Page 47 of The Wrong Move

“Until you receive that paycheck,” Mason adds and grins. “Good try, big fella. You almost had me feeling sorry for you.”

Byron lightly thumps the table. “Points for trying, though.”

I giggle because I didn’t know if he was serious or not.

Mason raises his knuckles, and they fist pump. “Anyway, how’s your new niece?”

“Tiny. I barely recognize my brother.”

“Did you take a photo?” I ask.

“No. We were barely allowed to breathe around Summer.”

I smile at his dramatics. “But it’s understandable, right? She’s just two days old.”

His arm rests over the back of my chair. “Yeah. I held her, though. It felt awkward holding something that small and fragile.”

“Fragile,” Mason repeats. “There’s understanding right there.” He turns to Paige. “We’d be the same.”

We?

“Already thinking about a family?” Byron asks the question on my tongue. “What have I missed? A decade?”

Mason laughs. “Paige and I know what we each want and decided to plan a future together.” Paige stares at him with starry eyes as though he just asked her to marry him.

It takes a moment for me to catch up.

“So not a proposal, but… more an understanding of a future together?” Byron quips. He looks at me, a dent between his brow.

Is he thinking about us?

“Do you want to order any drinks?” the server asks.

A timely interruption. “An Aperol spritz for me, please.” I turn to Paige. She agrees. “Make it two.”

Mason stares at Byron. “I’ll have some water.” It’s as though he knows his friend isn’t going to drink alcohol because of his training schedule.

“What’s our choice in bottled water?”

“We have Evian, Antipodes, and we just received an order of NEVAS,” the server says.

“The German water?”

“I believe so, sir.” The poor server isn’t educated on water like Byron.

Byron grins at him. “I’ll have a bottle, please.”

The server leaves us, and Mason groans. “It’s more expensive than whiskey.”

“Not my whiskey.”

“You’re paying for the water to have special packaging and for the bottles to be recycled at an acceptable level.”

Byron shakes his head. “It’s premium water and the unique fine bubbles tingle my taste buds.”

“Now you have my attention.”

He raises a brow at me. “It comes from two artesian springs with natural mineralization and is sealed with a cork so it gets to us in pristine quality.”

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