Chapter 17 #3
We could have left then, I guess, and been satisfied with the day’s work. But I hooked my phone up to the speakers on the counter and grabbed Shy and twirled them around and made a few not-so-subtle suggestions that we should keep the party going.
It wasn’t like I did it on purpose, but Dash and Aria ended up being the ones who went down to the storeroom to get the tequila.
When they came back up, I was deep in conversation with Chase—I mean, I couldn’t help it if the research he was doing on the history of New York obscenity laws and how they related to burlesque was so fascinating that it took the better part of an hour just to listen to all the stuff he’d uncovered on his trips to the National Archives in DC.
I doubt he’d have run out of things to say about the thesis he was writing, but eventually the others came drifting toward us and the conversation stretched to accommodate them and Dash was next to me with his arm around my waist.
I pulled away slightly, muttering something about the heat.
Dash let me go immediately, because that was just the kind of person he was.
Unaccountably irritated, I brought the actually-kind-of-lukewarm-by-now can of White Claw to the back of my neck.
The glug of tequila I’d added to it hadn’t done anything to improve my mood.
On the contrary, with every minute that passed I could feel myself coming undone. Or maybe just unglued.
So yeah, I was relieved when Dash glanced down at his phone and excused himself, saying it was his grandmas calling.
He wandered a few yards away to the swing, scooping up Kitty Marlowe on the way.
And I… wasn’t listening in, not exactly.
But the bookstore’s garden was small enough that his voice kept filtering back to me, as warm and relaxed as the evening had started out.
The memory of that was only a few hours old, but it felt as distantly removed from me as if it had happened in another lifetime. As inaccessible as something under glass or fossilized in amber.
I turned my back on him and tried to talk to Shy about the scavenger hunt, but then Dash came back over and Chase asked about his grandmas and we all listened while Dash talked about their latest exploits, which involved a heist at a senior buffet that sounded like something out of Ocean’s Eleven.
His gaze kept straying toward me, and I could sense that he wanted to ask me what was wrong, so when Kitty Marlowe yowled from a tree, doing a convincing impression of being helpless, and Aria, Shy, and Chase went to her rescue, I said the first thing that came to mind.
“The Slot Sluts are my idols. I can’t wait to meet them.
” Panic made me buzz for a moment, but I’d had too much to drink to backpedal gracefully out of that one.
So instead, I added, “I mean, I’m not fishing for an invitation to meet your family.
I know this isn’t a real relationship or anything. ”
“Right,” he said after a beat. “We’re just buddies who bone.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t hear the tightness in his tone.
Or that I didn’t care. It was just that there was so much unwanted emotion—not to mention tequila—filling my body like static on an old-fashioned TV, that I couldn’t even acknowledge it.
And since my brain was already on a merry little no thoughts, just self-destructive vibes kick, I went ahead and dug in a little deeper.
“I mean, I probably wouldn’t put it that way in front of them.
I can be counted on to muster a little bit of decorum now and then. ”
Dash had every right to be pissed, but of course he only looked concerned. “What’s going on? Did I do something to upset you?”
“Why would you think that?”
He returned my scoff with an eloquent look. “Kind of feels like you were icing me out earlier. And now…”
I raised both eyebrows, getting my shit together long enough to say brightly, “Dash, the only ice around here is rattling around in your margarita. Which reminds me, Shy asked me to refill the bucket.”
Great, now I was gaslighting him. But I couldn’t seem to help it.
Guilt and confusion churning in my stomach, I brushed past him and clattered down to the storeroom, where the ice machine was. And Dash let me go.
I didn’t know how to feel about that, but luckily, another round of makeshift margaritas made it so I didn’t have to do much feeling. Or thinking. Or anything but let the sweet, sweet tequila course its way through me as I got Chase to teach me a few dance moves.
By then, we’d had enough drinks that we got giddy again as I made everyone write down their most liked and most hated romance tropes on scraps of paper, and then we tried to match each one to whoever had written it.
Figuring out Shy’s was no challenge, but Dash surprised me by claiming that he had a thing for bodyguard romances because I’d totally had him pegged for the friends to lovers type.
Secret baby ended up being the winner of most hated trope.
“Unless there’s a good reason for the secrecy,” Shy added, sparking a debate on what constituted a good reason for neglecting to tell someone they were a parent.
Which set us off on a discussion of The Parent Trap, which led me and Chase into an impromptu lecture about every film Nancy Meyers had done, by which time it was close to two in the morning and Aria was forcing us all to hydrate in the faint hope of staving off hangovers.
And I didn’t exactly forget that I’d told Dash that I’d go over to his place, but with Yaz arriving the next day and me having to be up at an unholy hour to surprise her at the airport, I just figured it would be a better idea to sleep in my apartment. Alone.
It was just common sense, and practicality, and nothing to do with the sickly shakiness that followed me all the way under the covers.