Page 10 of The Love Wager

“Didn’t I call you a cab,” she drunkenly mocks as I cross my arms over my chest, eyeing her ass as she feels around beneath the booth for her phone.

I flick my eyes up, scolding myself for how long I looked in the first goddamn place. Then I try stowing some of the building aggravation in my chest before it erupts, and the shrapnel lands all over the floor of my bar, along with every other emotion my patrons left behind tonight.

She leans forward a bit more, reaching as her shirt tugs up and her thong peeks out of the top of her pants.

“Fuck’s sake!” I muse, pulling my phone from my pocket to click on the flashlight before bending and pointing it so she can see.

“Aha! Got it!” she slurs.

Thank fuck.

She stuffs the phone in her oversized bag of party tricks she lugged in here earlier, and I move to the door, opening it as she grimaces at me, her pretty lips in a line that says she’s had enough of me for one night.

The feeling is mutual.

“Never known you to open the door for me like a gentleman,” Nick says playfully, tipping his hat to me as he walks through the fissure with Joe’s pizza in hand. The scent of it wafts along with him on the breeze I’m letting in.

He eyes the little fucking menace as she shifts her bag onto her shoulder but says nothing. He turns once behind her, darting his eyes at her in question instead.

“You have your phone. Time to go.”

She turns her gaze on Nick, looking him up and down before swinging her glassy gaze back to me. “That pizza smells heavenly.”

Great, Nick walked through the door with the one thing drunk girls can’t resist: carbs.

“It is! Best in the tri-county area,” Nick muses, opening the box. “Got some garlic knots, too. We’ve got plenty if you want to st—” He trails off, seeing my gaze harden. “No,” he says, slamming the box shut as she leans inward, “don’t think there will be enough, actually. I have to… feed the local squirrels and all that…”

Fuck’s sake. He’s never been good with the pressure of awkward situations. I scrub my hand down my face as she looks between us.

“Squirrels?” Her sinful lips tip up, and I can’t help glaring at them.

The way they curve like a bow but are full and soft… I growl inwardly, batting the fucking thought away as I grab her by the shoulders and lead her closer to the door. “Time. To. Go.”

“But the cabs, they left, and…”

“Oh, come on, man. We can feed the squirrels another night,” Nick jokes, and I narrow my eyes as she escapes my hold and heads toward Nick.

He grins and opens the box just in time for her hands to head toward the pizza.

“Stop!” I shout, startling even Nick.

All eyes swing to me as I heave a calming inhale. “At least be civilized and go wash your hands first. You were just crawling on the floor, after all,” I tell her.

Nick snaps the box closed. “Not cool, babe. This is Joe’s finest mega meat trio. What were you thinking?”

I fight a laugh as she puts her hands up in defense with a menacing smile plastered on her face. “Sorry! I didn’t know it was Joe’s finest!”

Seeing Nick banter back and forth with her makes my stomach churn. Shit, seeing him with a smile on his face issomething I never thought I’d see again. When he returned to US soil, he was a shell of his former self, and I wagered my life to get even an ounce of this version of him back.

She drops her bag onto a table and saunters toward the bathrooms while Nick moves to the bar and places the pizza down.

“Who the hell is that?” he whispers as if she can hear through walls.

Fuck, maybe she can. She’s got powers of some kind if she can make Nick laugh as much as I’ve witnessed in the last few minutes. If you’d have asked me about an hour ago, I would’ve told you she was Ursula the Sea Witch, given legs to torment men on land.

“One of Taylor’s bridesmaids for her and Spencer’s wedding next weekend.”

I pull out three glasses, filling each with ice before shooting soda in them with the bar gun. I shove one toward Nick before placing the other next to him.

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