Page 33 of Making It Burn

“I don’t want tequila.”

“Yes, you do.You just don’t know it yet.”

The bartender—a different one this time, male, with a nose ring—set down two shot glasses and a plate of lime wedges.Beau pushed one toward me.

“I’m not doing shots with you, Thatcher.”

“Why not?Afraid you can’t keep up?”

And there it was—that competitive edge, that challenge in his eyes that bypassed every rational thought in my brain and went straight to some primal part of me that refused to back down.

“I can keep up just fine.”

“Prove it.”

I picked up the shot glass.“This is a terrible idea.”

“The best ideas usually are.”Beau raised his glass.“To new beginnings?”

“To surviving this merger without killing each other.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

We tossed back the shots in unison.The tequila burned going down—cheaper than what I’d order, but effective.I bit into the lime wedge, and when I looked up, Beau was watching me with an expression I couldn’t read.

“Another one?”he asked.

“You trying to get me drunk, Thatcher?”

“I’m trying to see if the great Mason Price knows how to have fun.”

“I know how to have fun.”

He was already ordering another round.“Come on.I bet I can drink you under the table.”

Every rational part of my brain was screaming at me to walk away.This was dangerous.We were colleagues.We’d spent the day together in increasingly intimate circumstances, and now we were at a gay bar doing shots, and nothing about this was a good idea.

But the tequila was warm in my stomach, and Beau was looking at me like I was a puzzle worth solving, and I was so tired of being careful.

“You’re on,” I said.

Two shots became four.Four became six.Somewhere around shot number five, we migrated from the bar to a small table in the corner, away from the worst of the crowd.Beau was telling me a story about a case he’d worked in San Francisco—something involving a tech CEO and a very creative interpretation of contract law—and I was actually laughing.

Not the polite laugh I used at networking events.A genuine laugh, the kind that came from my chest and made my face hurt.

“You’re different here,” Beau said, leaning back in his chair.His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright.“Less...”

“Uptight?”

“I was going to say ‘controlled.’But yeah, uptight works too.”

“Maybe I’m tired of being controlled.”

“So what are you doing about it?”

The question hung between us, loaded with subtext.Beau was watching me intently now, all traces of humor gone from his face.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.“I’m here, aren’t I?”