Page 26 of Fight

This was further evidenced by how she quickly changed the subject. “How are things going with your uncle?”

“Meh,” Daniel moved his hands up and down as if weighing the pros and cons. “I’m learning a lot,” he finally said.

“Well that’s good!” Lena said a little too brightly as she looked over at Jake, smiling and nodding. He knew well enough by now that this was Lena freaking out. She was jittery and kept diverting attention away from herself.

Daniel continued to treat Jake as if he wasn’t there; shifting his body as if trying to build an invisible wall in front of him.

A large squeal emanated from Annie at the other end of the table. Jake looked over to see her dissolving into giggles, and pressing her body into Ian’s side. Ian smiled down at her, chuckling.

“Annie Hoffman! Keep it down!” Lena shouted good-humoredly down the table.

“Oh my god, Lena. Come here and listen to what Morgan just told me. No!” Annie held her finger up to Morgan. “I refuse to let you shout that story down the table.”

“Okay, okay. Be right back guys. Would you mind letting me out, Jake?”

“Sure,” he answered as he slid off the bench and she slipped past him. He noticed how the tight velvet dress hugged her curves and let out a breath.

As he settled back on the bench, he watched Lena gracefully walk over to the other side of the long table and squeeze in next to Morgan.

“Hey, guy.” Daniel snapped his fingers in front of Jake’s face, pulling his attention away from watching Lena.

“Yeah?” Jake answered warily.

“Can you make like a tree when she gets back?” Daniel snapped his fingers and yanked his thumb toward the other end of the table.

“What?” What was this fucker talking about?

“Take a short walk off a long cliff? Leave! I’m trying to score here.” Jake’s face dissolved into confusion and disgust. Why was he talking like a nineteen fifties greaser? Who was this bozo?

Jake hissed a breath out between his teeth. “No. I don’t think I will take a walk. I think I’m going to stick around.”

Daniel lowered his brows and glared at him. “Hey, fuck you man. I saw her first.”

Jake leaned forward and spoke softly. “No, man. Fuckyou. She’s not an object that you can pee on and claim ownership.” Jake considered this and couldn’t help adding one final thought. “But I met her last summer, soItechnically saw her first.”

“...so, of course I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him my name wasn’t Candace. Especially since the guy just bought me dinner.”

Lena was laughing so hard that her side was starting to hurt. She’d been sitting next to Morgan for the last few minutes listening to one of her crazy stories about how she had been mistaken for some guy's Tinder date at the Blue Sky once. She thought he was simply interested in her, and didn’t realize until they were hooking up after he’d bought her dinner that he believed she was someone else.

Ian had gotten up when Lena sat down, having heard this story more times than he was likely comfortable with. Lena was pleasantly surprised when he returned with more drinks for the table, including a new glass of wine for her.

“Oh Ian, you’re so sweet.Thank you. I can buy the next round.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled as he settled in next to Annie, pushing a beer toward her. Annie looked up at him gratefully.

The sound of tuning instruments wafted over to their table from the front left corner of the bar. Lena turned her head to see a tall, rangy guy with a man bun picking at his guitar. He had a drummer, a bass player, and a piano behind him.

“Oh, I think that’s the musician Maggie told me about. I think she called him a ‘Conrad treasure.’”

“Yeah.” Ian smiled at her before shooting Morgan a worried look. “That’s Cole Sutton. Morgan and I went to school with him. He's always played the guitar and sang. He's pretty good.”

Morgan rolled her eyes and looked over at Lena. “He may be good at playing a guitar, but that guy takes himself way too seriously.” She made a jerk-off movement with her hand. “Whenever he plays he thinks everyone should stop what they’re doing and silently watch him.”

“Morgan’s just angry that he stopped his set once to call her out and tell her to shut the hell up.” Ian chortled as he took a sip of his beer. “To be fair, Morg, you were pretty loud.”

“This is a bar, Ian. If I can’t be loud here, where can I be? This isn’t the Cole Sutton concert hall.” Morgan shot Ian a disgusted look before she leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed.

Shaking her head at their bickering, Lena hazarded a glance down the table where Jake and Daniel were still glowering at each other over their beer glasses.I should get back over there.

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