Page 129 of Gin and Lava

“Trifecta,” I acceurate (that’s not a real word either, but if Ned can do it, I can too, bitches).

“You might consider that she sauntered back to the beach beaming with that rosy—”

“I’ve been fucked glow?” I beat him to the punch.

“How many girls have you seen walk away from you with that look on her face?” Ned asks, his eyebrows pinching like I’m a kindergartener he’s frustrated with.

“My big dick doesn’t disappoint.”

“Yeah, but there’s satisfied because she’s had a good lay, and there’s satisfied because something else is happening in her heart and her head.”

“Wow, you really have turned into a Hallmark card, Edwin! I never knew you were the Heart Whisperer.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” he says, finishing off the end of his whiskey. “You’re the one whispering. And hey, maybe you’re doing it with your cock, maybe that’s your magic wand.”

“You know it is.”

“Or maybe you’re doing it with something else,” Ned ignores my bravado. “But trust me, Naomi isn’t the kind of woman who’d ask a cussing tiki-boy like you to be her fake fiancé on accident. And she sure as hell doesn’t prance around her friends like a love-sick puppy for no good reason.”

“It’s a game. It’s fake. She’s playing a part.”

“Is she?” Ned asks, trying to plant seeds where there isn’t any soil.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” I warn. “Naomi and I are friends.”

“Who fuck,” Ned says harshly. “Who pretend to be in love.”

Whether you like it or not, you’re in a relationship.Connor’s words echo in my head.

“Why do you care so much about this?” I ask, plucking an ice cube out of my glass and popping it in my mouth, crunching the hard ice against my teeth.

“Because I like the Naomi and Mason dynamic—when it’s real.”

“It isn’t.”

“Well, I’m a really good lawyer,” Ned says arrogantly. “I know when people are lying, and Naomi … Yes, you get her hot—that’s clear as a damn bell, and it’s got her ex twisted up left and right. But she also smiles in a way I’d never expected her to smile at you.”

“Thanks, douchebag.”

“That was a compliment if you actually listened to it.” He stands up and takes my glass. “And it’s too bad you can’t see it.”

Ned drains the remaining whiskey from my glass, then tosses the ice in the sand.

“Too bad?” I look at him incredulously.

What game is he playing?

Ned shrugs and turns his back on me, walking toward the shore having finished his cross examination. He’s completely confident as he strides away, sure that the message he wanted the jury to see is wildly incriminating.

And fuck, I really don’t want to listen to him.

And worse, I want to punch him in the nads for giving me hope.

41

NAOMI

Shauri’s thrown back at least four of Mason’s afternoon Pina Coladas and is drunk. Of course, she can’t stop giggling because Mason calls them Pina-Goes-in-My-Ladas. You’d think Shauri’s a middle-school girl with the way she laughs at all of Mason’s comments.

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