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Reminding myself she can’t
make
me do anything, I sit there impatiently waiting for her to spit out whatever the hell she wants.

Jade’s face twists in seriousness as she pulls my hands into her on her lap. “It’s Bryce.” She bounces with her uncontainable giddiness. “Stop it,” she admonishes the eye roll I give her in response. “This is serious. You know how long I’ve been trying to get his attention.”

“Jade,” I whine. “Can’t this wait? I really want to be done with this so I can get back out there to him.”

“Please,” she begs. “It’s just one night. He’s bringing a friend and I
need
you there.” Her big brown eyes go into puppy dog mode and even though the only thing I want to do is walk out of the room and sit back down next to David, the best friend part of me knows I have to go with her for moral support. Jade plays the part perfectly, pouty lips and all.

“Fine,” I huff my agreement, not at all happy with her. “But you owe me.” Jabbing a finger at her, I pretend to be mad with her. The truth is, I’m not. She’s been hard up on Bryce for the last six months. Too busy with finishing school, Bryce couldn’t give her the attention she’d wanted. They’d always been friends, but I guess now that they were both done with school, he was looking at her in a different light.

The light in which she’d always seen him.

And if this was her chance to finally get his attention, I didn’t want to hold her back.

“What should I tell him, though?”

Jade shrugs. “I’m not sure. Tell him you’ll make it up to him.” She winks suggestively and then stands from the bed. “Just make it quick because we need to get out of here like five minutes ago.”

Huffing, I make my exit back to the living room. Stopping at the curve of the hallway, I peek inside to see David pacing the floor. He stops at the rows of shelves lining the wall. As he looks over the pictures, carefully picking each one up, his lips pull into a carefree smile. His fingers absentmindedly ghost over the images and something in my chest swells.

“Hey,” I call out, not wanting to startle him by stepping up behind him.

With more clumsiness than I would have expected, he replaces the frame, nearly knocking over two more in the process. “Hi, uh, I was just looking,” he rambles an explanation as he rights each tumbled-over frame.

Moving to his side, I feel his body next to mine, a wall of solid muscle and warm kindness. “That’s Dani, my sister. Mom was pregnant with her that night.”

When I look up, his face pales slightly, then morphs into one of relived happiness. “You know on one hand, it feels like so long ago, but then on the other–”

“It feels like just yesterday,” I say, finishing his sentence for him. “I feel the same way. So much of my childhood revolved around that night. The moving. The starting over. It was really crazy.”

A blip of comfortable silence falls upon us and I wonder what he must be thinking. There’s too much light in his deep brown eyes for him to be thinking of nothing and I’d give anything to catch a glimpse of what’s hidden there.

“So, listen–” he starts, but is quickly interrupted by Jade.

“Grace,” she calls out. Without saying anything else, she taps on the face of her non-existent watch. “Please,” she begs and then disappears back into her room.

“I hate to do this,” I explain. “But I have to go.”

“Is everything okay?” There’s misplaced concern in his voice, on his face.

“Yes, of course. It’s just . . .” The words I want to say die on my lips. Misleading is the last thing I want to be, but at the same time, I know I need to be honest with him. “It’s a date,” I admit finally. “But not really. I just have to help out Jade.” The entire story sounds lame, but my brain doesn’t move fast enough so that I can offer any further explanation.

“Oh. Okay.” Jamming his hands in his pockets, he walks toward the door, clearly feeling something that resembles dejection. “I understand.”

The door creaks open and as he steps into the hallway. Reaching for his arm, I turn him back to me—mainly because I want to explain that I’d much rather spend some more time with him, but also because my fingers have been itching to touch him since I first saw him. “It’s not what you think.”

“What do you think I think?” he asks, looking down at my fingers on his bicep. There’s a hint of something sexy and forbidden in his question, setting me on edge.

My tongue is suddenly too big for my mouth and my brain too slow for my own good. “I . . . uh . . . just that . . .”

He laughs, deep lines making dimples in his cheeks and then speech stops being a difficulty. It’s an impossibility. “It’s okay, Grace.” His fingers skim my forearm. “Go on your date. I’ve got plans with Ian to go to Smoke anyway. It’s no big deal. Really.”

My brain goes into total girl mode in that instant.

You mean your plans weren’t to stay here for hours just so I could stare at you.

What do you mean you already had plans?

Not a big deal? Of course it is!

But instead of letting these words vomit out of my head, I smile politely. “Maybe we can get together another time?”

“Of course,” he agrees, winking at me. “See you soon.”

And just like that, without actually making any plans, he’s walking away from me. If Jade would have given me more than two minutes to stand there watching the elevator doors close in front of him, maybe I would have called out to him, asked him when he’ll see me again.

But she doesn’t give me that luxury. Coming up behind me, she shoves a dress, shoes, and a bag into my hands. “You,”—she points to my bedroom—“in there. Now. Be ready in five.” With her hands on her hips, she taps her foot in front of her.

Huffing, I walk past her, muttering, “You
so
owe me.”

“What crawled up your ass?” Ian and his smug face glare at me from the stool to my side.

Keeping my eyes trained on the UFC fight playing on the screen above the bar, I take a drink of my beer. “Nothing,” I deflect. “Why are you thinking about my ass anyway?” Shooting him a look, I laugh. Clearly, he’s not amused. “Just shut up and watch the fight.”

Watching two fighters beat the crap out of one another is a decent enough way for me to vent some of my frustrations. The truth is I didn’t have plans to come to Smoke with Ian tonight. But wanting to preserve some of my pride, I played it off like her date was of little consequence to me.

After the crowd erupts into loud, raucous cheers over the knock out, Ian elbows me in the side. Angling his head to the back corner of the bar, he points out Kelsey.

Calling the attention of the bartender, I order another round of drinks. Clearly, I’m going to need it.

“Here she comes,” Ian keeps his voice low so only I can hear it. And it’s not as if he needs to announce her arrival. Her perfume precedes her by at least five steps.

“Hey, boys,” she purrs. Standing behind me, her fingers dance at the collar of my T-shirt. Motivated by the desire to have her stop touching me, I spin to greet her. “Hi, Kelsey. How are you?” It’s a mindful decision to keep my greeting as formal as possible.

A sly smile parts her cherry red lips. “I’m good, but I could be better.” There’s no missing the hints she’s dropping. Thankful for the distraction the bartender offers, I take my drink and busy my mouth with drinking rather than talking. Ian has enough good sense to keep his focus on the television. “I’ve missed you,” she adds as I drop my beer back to the bar. It’s not in me to be rude, but I can’t respond to her statement in the way she wants me to and be honest at the same time. A crimson fingernail trails down my arm, mimicking the feel of an insect crawling across my skin.

Nothing like the heat I felt when Grace touched me.

“Listen. Kelsey–”

Cutting me off, she pouts, looking ridiculous. “If you want me to listen, why don’t we go back to my place? It’s nice and quiet there.” On that note, Ian clears his throat and stands.

He mouths
Good luck
to me from behind Kelsey’s back. She slides into his seat as he walks toward the bathrooms.

“You don’t come around here much anymore. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.” Her knees brush against mine as she moves in her seat. It’s a deliberate move, setting me on edge. “You haven’t returned my calls either.”

Even though I really want to say,
I know. I’ve been avoiding you on purpose,
it’s not in my makeup to be rude. Instead, I say, “It has been a while.” Finishing off the last chug of my beer gives me a second to avoid having to say much more. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ian take a seat a few stools down. He’s failing miserably at trying to look like he’s not eavesdropping.

As she drops a hand to my leg, she asks, “So what do you think? You want to get out of here and head back to my place? It’s been too long.”

“Kelsey, what we had was good while it lasted,” I lie. “But it’s run its course.” Clearly insulted, her face twists in some kind of agony. It takes actual strength for me not to roll my eyes at her ridiculous reaction. Up until five minutes ago, I thought I’d made this very clear. She’s right. We haven’t seen each other. I haven’t called her back. Haven’t made any attempt to get in touch with her over the last month.

“Run its course,” she mocks. “Okay, fine then. I guess I saw it as more than a fling.” With a giant huff, she stands from the bar stool and walks away.

The good guy part of me wants to call her back, offer her more of an explanation, but it’s unnecessary, really. While we definitely were not a one-night stand, I would barely call what we were anything more than a fling.

When Ian walks back to his seat, he has a shocked look plastered to his face. “I thought for sure I’d come back out here and you’d be lip locked with Tits Magee over there.”

Shrugging, I don’t bother answering him with words.

“Okay, so now I know something is definitely up. Or did your dick go numb?” The ass he is, Ian actually laughs at himself.

“First my ass, now my dick. Any other body part of mine on your brain I should know about?”

Shooting me a wry look, Ian keeps his eyes trained on the television. “No, asshole. I was simply wondering why you’d turn down a night with Kelsey. And,” he adds, twisting in his seat to face me, “if I’m correct, which I usually am, I heard her say it’s been a while. So what’s up with that?”

Over my shoulder, he eyes Kelsey, who finds a seat at the other end of the bar. As a means of avoiding his question, I refocus my attention back on the television, but catch a glimpse of Kelsey out of the corner of my eye. She’s all legs, cleavage, cheap hair extensions, and fake eyelashes. Toying with the end of her blonde hair, I know from experience it feels like straw. Flipping back through my time with her, I can’t say it was terrible. But it was anything but memorable. She was sweet. Always nice and especially attentive, she would hang on every last word falling from my mouth. But she was shallow as fuck. And that was something I could look past. Hell, I should still be able to look past it. But when she walked up to me, something was different.

Up to this point, my life had been a vicious cycle of
wash, rinse, repeat.
Wake up. Fight some fires. Go home. Shower. Go out with friends. Drink. Go home—maybe sometimes with Kelsey.
Wash, rinse, repeat.

And holy shit, was that getting old.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on or what? You haven’t said more than two words since Kelsey walked away,” Ian prattles on.

“What are you, Dr. Phil or something?” Lamely, I attempt a joke, but he doesn’t laugh. Instead, he waits patiently for me to say something. “Fine,” I concede. “I guess I’m just not up for it.”

“For sex?” He nearly chokes on his beer. “Dude, what the hell?”

“It’s not always about sex, asshole.”

His face twists in confusion, as if I’ve just said the most ridiculous thing in the existence of words. “Not always about sex?” he mocks. “Uh, last time I checked, it most definitely is. Something change in the last week?”

Chuckling low, I grumble, “A week? More like four.”

Slapping his hand on the bar-top, he rattles the empty mugs sitting in front of us. “Four weeks? Oh, hell no. We need to fix that.”

“Shut up.” Trying to keep conversation of my sex life, or lack thereof, to a more normal volume, I shoot Ian a serious look. “I’ve been studying for the Lieutenant’s test. It’s eating up all my time. Add in a shitload of overtime shifts, and sex is pretty much the last thing on my mind.” As if I needed more of an excuse, I say, “Plus, my parents are remodeling their kitchen, so I’ve been helping them.”

Without missing a beat, and without listening to a single word that just came out of my mouth, Ian says, “So what? It’s sex. There’s no excuse. Unless . . .” he drags it out, dramatically scratching his chin. “Unless of course you
want
there to be an excuse.”

Shrugging, I say nothing. The raw truth is that his words hit a little too close for comfort. “Maybe I’m just tired of the game, the groupies. You know I’ve never been a one-night stand guy–”