Page 98 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

I sipped and laughed as Elle and Jules lured me into dancing with them again. I looked around for Jamie in the madness, but I couldn’t see her blur of dark hair. She wasn’t as willing to dance as I was. Oh, she could, if the mood struck her. Just she wasn’t one to be led by anyone into doing much of anything, including swiveling her hips.

Fuck, I needed to talk to her before I got so trashed that I couldn’t. Especially since I didn’t get trashed. That wasn’t my deal. I was closer to control freak than overindulger-in-training.

Another look around the penthouse bar made my head spin a bit. I spotted Jamie deep in conversation with Zane on one of the circular couches near the doorway, their heads bent together as they looked at something. Zane’s chaotic blondish-brown curls and Jamie’s lush dark hair contrasted as much as their personalities.

Zane, the steady one, always so relaxed and Zen except for those moments his sly sense of humor peeked out. His only form of chasing danger was riding the waves, no matter how choppy, and he was an expert. And Jamie…

Jamie was just Jamie. No other explanation needed.

“Be right back,” I said to the girls, holding my drink over my head as I swayed my way across the room. It didn’t feel as if I was walking completely upright. I plopped down beside Jamie and reached out for the magazine they held. “What’s that?” I extended the word that about five syllables more than necessary.

“Nothing.” Jamie closed the magazine over my grabby fingers.

I frowned. “Meanie.”

So I didn’t say anything else ridiculous, I tipped back my drink. It was far emptier than it had just been.

“Wow, Lindz, you’re crispy.” Zane cocked his head, his shaggy hair dipping into his perceptive blue eyes. “Love troubles?”

“What? No. Not crisped—crisp—crispy.” The hiccup I tacked on the end didn’t exactly plead my case.

Jamie and Zane exchanged a look. But Jamie didn’t meet my gaze.

Why was I keeping the secret about Nash anyway? He wasn’t even returning my text. Which, hi, wasn’t a garden variety slew of emojis or something.

“Z, if a woman texted you a damn near boob shot—without the boobs—would you leave her hanging?”

His brow furrowed. “So, like a shoulders shot? It’s hard to have a cleavage shot without, you know, cleavage.”

Jamie poked my arm. “You did not.”

I drank more to avoid going to confession. Yet.

“You did? Are you crazy? You know that’s dangerous. I don’t care who the guy is.”

There was no mistaking the hurt note in her tone. Hurt I’d put there trying to protect something that might or might not even exist outside of Winchester Falls.

Even there, we’d been on borrowed ground.

“It wasn’t my breasts. It was my neck and yes, shoulders and décolletage.”

Zane’s eyes danced, but he only pressed a fingertip to his mouth as if he was thinking. Jamie just shook her head.

“I can’t even say that dopey word while sober, yet you rock it while drunk off your ass.”

“Jamie, what’s in the magazine?” I kept my voice quiet. Serious. So she knew I wasn’t playing around.

With a shrug, she tossed it in my lap. “Just the typical gossip rag. Z mentioned it had stuff from your little Christmas camp adventure so I checked it out. That Nash guy looks a little rough under his clothes, doesn’t he?”

In an instant, my temples started throbbing. I set my nearly empty cup on the floor between my feet—and nearly tipped forward—then flipped through the magazine, my vision growing hazier with every page I turned.

Pictures of Nash with his back bared at Winchester Falls meant they had been taken on one particular day.

A day I would never forget.

Fuck, we’d been spied on. By who? No wonder Nash had been on edge when he’d heard noises in the underbrush.

Not me, because I’d been all about getting him naked.

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