“You’re breathing like you’re about to annoy me.”
“That’s just my natural rhythm.” He took a drink. “I think you need to find a vacation hookup.”
My head turned slowly.
Nate held up one hand. “Hear me out.”
“No.”
“Your eyes keep going one way, and that way is not good.”
“My eyes are doing security.”
“Your eyes are writing poetry and lying to both of us.”
I took a drink instead of answering.
Nate dropped into the chair beside me, stretching his legs out like we really were two idiots on vacation.
“She’s all wrong for you,” he said.
I laughed once. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Do you?”
“Edge’s daughter,” I said. “Santa Fe patch’s princess. Seventeen for four more days. A walking war zone with a family tree full of explosives. Yeah, Nate. I know.”
“Good.”
“I would never.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean that.”
“I know you mean it right now.”
I looked at him.
He didn’t flinch.
That was why Nate survived as long as he had. He smiled like a fool, but he didn’t scare easy.
“I was there for her,” I said. “That’s all this is. We went through some shit together. She needed somebody. I happened to be standing there.”
“You kissed her.”
My fingers tightened around the bottle.
Nate nodded slowly. “There it is.”
“It was a kiss.”
“I didn’t say it was more.”
“You’re saying plenty.”
“I’m saying you look at her like that kiss rewired your brain.”
