Page 37 of Friends to WHAT?!

“Well done,” Sterne praises.

“Verywell done,” I echo. I pick up my half-full glass and press the cold condensation against my cheek. “That was not soft like water,” I tell him. “That was rough like a raging river.” And I am here. For. It.

Soft Wolfe may make my belly swoop and my heart thunder, but raging Wolfe…

“Stars,” I mutter, eyelids drooping as I gaze at him. He starts to squirm, but it’s a little too late for that. I’ve seen the underneath now, and it’s set my skin ablaze.

I’ll take his soft. Anytime.

I will also demand his rough. Any. Time.

A pint glass clunks onto the table in front of Wolfe, courtesy of Poem. “On the house,” she says.

He rolls his eyes her way. “It’s my house,” he says.

She grins. “Exactly.”

He grumbles a thanks, and she salutes before she leaves us, whistling.

I switch my gin and tonic to my other cheek and watch her go. “Does this place sell food?” I ask, moving my gaze to Wolfe.

He clutches his new beer and eyes me cautiously. “Yes,” he says. “Did you need something?”

I study him—study features that mere moments ago were so hard as to be immovable, but now sit gentle and patient as he waits for my answer. Right now, I could work on pushing him, and he’d cave to the pressure of my fingers, featherlight on his skin.

Now I know he isn’t always pliable.

Now I know he can be an immovable force if he needs to be—a current against the rest.

My glass slides down, leaving a frigid wetness in its wake. I settle it again on the throbbing pulse in my neck.

“Yes,” I answer finally. Lowly. “I’mfamished.”

Chapter Seventeen

?

Okay, okay, we’ll give the man a break.

Wolfe

After my heart rate calms down to its more regular speed—as regular as it gets with Leora around, anyway—the night gets a lot more enjoyable. The only people who stop at our table are Poem, delivering Leora’s food, and my parents to say goodbye before they leave for the night.

My mother looks like she can’t decide if she wants to smack me or applaud me, and I figure that dilemma is the only thing saving me from a classic Belinda Blackwood Public Scolding. She was at that horrible meeting to break down my character just the same as I was, and she knows one of my goals is to speak up when I would normally remain passive. Yelling at a bar full of friends, family, and customers might not bequitewhat she thought me being more take charge would look like, but one cannot say that it didn’t fall under the umbrella of taking initiative. Leora thinks it counts enough to strike a con from my list, at least, which is confirmation enough for me that I did the right thing.

Sterne leaves shortly after my parents, citing a shift at the firehouse in the morning as reason he can’t stay. I’m real heartbroken about it. Time alone with Leora is just… such a terrible thing to have. Truly.

Now she and I sit without company, and I watch as my celestial friend holds two tiny bar straws in her hand like chopsticks and attempts to use them to pull an ice cube out ofher otherwise empty glass. Her tongue peeks out as she focuses, and a lock of pretty violet hair tries to impede her vision.

Helpfully, I tuck it behind her ear.

Her lashes flutter, dusting star-speckled cheeks, and she drops her ice cube.

“Stars,” she whispers, then drags her hazy gaze to mine. “I dropped it again.”

“I see that, starling,” I whisper back with all the affection in the world. “You got it out of the glass that time, though.”

Her haze goes warm. “Yeah,” she says. “I did do that, didn’t I?”