Fight for Me

1

They say some people never quite grow into their ears, and Dr. Marchenko—bless his heart—was a prime example.

Jake hid a smile behind his Canon and focused through the viewfinder, snapping the old professor’s headshot with as much professionalism as he could muster. It was never a good idea to laugh at your clients, even if they did look like they might fly away at any moment.

“There you are, sir,” he said. “Quick and painless.”

Dr. Marchenko rose shakily from the metal stool, taking an extra step to stabilize his stooped frame.

“Thank you, young man,” he wheezed. “I don’t know why they need a new photo every year. It’s not like I can get any better looking.”

Jake chuckled, setting his heavy camera on a side table as the old man shuffled away. The room emptied for the first time all morning, and he heaved a sigh of relief before ducking into his cubicle. Julie Carter’s voice rang out from the hallway seconds later.

“Andy, are you here?”

“That depends on what you need,” Jake’s boss answered, emerging from his office.

Jake kicked his well-worn boots up onto his desk as their voices buzzed in his mind like white noise. He caught the words “intern” and “first day” in the hum of conversation, followed by the name “Lexie Preston.” He froze, his blood pressure automatically rising. Surely they hadn’t said—

“It’s nice to meet you, Lexie. Just have a seat, and we’ll get your staff photo,” Andy replied.

“Thank you, sir. I’m excited to be here,” said a young woman, and Jake’s heart hammered in his chest at the familiar sound. He pressed his feet against the edge of his desk and stretched back in his chair, trying to peek around the partition. He could see Andy’s back and shoulders. Then, leaning a little farther, the side of Julie’s head came into view, her dark hair twisted into a sleek bun. But Jake still couldn’t see who was on the stool—the new intern, the girl who couldn’t be...

Distracted by his own curiosity, Jake forgot to account for the laws of physics—namely, the fact that objects fall downward—and he crashed to the ground in a thunderous avalanche of limbs and equipment as his chair whipped out from under him. Several photography books and his computer keyboard joined him on the floor.

“As I was saying, I have an intern as well,” Andy said as Jake rolled into view. “This is Jake Tanner. It’s his second year working with me, and he takes better pictures when he’s right side up.”

Jake swallowed a groan and managed a weak wave in the general direction of his new audience—his internal body temperature hovering somewhere around eight million degrees. As he opened his eyes a fraction, he registered a head of blonde hair and a dark blue dress on Andy’s left. A pair of green eyes swam into focus a second later, and Jake noticed they were full of laughter, undoubtedly at his expense. He did his best not to spontaneously combust as he slowly disentangled himself from the chair.

“Well, that was quite an entrance,” Andy said dryly after the women had gone. “Can I get you anything? Tylenol? A defibrillator, maybe? I think we’ve got one in the hall.”

“I hate you,” Jake muttered, drawing a laugh from his supervisor who, at only six years Jake’s senior, often felt more like a friend than a coworker.

“You know her?” Andy asked.

“Not exactly,” Jake admitted, righting his chair.

“Oh, well, don’t worry about it, Tanner. You’ve got a whole year to prove you’ve got a brain.”

A year. A wholeyear with Lexie Preston.

Maybe the universe had taken pity on him after all.

“Honey, I’m home!” Lexie called as she pushed open the door of her new off-campus apartment. She stopped in the doorway, caught off guard by the enormous bouquet of red roses that took up a large portion of the small dining room table.

“What’s this?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard above the staccato of exploding popcorn kernels coming from the kitchen. She dropped her laptop bag onto a chair and plucked a small card with her name on it from among the blooms.

For my best girl. I can’t wait to see you! –C

“Some delivery guy dropped those off a little while ago.”

Lexie looked up to find her roommate, Olivia, leaning across the small bar that separated the kitchen from the dining area and open living room. She set the card down on the tabletop and bent to inhale the thick scent of the flowers, which were all perfectly shaped and identically vibrant. The whole arrangement must have cost a fortune. But then again, Colton Derricks had never been one for small gestures.

“How’s all that going?” Olivia asked, her voice tentative.

Lexie glanced up to find her best friend watching her carefully, searching for cracks.

“It’s good,” Lexie said. “He’s at a conference today, or he would have come by.”

Olivia continued to stare in a way that made Lexie feel like she was being scanned by airport security. “So, there’s been no more...” Olivia trailed off, her question unasked. But unfortunately, Lexie knew exactly what she meant.

“Of course not. I told you that was an accident, and he felt really bad about it,” Lexie said, waving her hand dismissively. It wasn’t totally a lie; Colt had felt bad about the bruises. But mostly because they’d shown past the edges of her sleeves. She drifted over to the couch and plopped down onto it just as Olivia emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of fresh popcorn.

“I honestly think I’m going to love this new job,” Lexie went on, trying to change the subject. “My boss, Julie, is amazing, and I already have assignments lined up for next week. It’s a lot of writing, but there’s also some advertising and social media marketing, too.”

Olivia cocked her head and folded herself onto the cushion, tossing a handful of popped kernels into her mouth.

“Isn’t there a guy who works up there? Josh or Jase or something like that? He was taking pictures at the mixer for social work students—very official looking. And very cute.”

A boyish face filled Lexie’s mind, and her thoughts stuttered.

“Yeah, Jake. He’s the photography intern.”

Olivia tossed back another handful of popcorn, one eyebrow raised as she waited for more information. “Do you know him already?”

“Not really,” Lexie answered. “I’m pretty sure we had a class together last semester, but we’ve never actually talked.”

“What has Colt said about it?” Olivia asked, a neutral expression on her face. While her voice was casual, the darting glance she gave her friend was not.

Lexie took a long, slow breath and tried not to dwell on the way Jake’s dark eyes had locked onto hers earlier or the way her stomach fluttered when they did.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she said, reaching for the television remote. She found her gaze drawn back to the towering floral display on the kitchen table and tried to quiet the foreboding feeling growing in her mind.

Sometimes it was better not to poke the bear.

Jake got home, still trying to organize his thoughts, and found World War III in progress.

“Knock it off, man! I need to get to my room!” Conner bellowed, his bare back covered in orange paint splotches. The bath towel around his waist was soaked and leaving puddles on the fading linoleum, suggesting something had gone horribly wrong.

Jake ducked back into the garage as a small orange ball exploded against the kitchen cabinets to his left, temporarily scattering all thoughts of Lexie Preston. It was a good thing Conner’s father planned to tear the old house down and build over it once they moved out. Otherwise, they’d end up owing a landlord a small fortune in property damages after graduation.

“You can get in. You just have to break through the duct tape first,” Noah shouted from his hidey-hole between the couch and the wall. The shiny barrel of a paintball gun was just visible around the edge of the furniture, which was as tattered and stained as the rest of their ramshackle bachelor pad.

Jake peeked around the doorframe as a drawer clattered open. Conner yanked a large carving knife from the assortment of mismatched silverware and headed for the hall, presumably to cut his way through whatever barrier Noah had erected between him and his closet.

Another shot found its mark, and Conner howled in rage.

“I’m going to kill you as soon as I put on pants!” he roared, the sound accompanied by the frantic ripping of what could only be the aforementioned duct tape.

Jake stepped tentatively into the kitchen, leaving the door open in case he needed a quick escape, and surveyed the scene. Orange paint dotted the walls, and an overturned bucket sat in a large puddle of something immediately outside the bathroom door.

“You know you’re going to have to clean this up, right?” Jake said, addressing the head of black hair that popped up from behind the couch.

“Totally worth it,” Noah replied, clearly pleased with himself.

A mighty crash indicated Conner had gained access to his room, and Noah collapsed to the floor, his head and shoulders appearing from behind his barricade.

“He lost the towel,” he wheezed, clutching his sides as laughter overpowered him.

“Dude, you better not be here when he gets dressed. You’re a dead man,” Jake said, genuinely concerned for his friend’s personal safety. He’d seen Conner on a warpath, and it wasn’t pretty. But Noah made no move to flee.

“Oh, don’t worry, unless he wants to tie a jacket around the family jewels, it’ll be a while. I nailed all his drawers shut.”

Jake’s eyebrows disappeared into his dark hair. “Wow, leave something for the rest of the semester, would you?” he said, moving quickly toward the staircase along the far wall. A horrible splintering noise rang out just as Jake reached the relative safety of his upstairs bedroom, suggesting Conner had given up on conventional means of freeing his clothing.

“Go big or go home, right?” Noah called, but Jake only shook his head.

Dropping his bags on the bed and heading for the bathroom, Jake heard the door to the garage slam shut and the wheezy whine of an ancient car engine trying to turn over.

Noah had apparently decided to run for his life.

Cypress Valley State University wasn’t located in a valley, nor did it boast any cypress trees on the grounds, but it was the crown jewel of West Tennessee, regardless. The academic buildings, with their Gothic arches and winding trails of ivy, circled an open quad dotted by centuries-old trees that predated both the college and the little town for which it was named.

In the middle of it all was a soaring bell tower, and the circular area at its base was Lexie’s favorite thinking spot. Normally, she would lean her head back against one of the wrought iron benches and watch the clouds wander overhead, but on the first Friday of her senior year, she found herself standing on one of those benches like it was a life raft, a sea of chaos swirling past her feet.

There were students everywhere—lying on the grass, hanging from the lower limbs of trees, waiting in snaking lines that led to striped tents serving dressed-up cafeteria food on paper plates. The student council had even dug up a balloon artist from who-knows-where, and multicolored tubes now formed dogs, monkeys, flowers and several kinds of hats that bobbed here and there among the crowd.

Go help Jake.The assignment hadn’t seemed that complicated, until Lexie had realized she had very little chance of ever finding Jake in this mess, much less helping him with anything. She glanced down at her phone, wishing for the hundredth time that she’d thought to find his number on the staff roster before she’d left the office.

She swept her gaze over the shifting crowd until she found a group of students posing with their arms around each other like a cancan line. Sure enough, a young man with a large camera crouched a few yards in front of them. The back of his crimson T-shirt read “University Photographer.”

Jumping from the bench as if it were on fire, Lexie shouldered her way through the crowd, hoping to get to Jake before he moved again. She dipped through openings wherever she could find them, dodging and weaving until she burst into the pocket of space where the group had been. But when she got there, they were already dispersing, and Jake had disappeared. She raked her hand through her hair in frustration, lifting onto her tiptoes in an effort to see over the crowd.

Finally, she caught another glimpse of Jake’s shirt as he moved away from her. She darted through a line of people waiting for popcorn, apologizing over her shoulder as she went, and finally latched onto his forearm with both hands.

“There you are!” she blurted, relief flooding her chest.

Jake blinked a few times in confusion, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he looked down at her.

“Sorry, that was really random,” Lexie backtracked, still trying to catch her breath. She gave a small wave with one hand while the other stayed clamped around his wrist. “Hi, I’m Lexie. We work together. We met Monday, sort of.”

Jake continued to stare without comment, and Lexie felt unease begin to buzz inside her chest. Was it possible she had the wrong person?

“I’m sorry... you’re Jake Tanner, right? Julie sent me to help you,” she said, scrambling to understand why his blank expression hadn’t changed in the full minute she’d been standing beside him.

Another few seconds passed before his eyes finally moved, jumping from her face to the place where her hand gripped his arm as if he might float away. Lexie instantly released him and stepped back to give him space to breathe. Something in his expression changed, and he took a sudden breath before pulling a narrow notepad and a ballpoint pen from the back pocket of his jeans.

“Names and hometowns from left to right,” he said. “If you can get their majors, too, that would be great.”

Lexie took the pad he thrust into her hands, surprised by his abrupt tone.

“Okay, I can do that,” she said, but when she looked up, he was already walking away. She sidestepped a girl with a fluffy white dog and hurried to keep up. Jake moved like a hunter on safari, as if looking for specific details within the crowd. Every few minutes, he would stop and ask a group of students to pose for a photo, and Lexie would rush to collect their details like she’d been told—doing her best to create an awkward sort of team.

“Thanks,” he said at last, turning to her as the final group wandered away. “It’s a lot faster when I don’t have to do that myself.”

“Of course, yeah, no problem,” Lexie stammered, still trying to figure out what she’d done wrong. “Listen,” she said as he turned to leave, “I really like this job, and I’d like us to work well together—to be friends, or whatever.” She offered a small smile, but instead of accepting her olive branch, such as it was, Jake simply gave a quick nod.

“See you Monday,” he said, his voice strangely tight, before melting back into the crowd.

Lexie stood with her mouth slightly open, watching him go.

“Well, alright then,” she said to nobody in particular. “Nice meeting you, too.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Conner said, pacing around the small kitchen table where Jake sat with his head in his hands. “You’re working with this girl—the girl—that you’ve been hung up on since freshman year. Then today, she stumbles out of a crowd, grabs your arm and says, ‘There you are!’ and you said... nothing.”

Jake groaned, rubbing the heels of his hands over his closed eyes. Every second of the horrible encounter was tattooed on his brain in neon ink.

“I froze,” he muttered darkly. He wished he could wipe out the whole day and start over. Introduce himself, shake her hand, smile... say anything except—

“Names and hometowns from left to right,” Conner said, his voice full of disbelief. “Three years pining for this girl, and all you come up with in your big moment is ‘names and hometowns from left to right’?”

Jake dropped his head to the tabletop, letting his forehead smack against it for good measure.

“Did you at least talk to her after that? Maybe ask how her first week went?”

Jake groaned again, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. Every gear in his brain had ground to a halt when Lexie had magically appeared beside him, her warm hands on his arm. He’d forgotten how to put words together in the English language, how to move the muscles in his limbs, even why he was standing outside to begin with. And then, afterward, he hadn’t known how to fix what he’d already broken.

He turned his head toward Conner, who was eyeing him with his eyebrows raised.

“I’m going to take that as a no,” Conner said, gripping the back of the nearest kitchen chair and leaning over it. “Dude, what is wrong with you?”

“Give the guy a break,” Noah cut in from his place on the couch. “It’s a lot to suddenly be face-to-face with your daydream. What would you do if Natalie Portman walked out of Pennington Hall and grabbed your arm?”

“I’d ask her to homecoming,” Conner shot back, a cocky smirk on his face.

“Maybe. If she was still there when you finished wetting yourself,” Noah said.

Jake couldn’t help but laugh dryly, feeling the sound vibrate across the cheap Formica tabletop. “Guys,” he groaned. “What am I going to do? It’s not usually this hard.”

“You’re making too much of this,” Conner said. He cleared his throat and resumed his pacing. “She’s a girl, not an alien life-form. You’ve got to take her off her pedestal and treat her like anybody else.”

Jake lifted his head cautiously.

“Look, girls seem to like this farm boy thing you’ve got going on,” Conner continued, gesturing toward Jake. “I know you get plenty of attention, though why you don’t take advantage of that, I’ll never understand. I mean, chicks at this school will—”

“Conner, focus,” Noah interrupted.

“Okay, but you know what I mean. She’s not the only fish in the sea. You’re putting too much importance on this one girl because of some bizarre feeling you had three years ago.”

“As much as I hate to say it, the man has a point,” Noah said, joining them in the kitchen.

Jake sat up and leaned his chair back on two legs before remembering what had happened the last time he did that. He came back to the floor with a thunk.

“We’re talking about Lexie Preston,” Conner went on. “The unicorn who appears in our lives every few semesters and twists you up in knots until you can’t see straight, but who you refuse to have an actual conversation with in case she won’t agree to have your babies on the spot.”

Jake scoffed. “I don’t think—”

“No, you do think,” Noah said, cutting him off. “And that’s the problem. You were struck by lightning at our freshman mixer, and ever since then, you’ve been convinced this girl is your future wife. Of course you can’t have a simple conversation, because in your mind, you already have grandchildren.”

There was a long silence, during which Jake tried to find the holes in Noah’s argument. Unfortunately, there weren’t many.

“I wasn’t struck by lightning,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. It was true; nothing spectacular had happened the first time he’d seen Lexie. It hadn’t been a Hollywood moment—no clap of thunder, no booming voice of God, no angel choir bursting from the heavens—but Jake had had the sudden, vague sensation that, for whatever reason, he would remember that exact moment in precise detail for the rest of his life. She hadn’t even seen him, perched as she was on a teetering stool on the far side of the gymnasium. She’d been laughing, part of a crowd of new students all getting to know each other before the first day of classes. He didn’t even remember why he’d looked up from the precarious tower of cheese fries he and Conner had been devouring at the time. And yet... he had.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

If history could be summed up as several years’ worth of false hope on his part. Conner was right; there was no logical reason why Lexie Preston should be special. But Jake still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was.

The corners of Noah’s mouth quivered as he worked to keep a blank look on his face. “That’s all you got out of that?” he asked, the humor evident in his voice.

“Shut up,” Jake shot back, instantly feeling like he was back in the sixth grade.

“Look, has it ever occurred to you to just be friends?” Noah asked. “Just get to know her—the real her and not your made-up fantasy version. Maybe she is all you’ve got her cracked up to be, and maybe she isn’t, but you’re never going to find out if you keep acting like an idiot every time she walks in the room.”

Jake scowled, and his mouth popped open to respond, but nothing came out. Grudgingly, he considered whether his friends might be right. It was much harder to talk to someone when you felt like your entire future was on the line.

“Just be friends,” he repeated, as if testing the idea in his mind. He thought about the deep green of Lexie’s eyes as they’d caught his, the electric current that had sparked up his arm when she’d touched him. “I can do that.”

He took a bracing breath and glanced out the front window, watching cars of every color whizz past on the highway. Maybe it would be as easy as it sounded.

“We’re still on for tonight, right, babe? I’ll be there in twenty,” Colt said, his voice booming from where Lexie’s phone sat at the edge of the bathroom counter. She applied another coat of mascara and examined her reflection critically.

“Yes, we are, but would it be so terrible to stay in? It’s been a long week,” she said, glancing longingly at the sweatpants that lay discarded on the tile floor.

“Exactly! That’s why we need to get you out and shake the rust loose! You know how uptight you get when you’re stressed.”

Lexie’s hand stilled as she reached for a tube of the matte pink lipstick Colt liked.

“I don’t get uptight,” she protested, glaring at her phone as if he could see her.

“You do, and you know it. So, let’s pull the stick out and have some fun! Gotta take care of my girl, you know,” he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.

Lexie frowned, her brows coming together in a deep crease.

As if reading her mind, Colt broke the silence. “Aw, come on, babe. You know I’m just teasing. I love you, stick and all.”

Somehow that didn’t make Lexie feel any better, but there was no arguing with Colt. When he wanted something, he eventually got it. Olivia liked to say he could charm the pants off a nun—and Lexie was sure it wasn’t a compliment.

She sighed, not bothering to hide her exasperation. Colt probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

“I’ll be ready when you get here,” she said, knowing how much he hated to wait. “We’re going to Barclay’s, right?”

“Actually, I was thinking about the Taproom.”

“The Taproom?!” Lexie blurted, her gaze jumping to her reflection. Her turquoise A-line dress was well-suited for an upscale restaurant but not for a college dive bar with a live band. “You told me we were going to dinner! I’m dressed for a sit-down meal.”

“Well, change then. The band tonight is a solid nine, and I’ve invited some of the guys. Maybe wear that purple number from my birthday party?”

Lexie bit back a groan and rubbed her fingertips against her temples. She was not in the mood for loud music and “some of the guys.” That inevitably meant pints of beer and shots of whiskey and exaggerated stories about the “good old days” when Colt and his fraternity brothers had still been tearing up the county.

Not that they didn’t still tear up the county, but at least now they had to pretend to be upstanding businessmen during daylight hours.

“Look, babe, don’t make it a big deal,” Colt admonished, his voice changing slightly. It was a reminder that he’d made a decision and her only job was to comply.

Like always.

“Alright,” Lexie said, caving.

Like always.

“Great. I’m ten minutes out, and I want to find a blonde bombshell when I get there!” he said cheerfully, and then he hung up.

Lexie’s phone changed back to her lock screen and its photo of the two of them in the ornate lobby of the Peabody Hotel. That had been early in their relationship, back when she still thought she had a say in anything. Those were truly the “good old days.” She sighed again and headed down the hallway toward her bedroom, unzipping the back of her dress as she went. She was going to have to hurry if she only had ten minutes.

She found the purple cocktail dress near the back of her closet, hidden with the other outfits she tried to avoid. Not that it wasn’t beautiful—the shimmering violet fabric caught the light in a thousand ways as she pulled it off the hanger—but it certainly wasn’t her style. It had been a birthday present from Colt. He’d hung it over a dressing room door, instructed her to “show it off,” and then swiped his credit card at the register—all while ignoring her feeble protests.

Lexie stepped into the slick material, working hard not to tangle the thin straps that crisscrossed the back like shoelaces. It was harder than it sounded, and she had only just smoothed the cold fabric over her hips when she heard a knock at the door.

“I’m coming!” she shouted, adjusting the straps along her collarbone one more time and twisting to see her back in the mirror. The dress dipped low along her spine, and she was suddenly thankful she’d been using tanning lotion in the shower. She shifted, trying to pull the fabric higher, but it jumped stubbornly back into place.

The knock came again, more insistent this time. Lexie quickly grabbed a pair of silver stilettos, but then paused. If Colt wanted to hear a band, then he probably wanted to dance, too. She dropped the strappy sandals and reached instead for a pair with lower heels. Hurrying down the hall, she opened the door to find Colt waiting in pressed black slacks and a light-blue button-down shirt he’d rolled to the elbows. His collar was open, his tie from work probably tossed in the backseat of his BMW next to the sport coat he usually wore when seeing clients.

He let out a long, low whistle when he saw her.

“Give me a spin!” he instructed, reaching for her hand. She did as she was told, and the confidence he exuded filled her like a balloon. But it was short-lived. His sky-blue eyes darkened to cobalt, and a frown tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“You’re not going to wear those, are you?” he asked, his eyes locking on the kitten heels that dangled from her hand.

She glanced down at them, the helium already leaking from her chest.

“They’ll be better for dancing. You do want to dance with me, don’t you?” she asked, keeping her eyes as wide as she could. Sometimes the doe-eyed approach could buy her a pass.

“Well, yeah, but not in those,” he said. “Go find something else, the higher the better. I’m the only one of the guys who’s still dating a college girl, and I hate feeling like I’m robbing the cradle.”

He shooed her away like a persistent puppy, and Lexie held in another sigh as she padded back to her room to retrieve the shoes she knew he would like. She could already feel the nails that would stab the balls of her feet by the end of the night.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Colt said, obviously pleased when she returned to the living room four inches taller. “Now, let’s get a move on, or it’ll be standing room only,” he said as she grabbed her clutch from the table. She didn’t bother to mention that she would have been ready sooner if he hadn’t changed their plans.

The Taproom was indeed bursting at the seams by the time they arrived. The man at the door nearly stopped them, but a slick flash of Colt’s black American Express card had them inside in an instant. Lexie was immediately swallowed up by the pulsing beat of “Welcome to the Jungle” as the band on stage did their best Guns N’ Roses impression.

Colt’s fingers were cool along her lower back as he kept her close, working their way through the crowd until he spotted his friends holding down a table near the stage.

“Jase! Harding! How’s it been?” he yelled over the music, slapping palms with the boys and yanking them forward for the international frat-boy chest bump. It was so stereotypical that Lexie had to fight not to roll her eyes. Instead, she fixed Jason Arnolds with her best “hands off” stare as he made a show of looking her over.

“Well, if it isn’t Smith and Wesson, my best friends,” he drawled, his eyes drifting up from somewhere south of her face. “Lexie, I do believe you get hotter every time I see you.”

“Thanks,” she said, her sarcasm drowned out by the sound system. Colt lifted his first shot of the night in her direction, a silent salute to tell her he was pleased.

At least that made one of them.

Nearly an hour later, the high-top table was littered with the boys’ shot glasses, and Colt had fully transitioned back from daytime professional to college playboy—a metamorphosis that would fascinate social scientists everywhere. Lexie, still nursing her first strawberry daiquiri, had already seen him check out four of the waitresses and a group of girls dancing nearby.

A young woman in a white button-up shirt and a short black apron came to clear their empty glasses, and Lexie watched as Colt caught her by the elbow and leaned in to say something in her ear. His hand lingered on the woman’s arm, even after she shook her head and started to walk away, and Lexie absently wondered why she wasn’t more upset that her boyfriend of more than two years was blatantly flirting with other women right in front of her.

When had she learned to simply sit and take it?

“You could at least look like you’re having fun,” Colt said, sliding up to where she sat perched on a high stool. His hand moved automatically up her leg and came to rest along the curve of her hip.

“What did you say to her?” Lexie asked, shooting him a pointed glare.

“Who?”

“The waitress, just now,” she said, and she jerked her chin toward the woman, who was still clearing a nearby table.

Colt rolled his eyes and threw back another shot, swallowing with a grimace.

“Nothing that matters. Come dance with me. Loosen up.” He reached for her wrist, and she had no choice but to put her glass down and stand before he tugged her straight out of her chair.

“Do you think I don’t notice when you flirt with other women? Or do you do it on purpose just to get to me?” Lexie asked as Colt led her onto the dance floor.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” he said, his voice impatient as he slipped his arms around her waist and toyed with the lacing across her back. “You know you’re my number one. The rest is just a guy thing.”

“Just a guy thing?” she repeated with disgust, stepping away, but he yanked her back into place, his hands drifting lower along her spine.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, reaching back to grab his wrists. She hated when he pawed at her in public.

“Looking for the stick,” he said as she squirmed.

A quick glance told her Jason and Harding were watching, and she saw their smirks grow as though they were enjoying her discomfort. Everything Colt did was a show, and while she’d been flattered by the spotlight in the beginning, lately it felt less like she’d been chosen and more like she’d been captured.

“Colt, stop it,” she said, her voice firm. She pressed both palms against his chest and pushed, but Colt was built like a linebacker and refused to be moved.

He chuckled, the low rumble rolling through her, and moved his hands back up in a rare moment of compliance.

“Kitten has claws tonight,” he said, tugging her closer until there was no room to spare between his torso and hers. She could feel the slinky dress catching against his belt buckle as he moved with the beat of the bass guitar. “Put them away and play nice,” he growled. “If you were willing to actually have some fun, maybe I wouldn’t need to window shop.”

She stilled against his chest, mentally wilting, and the voices in her mind began to chant a familiar chorus.

This is your fault.

What’s wrong with you?

Why can’t you just relax?

Maybe it really was that simple. He worked hard, after all. He deserved to have some fun. Couldn’t she at least give him that?

Letting out a long breath, she softened.

“That’s better,” he murmured, and Lexie closed her eyes.

This she could do right, at least.