She pulls back enough to look up at me, and her smile is so uninhibited it opens my chest.“Amazing.”
Then she scans the table, looks back to me—a quick, quiet question in them about where to sit.Next to Zoe, Serena gives a small, shy wave, and Grace says hello with the kind of warmth that seems to come naturally to her.
She slips into a seat on the other side of the table, second from the end, and I drop into the chair beside Oliver.
Smart.Or stupid.
Although every part of me stays tuned to her like a frequency I can’t dial out.
Kellen leans back in his chair, grin lazy and deliberate.“Grace.I’m Kellen.Welcome to the circus.”
She laughs.“Not sure if that’s comforting.”
“It is.”His gaze fixes on her.“We’re a good time.Me most of all.”
Wren jumps in before I can get my foot to his shin—launching into teasing Oliver about losing his keys twice this week, not because she cares, but because she’s Wren.She clocked my reaction to Kellen’s flirting, and Oliver plays along without missing a beat.I flag Maisy, the owner, and order our drinks.
Warmth settles over the table, the old, lived-in kind that feels like home.And Grace—somehow, without trying—fits in like she’s always had a seat here.That shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does.
Kellen’s attention is still on Grace.“So, the way I see it, you’re the new talent in town.”
“I’m hardly new.I’ll have been here three weeks tomorrow.”She bites the inside of her lip, and her eyes cut briefly to mine.
Three more weeks.That’s what I have—what’s left of whatever this is before she packs up her notes and her questions and goes back to her real life.
I should want it finished.No more questions.No more reasons to stay close.
I’m not sure I mean it anymore.
“New to me.”Kellen’s grin deepens.“I can’t believe we haven’t crossed paths.You should let me show you around sometime.”
My grip tightens around the beer bottle, and my jaw locks.I keep my mouth shut because saying anything would be worse than saying nothing.Any word from me would mean admitting this is mine to feel, and it isn’t.Not her attention.Not the slow burn that moves through me when another man looks at her like she’s something worth pursuing.Wanting doesn’t give me the right to act on it, and I know that.
I know that.
Percy’s expression cuts sharp across the table, and she sets her glass down with the quiet of someone who’s made a decision.“All right, Kellen.That’s enough out of you.Go find someone else to charm.”
He presses a hand to his chest like he’s wounded, and Wren rolls her eyes.
Grace shifts in her chair.“Pretty sure I’ve seen most of the town already.”
“Not with me, you haven’t.”He just won’t quit.
I take a long pull of my beer, focus on the cold and the bite of it, and remind myself this is exactly the kind of moment that tells me what I already know—she’s here to do a job.I’m the complication she doesn’t need, and wanting her this badly is its own kind of answer.
Then another pain in my ass arrives at the table.“Hope you don’t mind an extra.I’m Blane.”
Wren, ever the diplomat, sits up a little straighter.“A friend of Grace’s?”
“Something like that.”He flashes her a grin.
“Colleagues.”Grace makes a point of setting things straight, and I try to hide my smile.
Oliver reaches across to shake his hand.“Oliver.Wren, Percy, Zoe, Serena.”A gesture around the table.“And the troublemaker is Kellen.”
Kellen lifts his beer without looking up.“What’s up, Hollywood.”
Blane laughs and drops into the only empty seat, the one beside Grace.The one I didn’t take because sitting there would have said exactly what I’ve been trying not to say.My stomach pitches, and a dull pressure builds behind my eyes.