; it keeps the drink colder.” He slid all four drinks across the bar without looking. “But most people don’t know that the vodka used was Smirnoff, which was struggling in America until this drink made it popular—”
“JACKS, TABLE SEVEN NEEDS WINGS!”
“ON IT!” Jacks appeared from nowhere, grabbed a tray of wings from the pass, and disappeared back into the crowd like a golden retriever on a mission.
The energy was infectious.
Electric.
Frenetic.
It was the kind of chaos that made you forget you’d been on your feet for three hours straight.
Mark appeared at my elbow, grinning. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“We’ve already beaten last week’s Lightning gametake . . . and it’s only the second period.”
