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“I can tell you a few things,” he offers, springing into mixing action. “One, he likes Nutella hot chocolate with a good book. Two, he prefers a corner booth, but he hasn’t got it tonight. Three, he’s here at trivia night and Riley is about to kick him out of your usual table.”
“There’s no way Ves is—” Elisha turns to survey the room. “Never mind. I’ll catch you guys after?” She digs in her purse for her lip gloss. After a quick swipe of Fenty courage, she bounds off the stool with her drink in hand, beelining for the two men.
Chapter Nineteen
Elisha
Elisha can tell that Ves has clearly been camped out at the table for a while: a clean plate with a few bread crumbs and a dab of leftover coarse-ground mustard, and a half-eaten pistachio-and-cranberry brownie on the plate in front of him, along with a beat-up paperback with an expensive-looking pen sticking out midway through, as though it’s been used as an impromptu bookmark.
He takes a calm sip of his hot drink and regards her thoughtfully. “Let me guess. This is where the cool kids sit, and newcomers aren’t allowed.”
At the other end of the table with just a seat separating them, Riley Studebaker swigs his beer, looking massively peeved. “That’s not what I said. I said that if you’re going to sit here, you’re on the team.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” Ves uses his knife and fork to primly cut a small piece of brownie. “I’m here to sit and read and eat my dinner in peace.” He pops it in his mouth and chews.
“Didn’t Becca tell you that every other Friday is trivia night?” Elisha asks, setting her hands on her hips. Her voice isn’t as cool as she hoped, not when fizzy full-body tingles tease that she’s not exactly unhappy to see him there. In fact, anticipation pulls at her stomach, shortens her breath.
Ves’s eyes flick to the answer sheet on the table, then back to her face. Well, his gaze does snag on her chest first, just for a second, before he snaps it up. Only a hint of pink on his cheeks gives him away.
She’s irrationally proud that she’s seemingly stunned him speechless in her sexy dress, but before she can savor the victory, Riley opens his mouth to argue some more.
“Oh, this is ridiculous.” Elisha marches to the empty seat between them and sits. “I’m sure Riley has explained this is Came to Sleigh’s table, but since everywhere else is full, it looks like we’ll have to share. Anyone got a problem with that?” When Riley gives a terse nod and Ves returns to his book, she sighs. “Great. It’s settled, then.”
Her shoulders brush both men’s, but only Ves’s makes her pulse flutter and breath catch. He smells unfairly good, more than anyone has a right to. Like sliced green apples, tart and juicy. A little bit like dinner, pan-fried bread and sausage and spicy mustard. And just a tad like Maeve’s house: faded lilacs and old paper, and a tingle of eucalyptus cough drops. Somehow—don’t ask her how—she isn’t put off. It’s sexy. Isn’t that a thing when you like someone? Everything they do becomes attractive?
Carefully, in a way she hopes is casual, she lets her calves rest against his under the table. It’s only in the way that his finger stumbles on its way to turning page 246 that she knows he feels it. And when she leaves her leg there for the next ten minutes while they wait for the rest of the team to arrive, she swears he just keeps rereading the same page. She’s not even sure his eyes move. Or blink.
Mia gets there with a minute to spare and everyone else cuts it close, blown in on a gust of wind and the trivia master’s one-minute countdown. He taps the mic, muttering “Testing, testing” like he does every Friday. A squeal of feedback splinters across the room and he throws his hands in the air. “Sorry, folks!”
“Solana isn’t joining you?” Ves’s murmur is so low she almost doesn’t catch it.
Elisha leans closer, until his breath ghosts across her temples. “Nah, she never plays. Her boyfriend, Adam, works Friday nights, so Solana hangs around the bar to keep him company. They keep their own score unofficially and crow their asses off if they could have beaten the winning team. Which, to be fair, isn’t often because they’re too busy flirting with each other to catch most of the questions.”
She can see his lips curl in an almost-smile. “Such ruthless competitors,” he drawls.
“Ves, we don’t have nightclubs in Piney Peaks. This”—she gestures around the room—“is what most of us single hotties are doing on Friday night. So you better believe we’re all playing to win. Dork Academia almost always takes first, and—sorry, never mind. I know you don’t care about this small-town stuff.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but a blur of a person slides into the seat opposite Elisha, his knee knocking hard against hers.
Reproachfully, Richard Breckenridge, last year’s Mistletoe Miscreant #1, says, “Elisha, I thought you said the team was full.” He glowers none too subtly at Ves.
Damn it. Richard’s had a thing for her since high school and has the nose of a bloodhound when it comes to finding mistletoe so he can suggest they go for a kiss. Either that or he carries the stuff around in his pocket in case of an opportune moment—she really wouldn’t put it past him.
Mia catches her eye and makes a face that her boyfriend, Isaiah Osuji, the purchasing manager at Fireside, the restaurant his Chinese-Nigerian parents own, mimics. They think Richard’s weird, too.
“Ves is new in town and just observing,” Elisha says firmly. “We’re still waiting on Kat and Adhira, but with Mia, Isaiah, Riley, and me, we have a full team of six and that’s the max, sorry.”
Richard counts each member off on his fingers as if to make sure she isn’t trying to pull one over on him. “Huh. Yeah, there’s six of you. I should take it up with the trivia master, make it an even seven.”
Ves makes a choked laughing sort of noise.
“Mm-hmm. Good idea, bud. ‘Even seven.’ That’s definitely a thing. You go do that,” says Riley. He catches Elisha’s eye and smirks. Everyone knows that one does not mess with the trivia master, except for Richard, apparently, who squares his shoulders and determinedly heads off like he’s going to battle.
“That looks like it’s going over well,” whispers Isaiah, exchanging a high five with Riley when the trivia master angrily blasts Richard at full volume, amplified even more thanks to the mic.
“What’s the word for when you’re totally tickled by something shitty happening to someone?” Mia whispers, trying not to laugh.
“Schadenfreude,” Ves says without looking up from his book. Elisha glances over; interestingly, he’s still on page 246.
