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“It’s no problem for me to drive back home. Only a few blocks from here, and my truck can handle this snow with no issue.”
“But don’t you want to have a little fun? Hang out with us? Hang out with Sawyer?”
Sawyer looked up at me, and the glance he gave me from under his lashes felt like it might break me.
This was why I’d been hiding over by the brewing tanks so much this week. Because every time Sawyer looked at me, I remembered the kiss. Remembered being so close to him. I wanted to pull him right over this bar and into my arms.
“You could crash in my room,” he said. “Big king bed. Plenty more space than the tent we used to share when we’d go camping.”
Normally it would have been a no-brainer. Of course I’d share a bed with Sawyer, with no awkwardness and no hesitation. But everything had become so aggravatingly different over the past couple of weeks.
I looked down at the bar, focusing on the ring of condensation left by Chase’s beer glass. I waved a hand through the air.
“You wouldn’t want me there.”
“I definitely would,” Sawyer said. “Haven’t seen much of you this week.”
Fuck.
So he’d noticed. I spent so much time rationalizing in my mind, thinking that he probably didn’t even realize that I’d been squirreling away all week, diving into my work. But I should have known better. Of course he’d noticed.
Sawyer knew me better than I knew myself, and there was no reason for that to have changed.
“All right. Fine. But if you snore, I’m never going to let you live it down.”
“You have my permission to do so. But I’m not going to snore.”
Chase clapped his hands together. “Neither of you are going to snore because all of us are going to be too busy partying all night. Charlie already said Jax is going to bring plenty of liquor and meatball subs from the back kitchen.”
“I don’t know if Rush is going to want us pilfering all this stuff from the bar,” I said. “He’s damn good at memorizing everything in the inventory.”
“Did I hear my name?” Rush said, coming out from the back office.
“Yes,” I said. “These punks are trying to rob the brewery blind, apparently.”
Rush grinned. “I was the one who offered it to Charlie and Jax. Nobody’s coming in here tonight because of the blizzard anyway, and those meatballs are already simmering.”
“See?” Chase said. “It’s not stealing from the bar if the bar owner lets you steal.”
I shook my head. “This blizzard is making everyone lose their minds, I guess.”
“You love it,” Rush said, giving me a pat on the back. “Live a little, Harlan. I think it would do you good.”
Normally I’d have cut back with some snarky response to Rush. I hated when people told me to relax. But after the week I’d had, I couldn’t exactly argue with him. I needed to fucking live a little. I needed to unwind after being tensed up like a spring, waiting for some sign from the universe about how to handle my feelings for Sawyer.
Maybe a fun night at the inn with him and the guys was exactly what we needed to make things feel normal again.
“I regret it,” I hollered out. “I regret it. Why did I agree to come here again? I’m not doing this.”
I cursed and swore as Sawyer, Charlie, Jax, and Chase laughed their asses off. We’d all had a few drinks and now, somehow, I’d ended up walking out into the blizzard, into deep snow, in nothing but my boxer briefs.
“Best dare ever,” Charlie told Jax.
“Whose idea was it to play this damn high school game anyway?” I protested as I took one barefoot step out into the snow. “Fuck!”
“Truth or dare is a classic and fun for all ages,” Chase said. “Go deeper, Harlan.”
I gritted my teeth as heavy snowflakes coated my body, swirling around me in little waves and torrents with the wind. I couldn’t deny that some part of me was finding this fun, too. Maybe not the part of me that was currently walking into frigid snow, but some deeper part of me that knew I’d laugh about this later.
All of us had been hanging out around the fireplace that was downstairs in the inn. I’d made the mistake of saying my feet were getting hot after putting them up in front of the fire for too long. The group had been unanimous in daring me to go walk out in the snow. The idea for me to do it in only my boxer briefs had been Sawyer’s genius contribution.
The fucker.
“This is going to end badly,” I shouted back at them. “I hope one of you is prepared to take me to the hospital when I get frostbite.”
“You’re not going to get frostbite,” Chase called out to me. “Your dick is just going to go into hiding, deep inside your body.”
