Page 35 of Friends to WHAT?!

“I really like this bar,” I declare, shifting happily in my seat. “It’s so fun!”

Sterne concurs with a lift of his glass, followed by a sip of the amber liquid within.

Wolfe laments into the table.

Chapter Sixteen

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In which Leora breaks her vow to not get drunk. But she does it socutely.

Leora

If I thought the bar was fun before we had our drinks, it’s positivelyexcitingafter Poem drops them off—loudly and with much attention-drawing fanfare, to Wolfe’s chagrin.

In the short minute she was at our table, she managed to greet the three of us, hand over the drinks, ask Wolfe how Operation Stop Sucking was going, ignore me correcting her about the operation’s name, and ask outright if I was on a date—with both WolfeandSterne.

My story is not that type of story, and will never be that type of story, so she got a vehementnofrom not only myself, but the men across the table as well.

“I was just asking. Yeesh,” she’d huffed before leaving the table.

Wolfe’s eye had twitched.

Then, the floodgates opened.

Once Poem had broken the seal, we had a steady stream of visitors, and no shortage of drinks. Currently, our sixth visitor stands at the edge of our table, smile in place and gin in hand. I accept the drink readily and eye Wolfe, wondering ifthiswill be the one that takes it—his patience and self-control. I thoughtfor surehe was going to lose it when Almond stopped by to demand praise for her work on my hair, forcing her brother to stare at mefor an entire thirty seconds straight to “really get a look” before he was allowed to properly compliment her.

I don’t know who was having a harder time during that, him or my rapidly beating dreamer heart.

When thirty seconds was up, rather than say anything about my (gorgeous, work of art) hair, Wolfe pulled a video monitor out of his pocket, set it on the table, and said, “This table contains the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, and I am blessed to be in their presence.”

It was way better than saying something nice about my hair.

“It’s so nice to see you two out together,” Rory, says, hovering by our booth after offering me my third drink with the wink of a sparkling eye. “Particularly with Miss Leora not thrown over your shoulder, Wolfe, though I’ll admit, I do love a good kidnapping. Did a few in my day, you know. That’s how I found my wife.” Pointedly, he raises his bushy white eyebrows.

Wolfe’s eye not only twitches, but his jaw clenches. He issoclose to blowing his top.

I wait, breath bated, to watch it pop.

He inhales deeply, counts to ten out loud, and regains his composure.

I deflate.

Rory moves on.

Sterne makes a low, amused sound deep in his throat, though his eyes are aimed on the video monitor. After Almond’s departure, he snatched it from the middle of the table to set it up against the wall so that we could all keep an eye on Amia, who sits up in her bed, coloring peacefully.

I wonder at that. “Should she be going to sleep?” I ask, checking the time on my phone. 8:37. That’s seven minutes past her bedtime as I know it.

“The clock beside her bed will change colors when she needs to go to sleep,” Sterne answers, pointing to Amia’s bedside tableat a clock shaped like a stoplight. Currently, the middle yellow light shines. “She has to be in bed by 8:30, but the clock doesn’t change to red until 8:45 to give her some time to wind down by herself.”

“She’s good about following the clock,” Wolfe adds. “Especially tonight she will be. She practically pushed me out the door. She won’t risk me having to come back upstairs to get her to sleep.”

“Pushed you out the door?” I ask.

He nods. “She was worried you’d miss your bedtime if I was late. You remember when we were struggling to get her to bed on time for that chunk last year? So you told her thatyoualways go to bed on time?”

Warmth suffuses me. “That’s so sweet.”