Page 9 of The Best Shot

“Mostly okay,” she amended, taking a sip of her drink.

He turned back to me. “You get your shot?”

“Got it.”

His grin widened. “Knew you would. Show me later.”

“I will.”

Ava reappeared and tapped him on the shoulder. “Reunion over. Come meet Sophie before you spend the whole night avoiding the point.”

Sophie looked up from the couch as Ava arrived with Hale in tow, and her expression brightened. She opened up a little, leaned in without quite leaning in.

Beside me, Annie clinked her wine glass against mine. “Think she’ll last longer than the tattoo girl?”

“Tattoo girl?”

“You missed so much. Hale has been on a generational run of bad decisions, and that’s coming from me.”

I glanced across the room.

“How bad?”

“Girl.”

I laughed and tipped my head against her shoulder, taking a page from Havoc’s book. He was still draped across our laps like he paid rent. “Start at the beginning.”

“Oh, gladly.”

Dinner was loud and long. Plates passed without asking, wine poured without measuring, conversations overlapping and circling back in ways that only made sense if you’d been there for all of them.

When Nico asked about Patagonia, I passed my phone with the puma shot. It made its way around the table. When it reached Hale, he didn’t pass it on right away. He studied it, then looked up at me.

“This is beautiful, darlin’. Worth three months in the cold?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”

He handed the phone back. His fingers brushed mine. Conversation rolled on and I was grateful for it.

At some point Sophie mentioned a difficult client.

“That’s wild,” Hale said. Then, smooth as silk, he nodded toward Carter. “Didn’t you just deal with something like that on that Austin thing?”

Carter launched into the story.

A little while later Sophie mentioned hiking.

“Carter’s your guy for trails,” Hale said easily. “Tell her about that waterfall in the Smokies.”

Sophie turned toward Carter again.

Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but I did.

I’d seen Hale charm rooms before. It was one of his gifts, the easy attention, the well-timed question, the laugh that landed exactly when someone needed it. He made people feel like the most interesting version of themselves. Women especially, but everyone really. Even Nico, largely immune to social weather, got funnier around Hale.

But this was subtler and more surgical and Ava’s face across the table told me she’d noticed too.

I’d just spent three months watching a puma move her cubs, minimum necessary motion, no wasted energy, the thing done before they knew it was happening.