“He’s tall,” I said. “Taller than me, which isn’t hard, but still. He’s got dark hair that’s kind of messy but not on purpose. He wears these wire-rimmed glasses that won’t stay in place, and he’s got this jawline that’s very . . .” I made a vague geometric gesture with my hand that conveyed nothing useful.
“Very what?” Mia asked.
“Verythere. Like, it’s a jawline. It exists. It’s structural.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed with the predatory focus of a woman assembling a theory. “Benjamin.”
“What.” God, I hated it when she drawled my full name like that.
“You think he’s cute.”
“Mia! No! I think he’s infuriating. He communicates through refrigerator stationery—while I’m standing right beside him, mind you—and he looked at my shaking hands like I was a liability hewas calculating the insurance cost of.”
“So you think he’s cute,” she repeated, a hound with a scent.
“I didnotsay yes.”
“You described his jawline as ‘structural.’ That’s a yes.”
“Structural is a neutral observation. Buildings are structural. Bridges are structural. It’s an engineering term.”
“You’re as much of an engineer as I am.”
Jacks, who had been quietly cutting limes while listening to this entire exchange, looked up and said, “He sounds nice.”
“He’s notnice, Jacks. He’s . . . an iceberg with power steering. He’s controlled and precise and controlling. In a controlled, controlling way. And, damn it, he’s quiet in a way that makesmewant to be quiet, too, which is a very weird thing for me to say because I have never wanted to be quiet in my entire life.”
Jacks smiled. It was the knowing, dimpled, irritating smile of a friend who was not going to say what he was thinking but wanted me to know that he was thinking it.
“Stop smiling like that.”
“Like what?” Jacks asked, batting his fucking eyelashes (which were quite long and lovely).
“Like you know something.”
“I don’t know anything.” He went back to his limes. “Except that you just talked about this guy for forty-five minutes without stopping.”
“I talk abouteverythingfor forty-five minutes without stopping. That’s my personality. It’s not evidence of anything.”
“Okay, Benjamin,” Jacks said.
“Oh, no. Not you, too. I can’t take anyone other than Mia—”
“Benjamin,” Finn said, appearing behind me with a case of beer in his arms.
“Fuck a duck,” I groused, tossing my towel on the bar before grabbing a bottle of vodka, pouring a drink I hadn’t been asked to make, tossing it back in one go, and changing the subject to literally anything else.
Finn didn’t let the subject stay changed for long.
Nor did Jacks nor Mia nor Mark. Hell, Rod—the same Rod who hadn’t left the kitchen in weeks—came out to the main bar just to ask about the kittens he heard I’d gotten recently.
I hadnotacquired any kittens, I tried to explain.
They’d acquired me.
No one bought it.
Chapter 6
