“Is that still a thing?” I grimaced just thinking about that cursed game.
“It can be if you want it to be. By the way, I know you guys cheated that one time we played.”
I jutted out my lip. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Kee.”
He dipped his chin, shaking his head. “I may have been drunk off my rocker that night, but your face turns beet red when you’ve drank too much, Skippy. There wasn’t an ounce of color in your cheeks that night.” A shit-eating grin spread across his features. “At least not from the alcohol.”
“Get out of here.” Hayden lightly shoved him, rolling his eyes playfully.
Raising his hands, he backed away from the table. “You’re right, let me give you two some alone time.” He wasn’t paying attention, though, and bumped right into a girl, causing her to spill her drink all over him. Right before Hayden and I burst into laughter, I heard him turn on the charm and say, “Hey, how you doin’? Sorry about the drink. Let me get you a new one.”
“He hasn’t changed a bit.” I huffed a laugh. “Think he’ll ever settle down?”
After he broke up with his long-term girlfriend in college, it seemed like Keenan had entered his playboy era.
Hayden nodded toward Mikey. “If Mikey can settle down, anything is possible. Even for Keenan.”
“I’ll toast to that.” Grinning, I clinked my glass against his beer.
An hour and a few vodka sodas later, Keenan was on the dance floor with the girl whose drink he spilled, Ellison and the others were still playing pool, and Hayden was at the bar, leaving me alone by our table.
I took a slow sip of my drink, eyes scanning the room like a hawk.
When my eyes flicked back to the bar, a girl was talking to Hayden.
But not just any girl.
Michaela.
Even from a distance, I could tell she was all over him, twirling her hair around her finger and laughing obnoxiously at everything he said.
Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was just bold recklessness, but I marched up to Hayden just as Michaela said some bullshit about how she would have won the last race but her horse was being lazy.
“Hayes.” I shot Michaela a side-eyed glance as I snatched the cowboy hat off Hayden’s head to place it on mine, like a guard dog protecting her territory.
Apparently, I was the living proof of Mikey’s earlier theory about the protective girlfriends in the bunch.
Hayden wasn’t mine, but that didn’t mean I wanted to watch him with another girl. Especially not one like Michaela.
She may have taken second place in the barrel racingthis week, but she wasn’t about to take Hayden as a consolation prize.
She wrinkled her nose, looking me up and down, her eyes catching on my face. “Oh. Sorry, Sierra, I didn’t know you were dating someone. I’m kind of surprised. He doesn’t seem like your type.”
I didn’t say anything, just offered her a saccharine smile, the tension finally melting out of my shoulders once she was gone, swallowed up by the crowd of strangers.
Hayden chuckled beside me. “I’ve always loved the color green on you, Skip, but this is a new one.”
I flicked my eyes toward him, fighting the urge to roll them. Whatever jealousy that had come over me was already disappearing. “Here.” I took the hat—which was far too big for my head—off, holding it out to him. “You can have this back.”
“Nah, keep it. It looks good on you.” Hayden’s lips quirked up into a grin as a slow country song started playing.
Couples gravitated to the dance floor like a mushy love fest.
Hayden grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the crowd. “Come dance with me.”
“Hayes,” I started to protest, but he cut me off.
“You don’t get to stake your claim on me like that and not give me at least one dance, Sierra. You can claim ‘friends don’t dance’”—he put it in air quotes—“all you want, but friends also don’t do what you did back there.”
