Page 30 of Howl Lotta Love

“It is not, Diesel, that’s how we ended up with a bottle that tasted of pure candle wax.” Roman shuddered at the memory. “I still think about that bottle. I think about it more than I think about several ex-girlfriends.”

“Get that looked at.”

“I see you people four nights a week. That’s basically therapy.” Roman stole a piece of bread off Tucker’s plate without looking, an old reflex that Tucker didn’t bother fighting anymore. “Anyway. Reenactment time. I want to know exactly how the collision went the night you met, and I want Diesel to play Emma.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ve got the shoulders for it,” Diesel said, dead serious, already half-rising, the casting decision apparently finalized in his own head.

“Sit down, Diesel.”

“I would’ve caught the folders with more grace than you did,” Diesel added, sitting back down, unbothered.

“Nobody asked for the record.”

“Who are you texting,” Jace asked Milo, mostly to redirect four grown men away from reenacting the worst four seconds of his composure.

“Nora.” Milo didn’t look up. “She’s out with Emma right now. Girls’ night. I’m getting excellent intelligence.”

“That’s a security risk.”

“That’s gossip, boss, and gossip’s the best security risk there is.” Milo’s phone buzzed. He read it, grinned, and to nobody’s surprise and everybody’s mild horror, read it aloud without being asked. “Nora says, quote, ‘this is going exactly how I predicted, give me twenty more minutes.’ Unquote.”

“You weren’t supposed to share that.”

“Nora didn’t say it was classified. I’m a first responder, not a vault.” Milo’s thumbs hadn’t stopped, drafting a reply with a surgeon’s total concentration. “This is the most compelling entertainment I’ve had all month. I’m not turning it off.”

Jace’s own phone buzzed in his jacket. He checked it under the table with the furtive speed of a teenager, which he was fully aware of and chose not to examine.

Table of six wolves at a bar arguing about wine. Cannot decide if this is your life or a sitcom pilot, Emma had written, no context, no explanation needed.

It’s both, he typed back. Currently losing an argument about wine label colors.

Diesel?

Who else?

Tell him I said label color IS a legitimate metric and everyone doubting him is a coward.

He was grinning at his phone, foolish and unguarded, by the time he looked up, and found the entire table watching him do it.

“Who’s that?” Roman asked, far too casual.

“Nobody.”

“Nobody made your face forget how scowling works.” Roman leaned across the table, delighted, predatory in the way he only got around a genuinely good piece of gossip. “Is that her? Tell me that’s her.”

“Drink your wine.”

“That’s a yes. I’m calling it a yes.” Roman turned to the table at large, arms spread, delivering the verdict with the relish of a judge who’d been waiting all week for this exact ruling. “For the record, official ruling: Emma Burke has ruined this man’s ability to function as a scowling, unfeeling brick wall, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier about it.”

The steaks arrived. The wine kept flowing. Somewhere around the second bottle, Roman leaned back with the satisfaction of a man circling in on a point he’d been saving all night.

“You’ve smiled more in the last two weeks than the previous two years combined. I’ve been keeping an informal count.”

“I smile.”

“You smirk. Different muscle group entirely. This”—Roman gestured at Jace’s whole face with his fork—“is smiling. I’ve seen it four separate times since the accountant walked into your life.”