Page 29 of Scout

I slam my drink back.

“You run from every serious conversation like it’s on fire,” Kendrix adds.

Scout raises his hands like he’s caught in the middle of a domestic dispute. “Okay, the mediator has entered the chat. Let’s maybe not throw drinks at each other, yeah?”

I try to relax my shoulders, but it’s impossible. Every time I look at Scout, my brain short-circuits. Every time I look at Kendrix, my chest burns.

So I do the next worst thing.

I flirt.

“You always wear your shirts that tight?” I ask Scout, nodding at the fabric clinging to his chest.

He grins. “Only when I’m trying to ruin lives.”

Kendrix leans in from the other side. “He does it well.”

Scout laughs, a little flustered now, and takes a too-long sip of his martini. “Jesus. You two are like… wolves with doctorates.”

“Oh, come on,” I say, tapping the bar. “You like it.”

“I’m not saying I don’t,” he replies, smiling behind the rim of his glass.

And that’s all it takes.

The energy shifts. Turns sticky-sweet, electric. Our knees touch. Our hands brush. Kendrix makes some joke about Scout’s “perfectly slutty golf bottoms,” and Scout fires back with something about Kendrix being jealous of the attention.

Then he kisses me.

Or maybe I kiss him.

Either way, our mouths collide—hungry, messy, reckless. And then Kendrix is there too, leaning in from the other side, pulling Scout’s face toward him like he can’t stand to wait a second longer.

Scout’s hands are on both of us. One on my thigh. One twisted in Kendrix’s shirt. It’s hot. Loud. Unruly. I don’t even care who sees.

It shouldn’t be happening.

But I don’t want it to stop.

Not even a little.

12

Kendrix

It’s been days.

And I still can’t get that damn kiss out of my head.

Not just Scout’s mouth—though, yeah, that alone is enough to short-circuit my brain on a slow day—but thewholething. The ridiculous, messy, dangerous spark that lit up between the three of us like we were a goddamn live wire.

I should be over it by now.

I tell myself it wasn’t real. That Scout kisses people for a living. That it’s part of his charm. His act. That none of it meant anything.

But I’m sitting in the break room, holding my phone like it holds the answers to questions I haven’t figured out how to ask. And I keep seeing his face. His smile. His hand on my thigh. The way his lips moved from mine to Xavier’s and back like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Scout’s a fantasy.