Page 19 of Plays Well With Others

I laugh, shaking my head. “No pillow fights.”

“Too bad,” he says, then adds a little apologetically, “And no problem. I have an early bedtime anyway.”

He’s disciplined with his sleep. More than most athletes, and I get it. “Yes, you do,” I say, wagging a finger. “You need to leave by eleven. In bed by eleven-thirty.”

“And since I’ll be solo, that means I get to blast Taylor Swift as I drive home.”

“You and your Taylor obsession.”

“What can I say? She just knows me,” he says, shameless in his devotion to the pop star.

And I know this man too. As a friend. That’s what we are. “We should definitely go to Puzzle Nerds. Whenever you’re free,” I add.

There.

“We have a Monday night game. So I need to get into game-mode tomorrow night. And all day Sunday. Obviously, Monday is out,” he says, then scratches his jaw, lined with one-day stubble. Or is that two days? Maybe more? Maybe even the start of some yummy scruff. How would that scruff feel to the touch? “But Tuesday could work.”

To touch his scruff?

Oh, right. Puzzle acquisition.

“Perfect,” I say. We were going to restart our puzzle club. That’s safe. It’s not like puzzles are sexy. You don’t set up candles and play soft music and feed each other strawberries as you slide puzzle piece into puzzle piece.

“Just you and me. Like old times.”

Before all the flashing incidents. “Let’s do it. And thanks again for earlier in the car. And the makeup. And everything. I owe you big time.”

“You don’t. But it’s no problem.”

However, I do want to get one thing out in the open. “And, um, I guess one good flashing deserves another,” I say. His expression is blank for a second, almost confused, so I sputter: “In Daisy’s Duds. When you were all…you know…man-chest-y.”

He smirks. “Man-chest-y? Is that what we call it?”

I raise my chin. “Yes. But I can’t promise it’s a Scrabble word.”

“Maybe someday.” He lifts his beer bottle, takes a drink, and I stare at his lips. His full, lush lips.

I blink away thoughts of them and focus. I am a laser. “Anyway, I was just thinking how it’s sort of the same thing. I mean, not exactly. Not entirely the same. One will get you an R-rating in a movie. The other just makes you want to, well, gawk.”

Okay, maybe I wasn’t a laser.

His lips twitch. “Gawk, Rachel?”

Gah. I’m making this worse. “I’m just saying—”

“—I know what you mean.” He lets me off the hook. “It’s good we can joke about it. Maybe we’ll even need a commemorative Man-Chest-y mug.”

“Yes, for when we do our trash puzzle.”

He tips his beer bottle against my champagne flute. It’s a friendly enough moment, sealing a deal. But I’m studying his jaw, and his eyes are lingering on my face, and I swear, there’s some new charge between us. I hardly know what to make of it.

It’s a little thrilling, but a little terrifying too.

* * *

As the clock ticks near eleven, I’ve had a few glasses of bubbly. I’ve won a few hands of poker, or maybe blackjack. Possibly both.

Carter’s hanging with his brother at the table next to ours, and he gives me a chin nod as he checks his cards.

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