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“Rurik, Kaz doesn’t even remember the one brief, and—I can’t stress this enough—non-sexual time we met.”

He stops at a red light, then looks over at me. “Non-sexual? Kaz?”

I laugh, because he’s right. Kaz isn’t exactly known for having platonic friendships with women. And with the way he looks, it’s understandable. It’s like the Greek gods went over to Russia and had a baby and named him Kaz.

“Fine. I’ll tell you, but you can’t laugh, and you can’t ever tell anyone else. It was horrible.”

“What was horrible? What did he do?” He’s getting himself all riled up already, and I haven’t even said anything yet.

“No, nothing bad. He didn’t do anything.”

His jaw relaxes, but he’s still on edge. The man looks ready to fight any monster that comes out of the shadows.

And it’s for me.

“What’s wrong?” He questions when the light turns green, and I still haven’t spoken.

“Nothing. It’s just…you’d really stand up to Kaz for me? Even if what happened was two years ago?”

“I’d break every one of his fingers if he touched you in any way that hurt you.” The weight of his words is almost unbearable. I don’t deserve this sort of protection, this sort of loyalty.

“I guess it’s good that he didn’t, then.” I try to laugh it off, but he’s not giving up.

“What happened, Mira. Tell me.” He curses under his breath as the car rolls to a stop. There’s an accident in the intersection up ahead and we’re stuck behind the traffic.

“I was at Laceless, you know the club on the Southside, with some friends from work. I’d had way too many drinks. It was Cathy’s…she was my boss…birthday.”

“You were drinking at Laceless?” His voice gets tight.

“Are you going to let me tell you or are you going to stop every time you hear something makes you angry. Because if you do that, we’ll never get through this.”

He closes his eyes and draws in another slow breath. “Tell me.”

“Okay. So, I was drunk, like really really drunk. And I saw Kaz come into the club. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but he was cute—” I give him a second to reel in his irritation. “So, I went up to him, and we started talking. He was surrounded by guys who I now know were probably his henchmen. But at the time, the tequila was doing all the talking.”

“Tequila?” His jaw flexes. “Go on.”

“Thank you.” I sigh. “Anyway, I was going on and on, and he was talking but I have no idea about what because my stomach started hurting, and just as he leaned into me, I got sick.”

Heat floods my cheeks with the memory.

“You threw up on him?” His eyes go wide, but his mouth curls at the edges.

“It wasn’t funny.”

“I don’t doubt it. I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled.”

“To be honest. I’m not sure what he did. After I got sick, I ran to the bathroom. By the time I came out, Cathy and the rest of the girls were waiting for me, and I got a cab.”

“You took a cab home?” His voice goes hard. “Alone?”

“No! I shared one with Cathy. She lived only a few blocks south of me, so we dropped her on the way.”

He sighs and shakes his head.

“He doesn’t even remember me. There’s nothing there to worry about.” I turn back around. “Not that it matters, because again—and I wish you’d write this down, so you’d remember—we aren’t a thing.”

He huffs. “I’m not talking about that right now with you.”