Page 42 of Spiced!

Even though I probably was a bit jittery over that last bit.

Fine, I wanted to throw up.

But in a good way, if there’s such a thing when discussing regurgitation.

Anyway.

I returned to the bar ala Speedo and crossed the room.

Brendan locked on the moment I entered and watched me cross. He wasn’t “performing” the watching or looking away and pretending he hadn’t been looking. He just watched, directly and without apology.

I slid into the booth across from him, the skin of my legs squeaking against the unfortunately dead naugas of the seat covering.

“You’re early,” I said, possibly the worst opening line ever.

“Peter told me you were usually here early,” he said. “I thought I might get to talk to you before your work started.”

I cocked my head. “Peter told you?”

“Peter knows things.”

“Peter knows everything,” I grunted. “It’s unsettling. Benji thinks he was a spy in a previous life, possible the Oracle at Delphi.”

“The Oracles were women, but the spy guess tracks,” Brendan said. “Vet, surgeon, spy. They should make a movie. I’d watch it.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Brendan’s magic was impossible to resist, even when his jokes needed serious life-saving intervention.

He looked different at this hour in this light.

The pre-shift bar light was softer and more honest than the Saturday night version. It cast him differently somehow; and yet, he was still the same man with the same steady blue eyes and brown hair doing its own thing. Without the full evening around him, he was somehow more present, like a person versus the mere photograph of him.

I set my Fanta on the table between us, not realizing how neatly it fit between his water and whiskey. The tiny curl to just one corner of his mouth told me he noticed it immediately.

“You wanted to discuss my python,” I said.

His eyes bugged, then quickly resumed their usual smirky squint. Something twitched at the other corner of his mouth. “I did, though I was referring to the dance, not your, um, anaconda.”

Now it was my turn to grin. At no point had the dance been brought up. This was a diversion of the finest order. I chose to play along. “For the record, I can do the worm. It isn’t any form of reptile.”

“I remain unconvinced. I am a scientist, after all. I require proof in all things.”

“Brendan. I am a professional dancer. The worm is barely a bad-drunk wedding wiggle.”

He chuckled, picked up his whiskey, and took a sip. The skin around his eyes smiled over his glass as he drank. “The worm is not a professional dance move. I will admit that.”

“Everything is a professional dance move when performed by a professional.” I leaned back against the booth, draping one arm over the seat. “That’s not an opinion. It’s physics.”

“That is not physics.” He shook his head. “That’s you having pride in your work.”

“Body in motion. Newton’s first law.”

He looked very much like he was trying not to smile, warring with humor and muscles and delight—and losing the fight before it had even begun.

“That is a significant misapplication of Newton,” he said through tightly pursed lips.

“Newton’s dead. Who’s to argue with my logic now, Doc? Sorry, DVM?”

He didn’t just smile then. A laugh flew out, a caged bird suddenly freed. It was the real kind, the honest kind, the kind that made my insides warm beyond anything they did when I was hot and sweaty and moving and . . . shit.