Whether it was taking down criminals, battling for jurisdiction on a case, or Trivia Night at the Crooked Angel, he didn’t lose.
Detective Hale, who Roman had also worked with on Delia’s case, got the crowd’s attention and introduced both teams, then outlined the rules. Out of the corner of his eye, Roman caught sight of Camila, who had claimed a spot at the Intelligence Unit’s table. She was still giving her brother a partial cold shoulder, if her body language was anything to go by—and he’d learned as a rookie agent that it always was. But she cheered and whistled as Delia’s team was announced, her affection for her best friend so honest and wide open that something stirred in Roman’s gut.
For the sake of propriety—and also sanity, because WTAF—he stuffed it down in favor of concentrating on the matter at hand. The trivia questions came fast and furious, demanding all of his attention, and he jumped right into the zone. Both teams traded correct answers for about ten minutes before Capelli, whose brain was like a crazy, gigantic warehouse of information, went on a hot streak in back-to-back categories. Then, Finn beat them to the buzzer in every question in the sports history category, and Roman got good and determined to make a comeback. He swept the next three categories, which would’ve clinched things if Capelli hadn’t pulled a random fact about the Great Lakes out of what had to have been either his ass or thin air. Delia rallied in the final category, though—thank God, because Roman’s knowledge of Greek mythology was admittedly limited—taking the category and giving them the win. Camila whistled and cheered, her face lit with happiness as she came over to hug Delia, and Roman took his cue to pull back to the outskirts of the group. With the last question having been asked and the winners being crowned, everyone started migrating back toward the large table where the Intelligence Unit detectives had all set up camp.
Roman used the natural flow to slip to the bar for one last beer. From his vantage point on the outside looking in, he was able to watch the group of friends as they hugged and laughed and toasted each other. The dynamic was one he hadn’t experienced in years, the camaraderie as foreign to him as a long-dead language. Capelli, his girlfriend Shae, Garza, Delia—who were now kissing, much to Camila’s obvious disdain—they shared something far deeper than friendship. Roman knew that sort of closeness, and all the emotions that went with it, weren’t for him. He was far safer without it. In fact, maybe he should just close out his tab and go.
He aimed his stare at the door to calculate a path through the throng of people between him and the exit. But then his eyes landed directly on Camila, and all of a sudden his feet were moving.
Just not toward the door.
Roman reached the group just in time to hear Delia make mention of moving in with Garza a month ago. Detective Shawn Maxwell, a big guy covered in as many muscles as tattoos, made a show of rubbing his shoulders and laughed.
“How could we forget? I think I’m still sore from helping you move.”
Roman recognized the gripe as the sort of good-natured shit that cops and agents usually dished out to their unit-mates when they were close, and Delia hammered home the lighthearted tone of the conversation with a smile.
“Of course we asked you to help us move. You’re one of our closest friends.”
“And strongest,” Garza put in. “Let’s face it. No way was I moving that couch without your brawn, dude.”
“Somehow, I feel like I should be offended by that,” Roman said, surprising everyone in the group, including himself. He hadn’t meant to insert himself into the conversation. For Chrissake, he hadn’t meant to return to the group at all.
But then Camila laughed and rolled her eyes playfully, breaking the tension in an instant. “I feel like you live to be offended,” she said, her smile so pretty that Roman had no choice but to smile back.
“And I feel like you need to lose at darts.”
The challenge had vaulted past his lips before he could kill-switch it. But he’d had a good time so far tonight, glaring looks from Garza notwithstanding. Plus, the way Camila was looking at him right now was worth it.
“Wait a sec.” Her black brows went up. “Are you challenging me?”
“Well, if you don’t think you can handle it…” Roman shrugged, and Capelli’s girlfriend, Shae, let out a low whistle.
But Camila didn’t blink. “Oh, it’s so freaking on right now,” she said, turning toward the game alcove on the other side of the bar.
Roman’s gaze lingered on Camila’s swagger-filled, swivel-hipped walk for just a beat before he impulsively murmured, “Yeah, it is,” and turned to follow her.
Garza, of course, was hot on their heels, with Delia hot on his. But not even the surly detective could wreck Roman’s mood. He and Camila played a game of darts (he won), then another (she took that one by a hair). Somewhere between games one and two and a lot of pointed glances from his sister, Garza had finally drifted away from the game alcove, leaving Roman and Camila to themselves. They shared some easy conversation as they played, which consisted mostly of smack talk and more flirting. Between the high of winning trivia and the electric thrill of flirting with Camila, Roman felt happy and loose for the first time in ages. After she won the second game of darts—and openly celebrated by throwing her hands in the air and crowing “yesssss!” in the cutest way possible—she sat down beside him in one of the partially private semi-circular booths surrounding the game alcove.
“You know,” she said, her face flushed with a pretty glow and her smile bright, “I think we may have been going about this all wrong.”
Roman felt the heat of her body in no less than a dozen places, and wanted it in about a dozen more. “How’s that?”
“We seem pretty good at this truce thing. Maybe we’d make a good team.”
A twinge unspooled in his chest, but he tried to ignore it. “So, does that mean you’re finally conceding?”
Camila surprised him with, “That depends.”
“On?”
Her lashes swept low, shuttering her stare as it dropped to his mouth. “Whether or not we kiss and make up.”
Instinct dared him to close the slight space between them to kiss her, his pulse slamming with every wild, fast beat. The booth was secluded and the crowd had waned enough that he could give her what she was asking for without an audience. But Roman didn’t just want to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her and not stop. He wanted to take her home and strip her bare and make her come a thousand different ways. He wanted to taste and tease and take, then let her do the taking, giving her everything she could possibly want until they were both completely spent.
Roman didn’t just want Camila for a night. He liked her.
And that was far more dangerous than anything he’d ever face in the field.
He needed to get out of here.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice loaded with gravel as he pulled back. “I don’t…I can’t—”
“Oh.” Her face flushed, her gaze dipping from his as she shifted away in clear embarrassment. “God. Right. Of course.”
Fuck, he hated the look on her face almost as much as the fact that he’d been the one to put it there. She clearly thought she’d misread the situation. But correcting her meant telling her the truth about why he couldn’t kiss her, and he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t.