“You good?” I ask Miami.
He lifts his beer with his good hand.
“Define good,” he says. “I watched you idiots play Tower of Terror in a half-finished construct on a camera feed, then missed out on seeing a Russian get capped on a beach. My leg’s full of screws. I’m pretty sure Quinn’s going to have PTSD any time she hears an elevator ding now. But yeah.” He tips the bottle back. “I’m good.”
Quinn elbows him lightly.
“You’re alive,” she says. “That’s what you are.”
“Technicality,” he mutters, but he leans his head against hers for a second, eyes closing briefly.
I slide in on his other side, Valkyrie slipping between me and the bar, her back resting against my chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it was. For us. My arms go around her waist without thinking. My hands settle there. She leans back against me without hesitation, her weight fitting into my chest like she’d been made to be there. Her hair smelled like the ocean, salt, and something warm under both.
Nobody comments.
Not in a badway at least.
Tanya, perched two stools down, wolf-whistles once, sharp and amused.
“About fucking time,” she calls. “I was starting to think you two were just going to eye-fuck each other across rooms forever. Got boring.”
I flip her off. Valkyrie laughs under her breath, shoulders shaking against me.
Jackal appears with three beers and a pair of shot glasses, like he sensed the exact moment we needed both.
“Hydrate and dehydrate,” he says. “Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor,” Ace says dryly from where he’s leaning against the wall nearby.
“Spiritual doctor,” Jackal says. “For the soul.”
He slides a shot toward Valkyrie.
She takes it, knocks it back, grimaces and exhales.
“Still not as bad as your coffee,” she mutters.
Jackal stares while Ace lets out a belly laugh.
Miami lifts his glass toward us.
“To not wasting time,” he says.
He’s looking at me when he says it.
I meet his eyes, then glance down at Valkyrie in my arms.
No fight left in me on that front.
“Yeah,” I say. “To that.”
We clink and drink.
The party swells around us. Music cranks up a notch. A game of pool starts on the far table—8-Ball breaking, because ofcourse. Liberty’s girls cluster near one corner, laughing at something Rebecca’s saying. Devils drift around them like planets, drawn into their gravitational field.
At some point, Blackjack ends up arm wrestling Liberty at one of the high tables.
It starts as trash talk.
