Page 162 of Charlie

I nod. "This place is in my blood now. I can't imagine going back to living in my parents' pool house. No job. No future. None of you." I look up at them, my pulse quickening. I glance at my phone. Four hours to go until the twelve-hour mark. Fuck.

We pause our conversation as the waitress sets bowls of piping hot stew before us. It's quiet for several minutes as we dig in and drain our beers. I look at my phone again. Three hours and fifty minutes left.

"Any ideas what we can do for the next four hours?" I ask.

"What's in four hours?" Cam looks up at me in a way that reminds me of this morning, and desire blooms through my body. "Oh." He smirks, biting his bottom lip. Goddamnit.

"Yeah, what's in four hours?" Lach teases, enjoying the heat creeping up my cheeks.

"I'm serious," I grumble.

"A pub crawl on our way to an escape room," Jack says, downing the last of his beer.

"You're fucking brilliant!" Lach gives Jack a mock bow, a grin plastered on his face.

Two hours later, we're in the fourth pub, and I've lost count of how many beers we've consumed. Much to the guys' delight, this pub has several pool tables, and they're currently fighting over who gets to teach me how to play. I have to break it up after the conversation has circled around for the third time.

"You can all teach me," I interrupt. "Guess a number from one to one hundred. Whoever is closest without going over can go first." They whisper their guesses in my ear.

"Lach, you win."

"I fucking knew it," he laughs.

"Please tell me the number wasn't sixty-nine," Jack mutters, rolling his eyes.

I just shrug, letting my grin do all the talking. I patiently wait as Lach picks out two cue sticks, absently twisting my hair around my finger, doing my best to look completely clueless. He shows me how to rack the balls and then guides me to the opposite end of the table. Wrapping my right hand around the base of the cue, he leans me over the table, positioning my other hand on the opposite end of the stick. His breath skates over my neck, making me shiver. He presses his body against me, demonstrating how to slide the cue and keep it steady.

"This is a dangerous position, Carebear," he murmurs, pressing me forward against the table until I can feel his cock nudging against my backside. I whimper, biting my lip as I desperately try to rein myself in. Taking a deep breath, I follow his guidance, purposely making a sloppy hit and watching several balls scatter. Jack slides the cue away from us, crowding Lach out.

"In a normal game, you would claim which balls you want," he explains.

"All of them?"

He barks out a laugh, his eyes crinkling. "You have to pick, mo chridhe. Stripes or solids?" I study the balls and then point to the solids. He acknowledges my choice and hands me my cue, walking around the table to grab the other one. "Do you want this to be a regular game? Or just practice?"

"May as well make it a regular game."

He nods. "I'll take my turn, and then I can help you if you need it." He makes his shot, the sharp crack startling me as it slams into the pocket. "Now you try." I position myself, my hands nowhere near where Lach showed me on the last hit. "Can I help?" he asks, looking tortured. I nod, biting my cheek to keep in my smile. He walks up behind me, dwarfing me as he puts his hands over mine, sliding them to the correct position. I lean back against him, breathing him in. "I'm thinking we need a pool table at the castle," he murmurs as we bend over the table.

"Why is that?" I ask, feigning ignorance, but my voice comes out husky, revealing what's on my mind.

He pulls the cue from my hands, dropping it on the table before spinning me around. "So I can fuck you on it." I go boneless as his thigh notches between my legs. He slides his hand up my back, supporting me as he bends us over the table. "Please tell me you're not still hurting," he whispers, sliding his nose against mine, our lips a hairsbreadth apart.

"The pain has been gone since before we got ice cream." I smile at the relief in his eyes, pulling him into a kiss. I jerk when a ball crashes into the pocket next to my shoulder.

Cam raises his eyebrows at us. "Are we going to play sometime tonight?" He keeps a straight face, but I don't miss the slight crinkle of his eyes or the smoothing of his forehead.

"Don't be a party pooper," I tease, extricating myself from Jack. I rack the balls and slide them into position. "One quick game, and then we should probably head to the escape room."

"Why have you been pretending you can't play?" Cam whispers, picking out his cue as I chalk the end of mine.

"How do you know I'm pretending?"

"It's my job to notice obscure details, Charlie. Like the fact that you just racked those balls like a pro, and now you're chalking your stick without anyone telling you to do it."

Oops. "Don't rat me out," I hiss, handing him the chalk.

"I'm on Charlie's team," he calls out, giving me an exaggerated wink.

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