Page 108 of Royal
Chapter 25
Royal
“I’ll take a cocktail, please,” Brysen said, leaning on the counter and giving the cute bartender a flirty eyebrow raise. “Without the tail, of course.”
“Wow.” I put my face in my hands, both embarrassed and highly entertained.
“He’s your friend,” Kyler said to me.
“Yours, too,” I shot back.
“Fellas,” Brysen sang in a musical little tone. He cocked his hip and the bottom of his shirt rode up to show his toned stomach. “No need to fight over me. There’s enough of me to go around.”
“A little too much,” Declan said from the other side of Kyler.
Kyler spewed his beer all over the bar and then gave an apologetic look to the bartender.
“Well, I never.” Brysen gasped and slapped a hand to his chest.
The bartender smirked at Brysen before bringing out a cocktail glass and mixing him a drink. My slutty friend nibbled on the tip of his finger, angled his body forward, and watched the guy.
“All I can do right now is give you this cocktail,” the bartender said, as his lustful gaze trailed Brysen’s lean body. “But wait until I get off work, and I can give you what you really want.”
“I’ll be counting down the minutes, handsome,” Brysen said, brushing his finger along the bartender’s as he reached for his glass.
We’d gone to a more laidback bar where we could talk and enjoy our drinks without a bunch of people and loud music. Music was playing overhead, but it was turned down low.
“What’s his deal?” Ruby asked, motioning to the front of the bar.
Declan’s bodyguard stood away from everyone, his gaze flashing to the door every time someone walked by on the sidewalk. Gideon wasn’t much of a drinker from what I was told, so he had a bottle of water but nothing else.
“Not sure,” Gray answered. “Haven’t talked to him much.”
“Thank you for inviting us,” Yuna, Ruby’s wife, said to Gray before wrapping her arms around Ruby’s small waist. “I never thought that case would end.”
Ruby gave a lovesick smile and leaned her head against Yuna’s.
“You know you two are my girls,” Gray said before pointing at Ruby, “even if that one tests my patience every day.”
“Someone has to,” Ruby shot back.
Phoenix and his team sat at the table in the middle of the room. Luke and the rest of the agents had rum and Cokes, but Phoenix had stuck with beer. After Gray and I got our drinks, we walked over and joined them.
Grayson slid another beer over to Phoenix.
“Many thanks, Detective Riley,” he said, raising his beer in a toast before taking a swig.
It was interesting seeing the FBI agents let loose. They, more than anyone, deserved a fun night of drinking and escaping for a while.
Luke was a hilarious drunk. He must’ve had a low alcohol tolerance because three drinks in and he was already doing stupid impersonations and giggling like a school girl at his own jokes. Phoenix watched him with humor alight in his blue eyes. I got the impression that the too-serious chief of the BAU had a soft spot for the younger man.
“How did you two meet?” Naomi, the only female on the team, asked Kyler and Declan. Turned out, she was a big Declan Price fan and had one-hundred percent lost her cool when my friend and his boyfriend entered the bar.
“I spilled coffee on him,” Kyler answered, crinkling his nose as he smiled.
“Well, he was cast as an extra forLove and Coffee Beans, the movie I shot here,” Declan explained, laying an arm on the back of Kyler’s chair. They were always touching in some way, even the times when both were engaged in different conversations. “He was supposed to grab his coffee and walk away. That was hisonlypart.”
“And I fucked it up,” Kyler interjected, rolling his eyes to the heavens and back. “I know, Spartan.”
