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I don’t wait for them to reply as I make a beeline for the restrooms, turning sharply just before I reach the hallway to cut across the edge of the dining room toward the bar area. I find him there, slung casually in one of the oversized leather stools at the horseshoe-shaped bar, his fingers drumming lightly over the dark polished wood as he watches some sports game on the overhead television.

I shove his shoulder lightly. “What the hell was that?”

“Oh, hello, Dani. Miss me already? That has to be a new record.”

“I miss you about as much as I miss teeth cleanings.”

“Mm, sounds like you’re thinking about me in your mouth.”

“I actually cannot stand you.”

Ezra’s smile is slow, lazy even. It makes the knots in my stomach tighten even further. “I like you best off your feet anyway.”

“You think you’re cute,” I huff.

He bats his eyelashes at me in an overexaggerated fashion. “I think I’m adorable.”

“Why are you here? Really?”

“I told you, I’m meeting a client.”

“Is it Mr. Casiraghi?”

“I have more than one client,” he chuckles.

“Are you implying I don’t?”

“Calm down, Sour Patch,” he laughs. “I would never.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He drums his fingers over the bar again, still looking annoyingly smug. “Your parents seem nice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That your parents seem nice?” he repeats with a grin. “No hidden meaning.”

“There’s always a hidden meaning with you.”

“I think youthinkthere is, but I’m actually very simple. I say what I mean, Dani.”

I narrow my eyes, still trying to figure out if there is some sort of angle here that I’m missing.

“Brunch with my parents is awkward enough without you mucking things up.”

“Didn’t seem very awkward to me.”

“Right,” I snort. “Only because my dad’s wife and my mother’s husband couldn’t be here to parade their weird little four-way friendship that drives me up the fucking wall.”

Ezra cocks his head. “They’re divorced?”

“But still thebestof friends,” I say bitterly.

“That sounds like it would be tough to deal with as a kid.”

“Didn’t happen until I was seventeen. Fucking blew my world up, but I—” I close my mouth. What am I doing? Ezra and I don’t do this. This sort of thing is for friends with benefits who are actually friends. “Whatever. I wanted to tell you that just because we…” I swallow, refusing to acknowledge it out loud. “It doesn’t mean you can insert yourself into my personal life.”

“I could make a joke aboutinserting myself, but I’m a gentleman.”