Page 24 of Crushes to WHAT

“Are you sure?” I ask, eyeing the many, many plates between us. “You’re a big guy, and you have a job that requires near-constant movement. You must burn your weight in calories every day, which is saying something. Don’t you need, like, twice this much to get your energy back?”

“Not sure bar food is going to do much of anything for my energy levels,” he replies with an amused twitch of his bearded cheek. “And not sure I care, either. If we finish this and I’m still hungry, I’ll just order more.”

I open my mouth to respond, but close it when my dark-haired brother appears suddenly at the side of our booth. He looms, glaring at the wooden table cluttered with food. He slides his crankiness away from the food and right to me.

I blink, straighten, and raise my eyebrows. “What?”

“You know what,” he barks. “This is not free. This is half my kitchen!”

I roll my eyes. “This isn’t half your kitchen, you drama queen. And we’re paying for the food. It’s just our drinks you need to comp, and you’ll do it without an attitude, please. Emerson is doing us a big favor, and you’re going to make him think we’re ungrateful.”

“Us?” Fox asks incredulously. His left eye twitches. “Emerson isn’t doing us anything. He’s doing you a favor, and I’m suffering for it.”

“I believe he did you a favor not too long ago,” I remind him. “He’s probably half the reason you even have a fiancée right now.”

“I don’t think the company hired to fix Poem’s house had literally anything to do with my relationship with her,” he grunts. “If anything, they were actively trying to separate us as quickly as possible.”

I sniff, tipping my nose into the air. He’s too tall like this, hovering over our table while I sit beneath him, for me to really look down my nose at him, but I think the effect is similar enough. “So what I’m hearing is that Emerson not only fixed Poem’s house for free—the house that you’ll eventually move into once you two decide to start making little mini Poems, mind you—but he is also fixing your favorite sister’s hair studio for free. And you want to pretend like he’s not doing you any favors? If he didn’t do Poem’s—and, again, yours in the future—house for free, she would’ve been destitute and sad, and you would’ve had to deal with that. Sad, Fox. Sad. Poem! Sad! Not to mention that if he weren’t doing my studio, who do you think I would’ve hit up for free labor? He’s saving you from bad knees and a rotated disc. You should be falling at his feet in thankfulness, not coming over here to harass him because he ordered a little bit of food.” I tsk. “For shame. Mom would be horrified.”

Fox flushes, and his jaw ticks. “Are you kidding me right now?”

Internally, I praise his self-control. Not that it’s surprising given his determination to be Mature™ since coming back from his sojourn out in the great wide America, but still. He didn’t even curse at me or anything!

Externally, I assure him, “I’m being perfectly serious.”

He turns to Emerson, catching the larger man’s amused gaze. “You’re paying for food,” Fox asserts, overly concerned considering I already told him that Emerson’s food wouldn’t be compensated. “Drinks are free. Food is not. And that’s only because I’ve never known you to overindulge.” He squints and does a verbal about-face, giving me whiplash. “I also want to make it clear that I approve of this scheme you’ve got going on. You’re a good man.” He glances at the table, and his nose scrunches. “Still.” With that, he turns on his heel and stomps back to the bar, where he’s sure to spend the next hour alternately glaring at us and glaring at the room as a whole. A real ray of sunshine. The round high-top tables, booming jukebox, and general small-town bar atmosphere positively quiver in fear.

I shrug Fox’s attitude off and beam at Emerson. “Did you see that? I got him to agree to free drinks for life!”

Emerson’s attention drops to my mouth, and his lids slowly lower.

In turn, my skin adopts a definitely-there, massively pink blush, and I hide behind my hands with a squawk. “Don’t look at me like that!” I cry, muffled. “Illegal maneuver!”

“You’re awfully cute. Stop hiding, I want to enjoy it.”

I whimper and drop my hands. I don’t want to, but Emerson asked, and he called me cute. How am I supposed to resist that? I’m just a girl.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. Then, because he is generous and thoughtful and considerate and all things kind, he tears his eyes away to focus on our food. Quickly, he divvies it out, pushing close to a quarter of the fare to my side of the table. He gives me all of the jalapeños, stating he’ll eat what I don’t, but he “won’t have me lacking in my favorites because of him.”

“How do you know? That it’s my favorite?”

He shrugs. “I pay attention to you.”

“You do not,” I protest without hesitation. “I would’ve noticed you doing that.” I clam up, and my skin burns scarlet. “Not that I watch you. Or anything like that.” Liar. “Just that probably I would have casually noticed if you paid attention to me, in the most casual of ways. Casually.” I cough, then wince.

Emerson nods seriously. “I have no doubt that you would have casually noticed me not casually paying attention to you if it weren’t for one little tiny thing.”

My pale pink brows draw together. “What thing?”

He grins, a delighted bit of torture on my nervous system. “The thing where you pretend you aren’t casually noticing me, avoiding eye contact and attempting to merge into walls and shrubs and, once, a glass window.” His smile widens, and I get the sense that he’s deeply pleased with himself. “Sometimes, though, I’ll catch sight of you first, or someone will distract you long enough to forget I’m there, and I’ll get to see a bit of you, unburdened by your…” He trails off with a hum, and I am silently grateful that he doesn’t voice the actual word “crush” out loud. Then I’d have to acknowledge that he’s aware of it in a very clear, hard-to-deny sort of way. His preservation of my delusion is much appreciated.

“Anyway,” he continues. “After you and Sterne so graciously helped Wolfe kidnap Leora, I overheard you tell him you were coming to the bar for jalapeño poppers to celebrate. You said you wanted your favorite, which is also Sterne’s favorite, and you rubbed it in his face that he had to go back to work and you didn’t.” His smile softens, and he runs a hand over his beard. The delighted sparkle in his chestnut eyes enraptures me. “You were practically hopping, thrilled about the abduction, raving about all the footage you got for Wolfe and Leora’s future wedding, and declaring your intentions to eat no less than twenty poppers as soon as you could acquire them.”

My face cools rapidly as my stomach drops. “You… saw us kidnap Leora?” Sterne had made a mean joke about seeing him before we went into Leora’s crystal shop, Hunter’s Moon, but I didn’t think he had actually been there. “You saw…” I gulp, mortified. “Me?”

His nose twitches, and I swear the sparkling in his eyes gets even sparklier. “You looked cute in your super spy outfit.”

I slide down the worn leather booth seat and attempt to hide. This doesn’t go well for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my extensive décolletage prevents me from getting more than chest-height past the table. “What if I just die right now,” I suggest. “What if we go outside, and you get in your work truck, and you run me right over?”