“So am I, and I’m about to go talk to him when I deliver these drinks.”
“Don’t—”
“Sorry,” Jacks said, glancing back over his shoulder with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Customer service and all.”
Before I could object again, Jacks was gone, weaving through the crowd toward Chase’s booth. I watched him set down the drinks at a nearby table, then step over to where Chase was sitting. Theyexchanged a few words, and then Chase looked up.
He glanced across the bar.
Directly at me.
And smiled.
Chapter 15
Chase
Iwas on my third beer and my second burger—yes, second, because the first one had been so good I’d ordered another—when the kiss finally happened.
On screen, the two hockey player MCs had been circling each other for the entire episode. From what the others watching said, they’d been dancing around their mutual attractions since the series began three weeks ago. Apparently, hard-to-get was a well-enjoyed trope, particularly among gays who craved representation on the small screen.
The players argued in the locker room, shoved each other during practice, and stood a little too close in the hallway. The tension had been building for forty-five minutes, and the entire bar knew what was coming.
When they finally kissed—a collision of lips and hockey pads and years ofsuppressed whatever-this-was—the bar lost its collective mind.
Hoots. Hollers. Actual howling from somewhere near the back.
The guy in the Lightning jersey three tables over jumped up and grabbed his friend, pulling him into a dramatic kiss that his friend shoved away from, wiping his mouth and yelling, “EW!” like a first-grader who’d just learned about cooties.
I laughed despite myself, despite the exhaustion settling into my bones, despite the fact that I’d been here for almost three hours and still hadn’t actually talked to Finn beyond that brief moment when our eyes had met across the bar.
I’d come here tonight on impulse.
Work had been brutal, with Saturday spent finishing the Henderson settlement and the Morrison deposition prep and the Patterson brief. This morning, I’d woken up at seven, worked until three-thirty, then realized I had nothing else urgent until tomorrow’s meetings.
Nothing urgent.
For the first time in weeks, I had a Sunday evening with no immediate fires to put out.
Diego had texted around one.
Diego: Game’s on. Come watch at our place?
Me: Maybe.
Diego: That means no.
Me: It means maybe.
Diego: Did you go back to the bar?
Me: Not yet.
Diego: CHASE.
Me: I’m thinking about it.
Diego: Stop thinking. Just go. If you’re gonna blow me off, at least go blow that ginger.
