Page 53 of Moonlighting with the Werewolf

How’s Jasper?”

A soft laugh came out, one I couldn’t quite decipher. “He’s all right. Just catching sticks and balls and hamming it up for attention.”

“Sounds like an ideal night to me,” I said with a snort, my mind drifting to a different place entirely.

Craig’s smile widened, and then he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the other side of the room. “Say, I was about to play a game of pool. Care to join me?”

“Sure, but I should warn you in advance...” I polished off the last of my drink, braced my palm on the bar, and stood.Whoa. Is the floor slanted? Or am I more think than I drunk I am?After taking a second to regain my bearings, I put one foot in front of the other, sights set on the felt-covered table. “I’m not very good.”

Craig chuckled again. “I thought you were about to fess up to being a pool shark who hustled people out of their money.”

“Nope, but if someone brought in a pet shark, I could perform surgery on it. If it wasn’t bitey, you know?”

More laughter. Either I was killing it with the jokes tonight, or I’d grown so used to Sasquatch’s stoic presence that any laughter seemed like a lot. There were a few benefits to no longer heading to the compound every day, I supposed.

In fact, tossing back a drink at the local bar with the friendly mayor and proving to myself there was a whole world out therethat existed without werewolf drama might just be what this doctor needed, if not ordered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Giveme a scalpel and I could slice and dice with precision. Throw sports into the mix, and my accuracy flew right out the window. To be fair, I would never operate drunk, and I was as buzzed as Gina promised I’d be.

Enough so that the clatter of the balls slamming into one another as Craig broke caused me to jump and then giggle at myself, to the point tears formed in my eyes.

An excuse I could totally use if—or let’s face it when—I inevitably missed or scratched.

“Looks like I’m solids,” he said, sinking two more balls before he missed and it was my turn.

Blue coated the tip of my pool stick as I chalked it for the second time since I’d lifted it off the wall, as if that would make any difference in my accuracy. Sure enough, the now-blue dotted ball rolled across the green felt, missing the striped thirteen I’d been aiming for.

Over the next fifteen or so minutes, the mayor and I played out our game until only two solid-colored balls remained, plus the eight ball. So far, I’d only sunk three. Time to make my comeback.

Another swipe of chalk and then I leaned over the table, squinted an eye, and waited for the white cue ball to stop splitting into two blurry versions so I could take my shot.

I jerked back my elbow so I could gain enough momentum to really hit the ball, but the end of my stick bumped into something solid. Not a wall, though. I’d already ensured I’d have enough room.

I turned to see what’d impeded my hit, my entire body lighting up like a firework when I found Conall standing directly behind me. “Hey!” A moment too late, I realized I wasn’t supposed to care he was here, or why he looked so grumpy, and I quickly doused the sparking in my gut. “I mean. Oh, it’s you. If you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of a game.”

I pivoted toward the table, but Conall gripped my hip, hindering me from completing the full one-eighty spin I’d intended.

His fingers dug deeper, igniting a whorl of heat as memories of him having them on me—and inside of me—rose, unbidden.

Don’t go there. It’s just gonna make the aftereffects of bumping into him worse.

Conall’s gaze drifted to the mayor on the other side of the table before slowly returning to me. “I tried to call and even swung by your place. When you didn’t answer your phone after my third try, I started to worry.”

With a frown, I patted my empty pockets. “Hmm. I had my phone earlier. I must have left it at the bar. Like the wooden bar where you get drinks, not the whole...” I gestured around to encompass the entire room and tipped sideways. If not for Conall’s hand, I likely would’ve fallen, which left me as glad as I was irritated he’d so casually put his hands on me, as if the incident last weekend had never happened.

Grumpiness spread across his face like an angry sunrise, even though that wasn’t a thing, and was there such a thing as a stormrise? A storm roll? “You’re drunk,” he said.

I held up my fingers and pinched them together until only the tiniest bit of light shone through. “Little bit.”

“Tell me, Kerrigan. Before you and the mayor started this here pool game, did you tell him about me?”

Surely, he didn’t mean... I braced a hand on Conall’s chest, tipped onto my toes, and whispered, “I’d never tell anyone your secret about being a you-know-what.”

Conall pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. “I meant who I am to you.”

“Who are you to me? Are you speaking in riddles?”

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