Jackson looked at her.
“Can’t fly, Crowe can’t fly,” she said again, before cackling like she’d made a joke.
“Really,” I said.
“That would be his fault.” Jackson pointed at Maddox. “He taught her that. He’s a bad influence.”
Trixie, as if she’d understood every word, turned her attention to Maddox. “Bad boy. Bad boy. Whatcha gonna do?”
At that, the whole room burst out laughing, and I laughed with them. The sound came out easier than I expected.
An hour later, everyone had eaten, and the pool table had been abandoned in favor of a card game that had started as something civilized and was becoming less so. From the conversation, it sounded like Axel bluffed badly, knew it, and did it anyway. That Maddox had a tell that Hawk was mercilessly exploiting, and that Mika, to my surprise, was actually pretty darn good at poker.
Jackson wasn’t playing. He’d stayed next to me on the couch, with his arm spread along the back, close enough that I was aware of him the way I’d been aware of him for days.
“You can go play, you know. You don’t have to stay here with me.”
“Not tonight. How about you? Do you play poker?”
“Badly,” I said.
“Badly how?” Julius asked. “Badly like Axel, where you know you’re bad and just commit to the chaos? Or badly like you have a face that gives away the entire plot?”
“The second one, probably.”
“Then I wouldn’t play with that group. They’d eat you for dinner,” Julius said.
“Is that why you don’t play?” I asked.
“Nah, regular poker’s no fun. Now give me a couple martinis and suggest strip poker and I’m all in.”
I laughed. “I bet you are, but are you any good?”
“Does it matter when you’re playing strip poker? Either way, someone ends up naked.”
“Sounds like a win-win to me,” Gator added.
It was getting late when things started to wind down. Diego had left an hour ago with a handshake for Jackson and an easy wave for the room after announcing he had an early morning the next day. Axel and Maddox had gone to their respective apartments, still bickering in that fond, habitual way the brothers seemed to have.
Hawk and Mika left together, with Milly trailing behind them. Which left only me, Jackson, Julius, and Gator in the room.
“You good?” Julius asked me.
“I’m good,” I said.
He held my gaze for a moment, satisfied with whatever he found there. “I’m going back to work tomorrow, but if you need anything, just call.”
“I will.”
Chapter thirteen
Crowe
I woke up to the smell of coffee and lay there for a moment, taking stock of the fact that Noah had gotten up first and had made a pot of coffee for me, even though he didn’t drink it. Like we were already people who did things like that for each other.
I got up and found him at the small table by the window with his hands wrapped around a mug of tea, looking out at the city waking up below. He’d found one of my t-shirts somewhere and put it on, and I liked seeing him in my clothes.
He looked up when I came in. “Coffee’s ready.”
