“Aunt Glory, TJ’s next drink’s on me,” Dakota hollers.
“Make it water,” Vinnie orders.
I turn back to the wall and launch the last dart in my hand.
It bounces off the side of the board and clatters to the floor near my seat.
Possibly I’d hit the board better if I were standing up, but I like lounging on one chair with my foot propped up on the other.
The jittery hands most likely aren’t helping either.
Aunt Glory makes seriously good coffee. It’s like she sprinkles it with magic mocha dust or something, whereas my coffee grinder hasn’t been the same since Cooper left those roasted goat turds in it last winter.
No, I did not brew goat turds. And yes, it took me off coffee for at least three months, which he swears was his only intention, and the reason my coffee grinder hasn’t been the same is that I got a new one and haven’t found the right setting yet.
“Anyone who wants to make money off my very bad dart game better get over here and pick up the darts for me,” I call.
Sloane grins and shakes her head.
“Game over,” Dakota crows.
“Not if I get my ass off this stool and pick up her darts,” Vinnie replies.
A shadow moves behind me. All the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and not just because that’s a semi-normal reaction to two of Aunt Glory’s not-whiskey-sours at nine at night.
Max is here.
When did Max get here?
Whenever it was, he apparently came without a coat. Actually, I haven’t seen him in a coat all week. Did he lose it? I didn’t ruin it too when I spilled all that paint water on him, did I?
Or does Max Cole merely like being naked?
Oof.
That was a whole-body shiver. Yum.
More coffee. Definitely time for more coffee.
Sloane smiles at him. “Hey, Max. Cooper coming?”
“You slept with him!” I abandon my plans for coffee, sit straight up and drop my leg off the chair, wincing when my heel bounces on the floor.
She tilts an amused look my way. “Not sure which him you’re talking about, but no. That said, I am highly entertained by your brother’s attempts to charm me, and you’re talking more to the dart board than you are to me, so…”
“So you haven’t slept with him?” It’s been a running question every winter since Sloane moved to town, and every winter, she tells me the same. I’m pretty sure she means it. She saw him naked after one of my own pranks gone wrong—long story—and she slapped his ass with a wooden spoon last Thanksgiving. Those two instances didn’t turn either of them into hornballs who had to climb all over each other, so I figure they really don’t like each other like that. Plus, Cooper morphed into a whiny baby when Mom let Sloane have her last piece of Grady and Annika’s leftover wedding cake a couple days after the wedding.
Is there anything more unattractive?
But Cooper is Cooper, and Sloane is basically the hottest single woman who’s not related to half the town—Georgia being the hottest single woman who is related to the half of the town that I’m not related to—so it’s a legit question.
She laughs though. “Sisters before misters. Oh, look, Vinnie sent you another drink. Like you’re going to finish the second, much less a third.”
“Are you calling me a lightweight?”
“Yes.”
I grin. “I would’ve made an awful pirate.” Only partially because I’ll take an espresso over rum any day of the week.
Aunt Glory hands me my glitter tumbler that Luca Rossi’s girlfriend, Henri, gave me—so this is where it’s been—then smiles at Max. “Wings and a beer, hon?”
“Burger and fries and an iced tea, please, ma’am.”
“What?” I gasp in mock horror. “A burger will touch those lips? Say it isn’t so.”
He takes the seat my foot just vacated, frowning at me. “Are you drunk?”
“Nope. Just happy. But I’m always happy. The jitters make me extra happy. What makes you happy, Growly Bear?”
“Not being called Growly Bear.”
“But you don’t like it when I call you sexy beast either.”
He props an ankle over his knee. “Why do you flirt with me?”
“That’s a bull’s-eye question.”
He bends, snags a dart off the cement floor, and flings it at the wall without looking.
The dart makes a dull thump that says it hit the board.
There’s no way it was a bull’s-eye, but you know what?
I’m feeling generous. And I really don’t want to fight with Max.
Joke with him? Yes. I joke with all the guys on the team. Why should he be any different?
Because he’s hot, he’s seen you more than just naked, he’s kissed you, you like how his skin and muscles feel, you’re both single, and he acts repulsed by you, which is the best challenge you’ve ever had, my nipples whisper.
Whoops. I’m at nipple-talking caffeine-high stage. That usually only happens when I’m exceptionally tired and only propped up by the caffeine.
I should go home and go to bed, which is code for I need to go home and paint until I can fall asleep since there’s no way I’m sleeping until my first coffee of the night has worn off.
Instead, I crook a finger at him. “You want to know?”
He doesn’t lean in for the secret, but he does drum his fingers over his calf like he’s waiting.
I wish he was in shorts. I love muscular calves. Especially hairy muscular calves. Why is it that he wears short sleeves everywhere in pre-winter, but he doesn’t wear shorts too? “At first, it was so Cooper would get you traded too,” I whisper loudly.
Sloane darts to her feet. “Bathroom.”
“Want me to come?” I ask her. “That’s not exactly a secret. And if it was a secret, it didn’t need to be.”
She gives me a look that’s a little fuzzy.
Uh-oh. She’s not fuzzy.
My eyes are fuzzy.
That’s a bad sign, and I should definitely stop drinking coffee right now.
But I don’t want to.
“I’m leaving because I want plausible deniability in whatever you say next,” she informs me. “I won’t sleep with your brother, but that doesn’t mean he can’t trick knowledge out of me. I want no knowledge of what you’re about to say. Text me if you need me to help you keep your clothes on though.”
“No, no, come back,” I say to her retreating backside. “Make me stop talking.”
“You gonna throw a dart, TJ?” Vinnie calls.
Max bends and grabs another dart from the floor and hands it to me. “Go on. Throw it. Then tell me why you flirt with me now.”
I take the dart with jittery fingers and toss it at the wall, where it bounces off and clatters to the floor again. “Whoops.”
His long arms once again extend to the floor, and the next thing I know, I have seven darts in my hand.
Or eight.
Or two.
The fuzzy-buzzy is getting real. I should go home and eat a grilled cheese sandwich.
Instead, I aim a very sharp dart at a very solid wall and throw.
It thuds.
“Yeah, TJ!” Dakota yells.
“Did I bull’s-eye?”