Nico realized he was talking to him. Only problem was, he hadn’t heard the question. “What was that?”
Stevie and Stone shared a look.
Stone’s expression was … unreadable. “We were wonderin’ if you wanted to play truth or dare.”
Nico frowned. “With the two of you? That would be a solidhell no.”
Stevie laughed, and the sound was so damn beautiful. He loved to hear her musical laughter. It was the highlight of so many of his days. More so after he’d done something questionable—sending Stone to the house ranked at the top of that list—because it meant she wasn’t mad at him.
After he texted Stone the address, he’d worried that Stevie might never speak to him again. Then he’d worried that he’d pushed them together and he was going to be the one on the outside looking in.Thenhe’d worried he would come home to find them screaming at each other. Then—yes, there were more—he wondered if he would find them fucking like bunnies in his bed. No one said his thoughts were rational.
He’d fretted over all the possibilities the entire hour he spent on the phone with a client. He would have to make that call again on Monday because he didn’t remember a damn thing they’d discussed.
“We weren’t gonna play truth or dare,” Stevie admitted. “But maybe we should so I can ask you where you were at just then.”
“What?”
Stevie looked at Stone. “That’s what he does when he needs time to formulate an answer. Usually, it comes after I’ve spent fifteen minutes telling him something that happened to me durin’ the day. He stalls with a”—she lowered her voice, presumably to mock his voice—“what?Then I’ll watch while he tries to replay whatever bits and pieces he might’ve heard so he can respond correctly.”
Stone glanced between them. “Does it work?”
“About seventy percent of the time,” Stevie said at the same time Nico said, “About eighty percent of the time.”
“Hey, you want somethin’ to drink? Arealdrink, I mean,” Stevie offered, hopping up from the couch and carrying her empty plate to the kitchen.
If Nico didn’t know better, he would think she was running away.
“I’ll clean,” Nico offered, following behind her. “You cooked.”
“I don’t mind,” she told him. “See what Stone wants to drink. It’ll only take me a minute.”
Nico looked across the room to see Stone was watching them intently. The guy had been doing that quite a bit this evening. Like he was consuming every part of their lives that he could in case they threw him out of the house. The vulnerability Nico sensed in Stone was new. Back in the day, Stone had been one of the most confident people Nico knew. He’d idolized that.
This particular version of the man was … well, he was more human. And though Nico was still putting him on a pedestal, it wasn’t quite so high anymore.
“Hey,” Nico called to him. “You wanna beer?”
“I’ll take Sprite and vodka,” Stevie told him. “Be generous with the vodka or stingy with the Sprite; I don’t care which one.”
Stone’s eyebrow quirked. “I’ll have what she’s havin’.”
Nico grabbed the Sprite from the fridge and the vodka out of the freezer. He pulled three glass tumblers down from the cabinet.
“You’re wanderin’. And you’re sniffin’,” Stone said, obviously talking to the puppy. “You need to go out?”
“I can take him,” Nico offered, setting the two-liter down.
“I don’t mind.” Stone grabbed his boots from the barstool where someone had set them earlier.
Nico tried not to watch as he pulled them on in a hurry, clearly understanding puppies don’t wait for anyone, and grabbed his coat before herding Jäger out the back door.
When he was alone with Stevie, Nico turned to her. “You good?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look away from the sink.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded again.
