Her cheeks are flushed, and even cracking apart, she's the prettiest thing I've ever seen.
But then, just as the answer sits on the tip of her tongue, the crowd behind us erupts into a frenzy of noise, like Mack just announced free beer for life.
I glance back and see the screens have hit the replay of Finn's goal again. The entire bar's lost its mind all over again, the Bear roar shaking the windows, beer glasses raised, the whole place chanting our names.
When I turn back to Josie, the moment's gone.
"Oh, look at that," she says, nodding at the screen visible through the doors, where I'm grimacing into a corner board. "They're showing your good side. The angry constipated one."
Yep. Whatever she was about to say, she's swallowed it back down, and that maddening, pretty polished mask is sliding perfectly back into place.
"Excuse me? That's my game face."
"That's yourI-ate-too-much-Diego's-tacosface."
"Low blow." I take a sip. "Devastating, but low."
I let her have it. Let her hide behind the joke, because I know exactly what she's doing. I wrote the fucking book on deflection.
But I'm not done with her.
Behind us, the crowd's still chanting, still oblivious, the whole bar a swirl of light and noise and celebration that nobody's paying us a lick of attention.
So I lean in, close enough that she can hear me under the roar.
"You want to…" I say, "…get out of here?"
She turns.
And I watch herdo the math.The risk of what we're doing, the job, the sneaking around with each other, the secret of what happened that first night.
The whole impossible list of reasons this is a terrible idea.
"We shouldn't," she says.
"We've been saying that." I hold her gaze and don't blink, my heart hammering in my chest. "Hasn't stopped us yet."
Behind us, the crowd roars again. Another replay, another cheer, another wave of celebration crashing through the bar.
But I'm not hearing any of it.
Josie looks back too. At the lights and the noise and everything she helped create, yet she can't seem to make herself walk into.
"Yeah," she says finally. "Let's go."
She sets her beer down on the rail, and I take her hand.
Chapter 11
Josie
"So, did the Bears pay for this too?"
I slide into Declan's Range Rover and immediately feel underdressed for it. The seats are soft leather, and everything's blacked out and gleaming, the dashboard a constellation of soft lights.
It smells like Declan's cologne, too, which is surprisingly comforting tonight.
Call me when you've grown up a bit.
