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And it is me who’s on the receiving end of my friends’ laughter. Briar, my assistant—or in actuality, the woman who’s become my right hand in my business—cackles the loudest of them all.

And Aspen and Banks, Royal and Jade, Willow and Dash all laugh pretty fucking loudly.

I scowl, lift my glass to my lips, tossing back the dredges of my Gamebreaker, the drink our deceased friend, Colt, created way back in our college years.

No, it doesn’t pair well with hot dogs.

Probably why I hadn’t had one between then and the last concert of Lily’s I attended.

I was starving, the spread was there, and…

So was the infamous Lily Maxwell to overhear my idiocy.

To the rest of the world, I’m Atlas Delarosa, powerful businessman, billionaire before I turned thirty.

To this crew, Lily included, I’m just Atlas—a former college hockey player who is loyal and steadfast and…

Great.

I sound like a golden retriever.

Lily’s phone buzzes and, thank fuck, it cuts off the rest of her teasing.

“Excuse me,” she says softly, pushing back her chair and striding for the privacy of the hallway of The Sapphire Room.

It’s the club my friends and I own, one we started to honor Colt, and now a place that has become a second home for us.

My eyes linger on the entrance to the hall for long enough that Dash kicks my foot.

Hard.

“Dude,” he mutters, “you need to pull it together.”

“Seriously,” Royal says, “you’re giving whipped a bad name.”

“Pot meet kettle.” My words are terse, filled with warning.

One they all ignore.

Because they’re my friends. But they’re also my family.

And because our love language is giving each other shit.

I ignore Banks when he says, “You need to ask her out.”

And Briar when she says, “Exactly. He needs to shit or get off the pot.”

“Maybe we should all give Atlas a break,” Jade, the nicest of us, murmurs.

“Or maybe he needs a push,” Willow, who’s also nice, but whose wicked streak comes out more frequently now that Dash and her have fallen in love. “I know I did.”

“I need another drink,” I growl, shoving up to my feet and striding to the bar, trying very hard to keep my gaze away from that empty hallway where Lily disappeared.

It’s just…

She’s taken a lot of phone calls tonight.

Like an obscene amount—and that’s saying something, considering my cell is perpetually glued to my ear.