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“I chose one, too,” Gabe says quietly after a moment, and Marcus and I both turn to stare at him. He looks between the two of us. “Don’t look at me like that. You two are the ones always telling me to get back out there.”

I whoop out a victory yell and Gabe winces, hiding his face with one hand.

“We can’t take you anywhere,” Marcus drawls.

“This calls for a shot,” I announce, just as the cocktail waitress brings our drinks.

Gabe groans. “No.”

“A tequila shot.”

Gabe raises an eyebrow. “Alright, maybe.”

Marcus shakes his head. “Absolutely not.”

“Come on. We’re all getting laid. It’s the best possible occasion for a shot.”

Marcus huffs. Then he sighs. “Fine. But just one, Cole. I’m serious.”

“Sure,” I say easily, and look up at the cocktail waitress. “Three shots of tequila, please. Lime and salt.”

I hand her the other hundred and she hurries off to get them after setting our drinks down on the table.

I take a sip of my Scotch. Think about Margo Reyes’s wide brown eyes.

I turn one shot into three, but Gabe refuses the last two and Marcus is a hard sell, so I guess this is as drunk as I’m getting tonight.

It’s not bad. I’m loose in a way that feels real instead of practiced, for once.

“Let’s exchange pictures of the woman we chose.”

“You saved the pictures?” Gabe asks.

“Didn’t you?” Marcus pipes up, and Gabe rubs a hand over his salt-and-pepper beard.

“Yeah. I did,” he says gruffly and Marcus barks out a laugh.

“Thought so.”

“Shut up,” Gabe mutters.

“Alright, on three,” I say, grinning and pulling my phone out of my pocket.

Marcus and Gabe pull theirs out.

I pull up the picture of Margo, the full-body one. She’s standing next to a statue somewhere in South America, from the looks of it, wearing a sundress that hugs every curve. She pouts at the camera, all those dark curls loose around her face and body.

“One,” I start. “Two. Three.”

We all turn our phones around at the same time, each screen showing a different picture of Margo Reyes.

For Marcus, it’s just her face, brown eyes bright, smiling.

For Gabe, she’s seated with flour on her nose in front of the sign that says Sugar & Coal on opening day.

Marcus’s jaw tightens.

Gabe goes pale, which is saying something, since he’s olive-skinned.