Page 44 of Protecting Mr. Fine

“Yeah.” Bear’s smile warmed a fraction. “It’s crazy alright.” Before I could ask what he meant by that, he pushed the sauce platter toward me. “Go for it.”

I cautiously chose a dip that had an orangish tinge. This time, I wasn’t so lucky with the horseradish. Hot fire seared my mouth, and my eyes watered slightly.

Bear chuckled at my reaction. “Note to self: avoid the orange.”

I gulped the cold beer greedily, trying to wash off Satan’s own taint from my tongue, and narrowed my eyes. This time, I wasn’t going easy on him.

“Biggest crush?”

“Ooof.” He winced. “Uh… Jude Marian?”

He was clearly parroting my earlier answer, and the twinkle in his eye said he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

“Liar.” I tossed a carrot stick at him and pointed to the red sauce that looked like actual lava. “Dip deep, my friend. Dip deep.”

While Bear loaded sauce on the carrot stick, I thought of a second question. I had so many things I wanted to know that weren’t appropriate, like whether he was gay, and whether he’d liked our kiss, and why he wouldn’t answer about his crush.

Instead, as he put his penalty carrot in his mouth, I asked a bigger question. “If you could have any dream in the future, what would it be?”

Bear’s nostrils flared, and his eyes looked pained as they flashed to me. He made a big production out of chewing and swallowing before answering, and I mentally patted myself on the back for avoiding the red sauce myself. Clearly, it wasawful.

“I, um…” Bear coughed slightly. “I have a lot of dreams. That’s a pretty broad question…”

“Are you hedging? What’s the penalty for hedging?” I demanded,pretending to reach for my phone. “Please give me King Gerhard’s phone number so I can call him and?—”

“Hush.” He put one large hand on mine, halting my movement… and the flow of oxygen to my lungs. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer. I just need to think about it.”

I raised one eyebrow but waited patiently with my hand still trapped under his while he grabbed a shrimp from the platter and chewed, probably hoping to cleanse the last of the fire sauce from his tongue.

“I… I always daydreamed about saving up to buy a piece of property somewhere like this. Not Norway,” he said quickly. “I mean a big open piece of land in a place where winter brings plenty of snow for playing outside. I’d like to open a winter sports camp. For kids.”

I blinked. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected him to say, but it hadn’t been that. “Tell me more.”

“You know I love biathlon. It set me on a good path and gave structure to my life at a time when I didn’t have any. But winter sports require some pretty extensive equipment—skis, rifles, clothing, shooting ranges, synthetic tracks…snow, which is really hard to come by in lots of places. I’d love to be able to give kids the opportunity to experience that, the way I did.” His eyes met mine before he quickly looked away. “I’m sure that sounds silly. The world has much larger problems to solve than winter sports?—”

“Actually…” I leaned forward. “I think that sounds amazing. Not everybody has gobs of money to throw at problems, Bear. I sure didn’t, for most of my life. I think figuring out how each of us can use our own skills and passions to make the world a better, more equitable place is… maybe the best and most important idea I’ve ever heard.”

He exhaled softly, tension bleeding from his shoulders. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” I nodded, only noticing at the last minute just how close our faces had gotten.

This was not getting us back on track.

I pulled back slightly. “Uh. Good job with the… with the honesty.” I waved a hand at the dips. “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

“Right. Yeah.” To my surprise, Bear dunked another pita triangle in the lava sauce and popped it in his mouth like a champ. Because I was hyperaware of him, I noticed his hairline had begun to dampen with sweat, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the dip or the temperature in the room… or because of our proximity and our questions.

I was overly warm, too, for all the same reasons.

And I only got warmer when Bear tilted his head and said, “My turn to ask. You and your brotherhood… What secret are the five of you hiding?”

Shit. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to answer—I trusted Ryan Galloway implicitly—but my brothers and I had a rule. No one outside of our friend group was to know about our billion-dollar windfall, except for Kenji and our life partners. Revealing the truth for one of us would reveal it for all of us, and it wasn’t my place to do that.

I sighed. “Dip me.”

Bear laughed like he hadn’t expected any different and loaded up another pita with a huge gob of orange dip.

“Oh, god. The first dunk of that one almost killed me. I’m definitely going to die now. Remember me fondly,” I said as I put the bite in my mouth.

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