26 #3
The host pointed at Easton. “Is he counsel?”
“He’s emotionally biased.”
Easton looked in the basket. “Why is there a tiara?”
“For second-place royalty.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I said immediately.
He saw my face and sighed. “You’re going to wear it.”
“I’m going to wear it.”
The host plucked the cheap rhinestone tiara from the basket and placed it on my head with the ceremony of a coronation. “There. No Further Questions, but many compliments.”
I lifted my chin. “Finally, someone professional.”
Easton stared at me in the flickering gold light, tiara crooked over my braids, red lipstick slightly worn off from drinks and laughing and kissing him once near the bathroom hallway because he looked too good under a bad neon sign.
His eyes softened.
“Looks right,” he said.
My heart tripped.
I glanced away first because there were only so many direct hits a woman could take in one evening while wearing fake jewelry from a trivia consolation basket.
When the check came, Easton grabbed it before I could even inhale.
I narrowed my eyes. “We are not beginning a financial dominance arc.”
“This is a date.”
“I have money.”
“I know.”
“I buy things.”
“I’ve seen your lip gloss drawer.”
“That drawer is private.”
“It has levels.”
“My lip gloss has community.”
He slid his card into the little folder. “I asked you out. I pay.”
I studied him. “That matters to you.”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll let you.”
He looked up from signing the receipt, surprise flashing through his face.
I shrugged. “I can be gracious.”
“For how long?”
“Don’t test me.”
He smiled, and the sight warmed me more than the cocktail ever could.
Outside, the rain had thinned into mist. The street shone under the lights, black pavement reflecting the crooked neon halo above us. Easton held the door, then took my hand as I stepped onto the sidewalk, careful when my heel found a crack near the curb.
The Bent Halo buzzed behind us, laughter and music spilling through the old brick wall. Across the street, the taco place had closed. The thrift shop windows displayed a mannequin in a fur coat and one roller skate. Somewhere down the block, a car alarm chirped once and gave up.
I leaned back against the wall under the awning, tiara still on, consolation basket hooked over one arm, and looked at Easton.
He looked back at me.
No audience now. No host. No trivia. No Debra. No ferret-driven tragedy.
Just us in the aftermath of the sweetest disaster I had ever had.
“Was this okay?” he asked.
I lifted a brow. “The date where your truck died, our Uber driver left us for Pickle, you almost sued a trivia host, and I got crowned second-place royalty?”
“Yes.”
“It was terrible.”
His mouth pulled to one side. “You’re lying.”
“I am.”
“How terrible?”
“Devastatingly perfect.”
The tension in his shoulders eased, but only a little. He stepped closer, his hands sliding to my waist over my jacket. “I wanted tonight to be something you could keep.”
I looked down at his chest because his face was too much.
“It is.”
His fingers flexed. “Not because I forced it to be?”
I looked back up. “No. Because it went wrong, and you stayed. You didn’t shut down. You didn’t turn mean. You didn’t act like the night was ruined because it wasn’t what you planned. You let me laugh at the wreckage.”
His eyes held mine, steady and bright under the halo sign. “I like when you laugh.”
“I noticed.”
“I used to like it even when you were laughing at me.”
“I’m almost always laughing at you.”
“I know. I’m working through it.”
I smiled, and his gaze dropped to my mouth.
He leaned in slowly, giving me time to meet him halfway.
I did. The kiss was soft at first, cold air between us, his hands warm at my waist, my fingers curling in the front of his jacket.
Then his mouth moved a little deeper, and the wall behind me felt less like brick and more like a necessary support structure.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine.
“I liked hearing your team name over the mic,” he said.
I laughed softly. “No Further Questions?”
“No.” His thumb moved over my hip. “Your name. Aura. When the host checked the score sheet and said it while you were standing there with that ridiculous tiara.”
My breath caught.
He noticed. His hands steadied at my waist, no pressure, no pushing, just there.
“It was loud,” I said.
“I know.”
“Weird loud.”
“Bad weird?”
I thought about the room clapping, about the host grinning, about strangers cheering because I had won something silly and bright and harmless. I thought about my name being attached to a score, a joke, a crown, Easton’s smile.
“Good weird,” I said.
His face softened.
I swallowed. “I liked hearing it loud for something stupid.”
“I liked hearing it loud for something good.”
There it was, except I hated that phrase, so it wasn’t that. It was worse. It was the thing underneath my ribs turning warm and fragile, the thing I usually covered in sarcasm because tenderness was a slippery floor and I had terrible shoes.
So I said, “You are very dangerous near neon.”
He smiled. “I’ll add it to my scouting report.”
“We need a ride.”
“My truck is dead.”
“And I am tipsy enough that walking home in heels is how Dateline episodes start.”
He pulled out his phone. “Uber?”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
“Too soon?” he asked.
“Debra has custody trauma with Pickle tonight. We respect it.”
He glanced at his screen. “Cade?”
My smile started before I could stop it.
Easton saw it and narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“We should call him.”
“That’s what I said.”
“With disguised voices.”
He blinked. “Why?”
“Because our team name is No Further Questions, I’m wearing a tiara, and you lost a historical integrity battle. The night demands theater.”
He looked at me for three seconds too long.
Then he handed me the phone. “I am so in love with you it’s becoming a medical issue.”
I took the phone, smug and warm. “Finally, a diagnosis.”
Cade answered on the third ring. “Easton?”
I lowered my voice into something dramatic and terrible. “Mr. Mercer, we have your emotionally unstable defenseman.”