Page 33

So I nod. “It’s true. We did eighteen of them together, then he threw a fit and decided he wanted his own.”

“Do you not acknowledge your actual birthday on the actual day of your birth?” She looks up at him again. “February comes and goes, and you celebrate Tommy only?”

“No, I take February, too.” He giggles, already two-thirds of the way to puking in the street.

“I get both. But Tommy doesn’t get shit in the summer.

It’s his turn to sit down and shut up ‘cos he gets everything else. He was born first. The ladies look at him first, even if he tells ‘em to buzz off. People talk to him first ‘cos they say I’m mean. And he fell in love first.” Sighing, he rests his cheek on the side of her head. “Didn’t work out so well. But he still got that.”

“Oliver?” I drop my head back and summon someone, anyone , to help. “Come get him, please.”

“You gotta drink that shot, Lana.” He crushes her neck in his side-hug and drags her in till more tequila spills onto her wrist. “For me. For my fake-ass birthday. You owe me ten shots, really, since you’ve skipped the last ten birthdays.”

“You want me to buy you ten shots?” She licks her wrist— God, kill me now —and hums with happiness when the taste hits her tongue. “I would, but you’re already kinda drunk. I wouldn’t feel good making the situation worse.”

“Come on.” Oliver comes around and pulls Chris his way. Which only ends with Alana being pulled along, too. “Time to get off her, Watkins. She ain’t yours.”

“I don’t want you to buy me ten shots!” He sets his hand under her glass and pushes it up. “I want you to shoot ‘em. Maybe then, you’ll be a little less fuckin’ stuffy and actually remember you used to like us.”

“Oliver!” I peel Chris’ arm from around her neck and snarl when he holds on too fucking tight. “Take him.”

“Truce!” Chris declares. Not just for him or her, and not even for me.

He makes a stand and speaks to everyone.

“For my birthday, I’m saying y’all stop staring at her.

Forget for a night that she abandoned us and pretend she’s just…

ya know… Alana Page. She’s been hiding out in Tommy’s bedroom for ten years.

Since,” he grins, “that’s totally in character for what we thought was gonna happen anyway.

Stop staring at her and stop whispering.

Stop actin’ like she’s got the leper, and instead, buy her a drink.

Once she’s at the third shot, she’s gonna shed that big-city sparkle and become like us again. Give it time.”

“We’re gonna go to the smoking area for a bit,” Ollie decides, pulling Chris along and gritting his teeth when he jerks Alana off balance. “Sorry.”

I grab her arm and steady her again. But also, to stop her from turning on her heels and making a dash for freedom. Since the second, of course, is way more likely than the first.

“It’s okay.” She tries to brush my hands off. “Let me?—”

“Don’t leave.” I pull her closer, thankful for the jukebox that covers the sound of her exhaled breath when we crash back together. And since we’re technically on a dance floor, I sway. “Swear to christ, Lana. I’m sick of seeing you leave.”

Her eyes, desperate and emotional, glitter with unshed tears. “I can’t be here. I can’t?—”

“You can.” And because I’m a Watkins just as surely as Chris is, I nudge her shot glass up and hold her eyes until she drinks what’s left. “Truce, remember? And everybody else has been put on notice. They don’t get to stare at you anymore.”

“He’s drunk.” She licks the tequila from her lips, and whatever sticky drops are on her wrist. Then she startles when I steal the glass and set it on a nearby table without, even for a second, releasing her or stopping our impromptu dance. “He’s going to puke tonight, you watch.”

I choke out a soft laugh, nodding in agreement. “You’d know. He got drunk like that a time or two back in high school.”

“And then he was a total baby about it for the next forty-eight hours. Needed a cold washcloth on his forehead and soup for every meal until he felt better.”

“He doesn’t get soup anymore.” Dancing is for touching. It’s for tracing new curves and remembering old flames, so I run my hand over her hips and bury my nose behind her ear. “Since I’m not the kind of guy who’s gonna make it. But he preps the washcloths before he drinks now.”

Surprised, she pulls back to search my eyes. “Really?”

“Mmhm. Soaks them in water and tosses them in the freezer before we come out. By the time we’re home, and he starts whining, he remembers what he prepped and goes to sleep a happy man…” I laugh. “Ish.”

She doesn’t find things as humorous as I do, frowning instead. “He drink himself sick often?”

She’s still his mama bear, even when she thinks she isn’t. Still his protector, a role she took on when she became mine. “He needs better guidance, Tommy. Drinking like that is how you end up like your parents. We know that’s not what he wants, so?—”

“Hasn’t drunk himself sick in years.” I press my hand beneath her chin and shut her up. “Seems he’s working through his emotions with alcohol and bad choices tonight, because that girl he once knew is back in town, and besides, it’s his half birthday. He’s allowed to get loud for a night.”

Her eyes glitter with anger—which is better than the heartache I catch all too often—then she brings her hand up and slaps mine away. “Don’t touch my face.”

“I said I’d buy you a shot.” Caroline pops up on my left, brandishing a shot of tequila and a grin.

Then she forces the glass into Alana’s hand.

“I’m under no illusions about this .” She points between us.

“This is not a reunion. This is lightning in a bottle, bound to explode soon. So, while all is contained and everyone is playing nice, I’m gonna shut my trap and pour your drinks.

But the second I get so much as a hint of anarchy, I’m kicking you both out and putting you on the street.

If you break a single glass, I’m dragging you out of bed first thing tomorrow morning and bringing you back here to clean my bar from top to bottom. ”

“What if we break a table? Respectfully,” I add, teasing. “Because I might like to swing one at my brother a little later, and I need to know the terms of our agreement before I start that war.”

“Start no wars in my bar!” She sets her hand beneath Alana’s drink and nudges the glass up, emptying clear liquid into her mouth. Then she takes the glass and spins on her heels, striding back to work.

“Holy shit!” Alana’s breath whistles along her throat. I know the tequila burns on its way down. “Does no one around here respect a woman’s right to drink at her own pace?”

“I’m not sure she saw the first one. Probably didn’t realize you’d already downed a shot.”

“Under duress.” She swipes her mouth with the back of her hand and closes her eyes. It’s not a wistful, dancing-in-the-dark thing outsiders might assume. It’s an ‘ I need a minute alone before I hurt someone ’ thing.

So I give her that and slowly, almost imperceptibly, bring us closer to the middle of the dance floor.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah?” I pull her in, forcing her to straddle my leg and rest her cheek on my shoulder.

“I’m dancing. I’m drinking, albeit slower than you.

I’m celebrating my brother’s half birthday because he needs one day a year to feel like he’s not just one half of us .

It matters to him, and what matters to him matters to me more than what matters to me. ”

“You’re intentionally being obtuse.”

“Am I?” I close my eyes, too, so I don’t have to see all the assholes staring at us. Their stunned expressions remind me of everything I’ve already lost. They remind me she’s a flight risk, plain and simple. “So what is it you think I’m doing?”

“I grew up with you.” She licks her lips.

I don’t even have to see it to know she slides her tongue over perfect, swollen bow lips.

“I grew with you, through the good days and the bad. Guys like you… trouble found you even when you weren’t looking, and grudges were had, even when you weren’t sure why you had them. ”

Fuck, she smells good.

“I was with you when you’d plan out your counterattack, remember? Every time someone pissed you off, you’d decide if you were gonna punch them in the face or annoy them till they lost the will to live.”

And she feels so, so fucking good.

“You can’t punch me in the face.”

I grin, knowing she won’t see it. “Says who?”

“Which means you choose psychological warfare. You’ll continue to bother me till we’re on speaking terms. Consistency and all that.

Maybe I’ll even get so used to having you around, I’ll stop panicking and start thinking of you as a friend again.

But someday, at some point in the future, you’ll make me pay for leaving.

When I least expect it, you’ll swing around, armed with your sword of retribution, and you’ll destroy me the way you feel I destroyed you. ”

“That’s quite the intricate hypothesis.”

“But you can’t move on to the friend stage until I stop telling you to leave me alone. And you can’t move on to retribution until I feel safe in your presence. So, step one is to make yourself visible to me. Being where I am, going where I go?—”

“And just so we’re clear: I was here first tonight. I didn’t follow you.”

“It’s a small town,” she sighs. “It won’t even be difficult.

One grocery store. One gas station. One elementary school.

My son attends your gym for classes, and Caroline owns the only decent bar in a fifty-mile radius.

” She pulls back, startling my eyes open and hurting my heart with the way she stares.

“I know you, Tommy. And I know payback will sting. Can’t we just agree this isn’t healthy?

Let me go on with my life without always looking over my shoulder, worried about when that sword will meet my throat? ”