Chapter 20 Maya
MAYA
Operation Bang Nate was, by any objective measure, working beautifully.
It was also destroying me from the inside out, but that was a minor detail.
Lacey’s was packed for a Friday night, the jukebox competing with the crowd and losing badly.
Our usual cluster of tables had been shoved together in the back corner, and the whole crew was there.
All eight of us girls, plus the partners who’d been absorbed into our orbit over the past year or so.
Harle had one arm slung across the back of Cassidy’s chair, his fingers tracing lightly across her upper arm.
Jack sat beside Mia, his hand resting on her thigh in that quiet, possessive way of his.
Cam and Emily were sharing a plate of fries.
Cam’s expression was so soft it was almost indecent.
Aiden had positioned himself slightly behind Annie’s chair, one hand on the back of it, watchful and calm in the way of a man who preferred to observe rather than participate.
And then there was Nate. At the far end of the table, beer in hand, deep in conversation with Dan and Brody. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, forearms on full display, and the overhead light was doing something criminal to the angles of his jaw.
I was going to combust. Genuinely, physically combust. They’d find scorch marks on this barstool and nothing else.
Hannah slid into the chair beside me with a fresh drink and zero subtlety. “You’re staring.”
“I’m surveying the room.”
“You’re surveying his forearms.”
“Those are part of the room.”
Poppy materialized on my other side, because apparently I was being flanked. She set her drink down and leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “Status report. How’s the mission going?”
I took a long sip of wine. “I’m going to need you to understand that I am suffering.”
“Suffering how?”
“Suffering in the sense that I have spent daaaaaays being the most casually provocative version of myself that has ever existed, and it is backfiring on me spectacularly.” I set my glass down. “Do you know what happened on Wednesday?”
Both of them leaned in.
“We were clearing brush on the north trail. It was hot, I’d already ditched the outer shirt, and I bent over to grab a branch and my tank top rode up. He was right behind me.”
“What did he do?” Poppy was breathless.
“He inhaled. Like, audibly. Through his teeth.”
Hannah’s eyes went wide. “And?”
“And nothing. He walked to the other side of the trail and didn’t come within ten feet of me for twenty minutes.
” I picked up my wine again. “Meanwhile, I’m standing there with my heart going a thousand miles an hour and my stomach doing backflips, pretending I’m totally unaffected, when in reality I am so turned on I can barely hold my rake. ”
Poppy pressed both hands to her cheeks. “This is excruciating.”
“You’re telling me. Yesterday I reached across him to grab a water bottle and my chest brushed his arm, and the noise he made, Poppy. This low, strangled sound in his throat. I almost died on the spot.”
“But did he crack?”
“He did not crack. He handed me the water bottle, said ‘here you go’ and went back to digging.” I slumped back in my chair. “The man has the self-control of a monk and it is making me feral.”
“So what you’re saying,” Hannah said slowly, a grin spreading across her face, “is that Operation Bang Nate is working perfectly. But you forgot to account for the fact that seducing Nate O’Hare would also seduce you.”
I pointed at her. “I hate how accurate that is.”
Poppy patted my arm. “Stay the course, soldier. He’s cracking. You just have to outlast him.”
“I’m going to need a cold shower and a prayer.”
“Or,” Hannah waggled her eyebrows, “you could just walk over there and sit on his lap.”
“Hannah.”
“It would be very efficient.”
I was saved from having to respond by the arrival of another round of drinks, courtesy of Brody.
The night rolled on. Conversations tangled and split and reformed. Samara dragged Hannah to the jukebox to fight over the next song. Mia and Emily had their heads together, Annie was talking quietly with Aiden in the shadowy corner.
I slipped away from the table and found Dan at the bar.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” I signaled for another wine. “Having fun?”
“Sure.” He took a sip, his gaze drifting across the room without landing anywhere specific. “Good turnout tonight.”
“Yeah.”
A beat passed. Then another. My quiet, broody brother clearly had something on his mind.
“You seem good,” he said eventually.
“I am good.”
“Yeah?” He glanced at me sideways. “You look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
The tone in his voice made me turn. “I am enjoying myself,” I said. “Why?”
He shrugged one shoulder, his gaze moving back to the room. To the table. To Nate, maybe, though it was hard to tell from where I was standing.
“Just checking in.” Another sip. “Haven’t had a chance to talk to you properly in a while. Feels like you’ve been busy.”
“Work’s been full on.” Which was true, even if work wasn’t the primary reason for my distraction.
Dan nodded slowly. “The volunteer thing seems to be going well. Brody says Nate’s a natural out there.”
Ah. There it was. The conversational equivalent of a door being held open, just a crack.
“He is.” I kept my voice even. “He’s good in the field. Picks things up fast. Doesn’t complain.”
“Sounds like Nate.” Dan turned his beer bottle in his hands, a habit I’d seen him do a thousand times when he was working up to a point. “He’s different since he’s been back. Better, I think. Less... wound up.”
The observation caught me off guard, mostly because I’d noticed the same thing.
The Nate who’d walked into Lacey’s six weeks ago had been coiled tight, all sharp edges and guarded silences.
The Nate sitting at our table right now still carried tension, but there was an ease to him that hadn’t been there before.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’ve noticed.”
Dan was watching me now. “You know I love you, right?”
I blinked. “What the fuck? Where did that come from?”
“Nowhere. Just felt like saying it.” He bumped my shoulder with his, a gesture so familiar it reached all the way back to childhood. “You’ve always known what you’re doing, Maya. Even when you think you don’t.”
My throat tightened. Dan rarely said things like that, which made it land ten times harder when he did.
“Um, thanks.” I gave him a narrow-eyed stare, my mind working overtime. “This is about Nate, right?”
He took a swig of beer. “It is.”
“I see. There’s nothing going on there that you need to worry about.”
“But there is something going on.”
I hesitated, weighing exactly how much to confess.
“I’ve got eyeballs, Maya.”
Huffing out a breath, I said, “Fine, there’s kinda something going on. But you don’t need to worry about me.”
There was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Maybe it’s not you I’m worried about.”
I barked out a laugh. “Fair. So no objections then?”
“Would it matter if I did?”
“Yes.”
The smile faded from his eyes. “No objections. Just… you know…”
“He’s not staying. Yes, I do know.”
“Okay then.”
He looked at me for another moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes, and then he straightened up.
“Also, you’ve got about four minutes before Brody starts a karaoke mutiny, and I’m not getting involved, so if you want to stage an intervention, now’s the time.”
I laughed, sudden and bright. “Since when do you not get involved?”
“Since he tried to make me sing ‘Islands in the Stream’ last month. I’m still recovering.” He gave me a look that was pure deadpan. “Some things a man can’t come back from.”
“Your trauma is valid.”
“Appreciate you saying so.” The corner of his mouth pulled up into a half-smile before he headed back toward the table.
“Hey!” I called out, just before he got out of earshot. He turned back, one eyebrow raised. “I love you too, weirdo.”
His grin was slow and easy, the one he saved for family. “Yeah, yeah.” He lifted his beer in a lazy salute and kept walking.
I sipped my wine and let my gaze drift back to the table. My eyes skimmed past Hannah and Poppy, skipping over the rest of the crew until they landed at the far end. On Nate.
Who was looking right back, with a dark intensity that landed square in my gut.
The noise faded. The jukebox, the laughter, the clatter of glasses. All of it receded until there was just him, watching me from across the room. That look scorched through every single nerve ending.
His jaw tightened. He looked away first.
Something reckless lit up inside me. The girl who didn’t wait. The girl who didn’t play it safe.
* * *
I finished my wine, set the glass on the bar, and walked back to the group.
The jukebox switched tracks as I reached the table. Something slow with a low, rolling bass line that settled into the room like smoke.
I stopped beside Nate’s chair.
He looked up at me, mid-sentence with Brody, and whatever he’d been saying died on his lips.
“Dance with me.” It was a pure, uncompromising demand.
Nate’s gaze locked on mine. His jaw worked, a slow tension rippling through his face and down his throat. He calculated the risks, running through every reason he should say no.
One beat. Two. Three.
His eyes darkened. Then he set his beer on the table and took my hand.
His palm was warm and rough against mine, and the contact sent a current straight up my arm and into my bloodstream. He rose from his chair, all six-foot-three of him unfolding beside me and let me lead him toward the floor.
The space was small and dim, tucked away from the main lights.
With his fingers wrapped around mind, Nate turned me to face him. His other hand found the small of my back. His fingers spread wide, pressing me forward until the gap between us disappeared and my body was flush against his.
My breath left me in a rush.