Page 74 of The Games We Play
“Well,” Mac said, flicking ash into the tray, “I usually deal with the money first.”
“Can I help with something?”
He paused. Then, with a shrug, he gestured with a tilt of his head—yeah, sure, why not.
He crooked a finger, beckoning me around the bar, and turned on his heel like he already knew I’d follow. And I did. Like a moth to the flame, or a kid chasing after candy. The pull toward him was almost embarrassing in its intensity.
“I can have you wipe down the bar top,” Mac said, glancing over his shoulder as he walked backward down the hallway that led to the supply closet. “That okay?”
I nodded, trailing him into the narrow corridor where the air smelled faintly of lemons and dust. A red bucket sat on the floor beside a water spout. Mac crouched, filling it with warm water, then poured in a splash of cleaner. I leaned against the doorframe and watched him, arms folded across my chest, quietly soaking him in.
He stood to his full height and turned toward me, holding out the bucket. As I reached for it, our hands brushed—barely, just skin grazing skin—but it lit something in me like a match catching fire.
The breath stilled in my lungs.
Instinctively, my head snapped up, and I caught him looking at me. The hallway light was dim, but it was enough. Enough to see the way his expression shifted, just slightly. Enough to make my pulse trip over itself.
For a heartbeat, I saw the Mac I’d fallen for—unfiltered, present, maybe even a little bit regretful.
There was a painful, longing kind of ache. The kind that whisperedif only.
If onlythings hadn’t changed.
If onlythe secret hadn’t shattered the illusion.
If onlywe could go back to the before.
I wanted to fall into him. I wanted to press my face against his chest and inhale that scent of cigarettes, citrus, and the faintest hint of cologne he probably didn’t even know lingered on him. I wanted to let him be that safe place again.
Instead, I swallowed hard and turned, walking away before I gave in. I needed air. I needed distance. I neededcontrol.
I marched back to the bar, setting the bucket down with more force than necessary. Water sloshed over the rim, droplets scattering across the surface. I stared down at them like they held the answers, but all they did was blur everything more.
What the hell was I doing?
Was this worth it?
Was forcing Mac to earn his way back into my life really going to give me the clarity I was chasing?
Or was I just clinging to a game I didn’t know how to end?
I groaned under my breath and plunged my hand into the warm bucket, pulling out a yellow rag. I wrung it out, eventhough my hands shook, even though my eyes were starting to sting.
I started at the far end of the bar—away from him, away from the ache, away from that damn office in the back.
The same office where we?—
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, scrubbing a little harder than necessary.
I wiped in wide circles, stretching my arm as far as it would go to the side of the bar. My fingertips just barely grazed the edge, but it wasn’t enough. I rocked up onto my tiptoes, determined to get every inch, my body curving over the wood.
Then I felt it—that heavy, magnetic presence behind me.
A warm chest pressed into my back, solid and familiar, sending a jolt through my spine. My breath hitched as a tattooed hand settled over mine, guiding my movements to the spot I couldn’t quite reach.
My heart kicked into overdrive, pounding in my ears so loud it drowned out everything else. The heat of him, the way his body curved to mine—it was too much and not enough all at once.
“You looked like you were struggling,” Mac murmured, his voice brushing along the shell of my ear, low and rough and entirely too intimate.
