20. Blake

CHAPTER TWENTY

Blake

Unsurprisingly, Shira picks the spa. For a second, my brain objects. What if someone sees me like this? No, that's a thought for tomorrow when I go back to being Blake Forsyth . For now, I'm just the guy having lotion massaged into my hands by an esthetician.

"Sorry about the calluses," I say.

She laughs. "That's what he said too." She nods to where Felix is sprawled in a cushy spa chair, a mud mask on his face. He looks relaxed—he emits a soft snore. Okay, he's asleep.

Cute is a strange word for someone his size. For me to apply to a man at all. Cute . I savor the word. Practically suck on it. The mud masks make him look cute and Shira fierce—like she's about to do battle on the Scottish highlands, even if she's mostly just poring over her calculus notebook. Our rules said we got to pick whatever we wanted to do today, but all I want to do is look at them and feel this strange sudden warmth between us.

The esthetician digs her fingers a little harder into my palm. "You work outside?" she asks. "It's tough on the skin."

"Yeah." I smile. "Something like that."

She eases my hand from hers. "You want a manicure? Might help if you get hangnails."

I haven't gotten a hangnail since I was a teenager and started rice training—sifting my hands into buckets of rice to strengthen my forearms. I study my nails—someone might say something. I'm seeing Brayden tomorrow. He'll definitely say something.

Don't be foolish. Except right now, I kind of want to be.

"Hey"—I hold up my hand to Shira—"should I get my nails done?" I aim for a joke and miss entirely.

Shira's smile ripples the drying mud of her mask. She grins harder than the question strictly deserves, like she's happy for me for some other reason. "Why not?"

As if it's that easy. Maybe, for once it is. "Can you do clear polish?" I ask the esthetician.

She blinks. For a second, I worry she might say something like most guys don't get that , that I'll have to laugh it off as a request. "Sure," she says.

"Then a manicure sounds great."

Shira

"When you say this is farm to table"—Felix taps his menu where it's sitting open—"which farm, exactly?"

"Careful," I tell the waiter, "if you answer him, he's gonna ask to inspect your maple syrup."

The waiter—whose uniform is immaculately unwrinkled, whose posture is similarly stiff—nods. "I would be happy to inquire with the chef, sir," he says to Felix.

I tsk. "Don't call him sir , he likes that too much."

Next to me, Blake practically chokes on his wine. I bat my eyelashes at him innocently, while the waiter glances between us.

"And," Felix presses, "when you say this beef is grass fed, do you mean grass fed or grass finished ? "

Blake finally recovers his composure, then leans over and kisses my hair. "We're gonna be here a while, aren't we?"

I tuck myself against him. We're seated in a circular booth around a sturdy table made from what Felix identified as oak. Jazz plays over the speakers; an electronic candle flickers at the table. It's romantic. Or would be, if Felix wasn't asking about every ingredient and nodding as our server patiently explains where the cow went to college or whatever.

"When he said he wanted to check out the farm-to-table restaurant," I say, "I didn't think it was because he wanted to start a fight about agriculture ."

Felix pauses in his interrogation of the waiter. "I thought the agreement was we'd all do what the other one suggested."

Yeah, but I didn't mean like this… I pluck a breadstick from the basket and slather it with honey butter that the menu claims is produced locally, though I'm sure we'll find out. With my knife, I gesture between Felix and the waiter. "You should leave this poor man alone."

"You got somewhere else better to be?" Felix teases.

"You know, it's funny—I don't."

Something in the way I say it makes Felix close his menu. "I'm actually ready to order."

"You don't have to be."

He gives me and Blake a slow, unmistakable once over. "No, I'm good—I think I finally know what I want."

Felix

Our food comes. Shira ordered macaroni and cheese—the high-end version of it. She groans around each forkful. Two days ago, I would've pretended not to watch her. Yesterday, I might've watched her with my heart in my throat. Now my pulse threads through me, warm and low.

When we're done eating, the waiter clears our dishes and returns with heavy-bottomed tumblers of bourbon before he disappears, leaving us alone. I rotate my glass, watching the slide of the liquid, inhaling its subtle smoke.

"You gonna ask for a dissertation on how this got aged?" Blake asks.

Shira laughs. "He obviously wants to visit the forest they got the barrels from to say hi to the trees."

I shake my head. "Nah, bourbon always seemed like too expensive of a hobby." At least for a career minor leaguer like me. "I'll stick with home brewing."

"Of course you brew your own beer. How about cheese? Pickles?" Shira ticks them off on her fingers.

"Yeah, but none that well," I admit. "You gonna make a list? Felix Paquette is bad at everything. "

"Well." Shira takes a delicate sip of bourbon, eyes sparking above her glass. "Not everything."

If we were alone, I'd pull her to me, kiss her deep the way I held myself back from at that rest stop. I may not be as good at everything, but I'm also not a cheater. Still, I can't help feeling a little drunk on her, on how Blake throws glances our way—like he approves.

"Bourbon's better when it's warm," Blake says.

I take another drink. It's all right . Smoky, but like its complexity is hidden below the burn of alcohol. "You saying I'm not doing it right? I might need a demonstration."

For a second, Blake seems like he might laugh it off—like we'll recede to being the people we were when we started this trip. Until he pulls Shira to him. "Put a little in your mouth, sweetheart," he says, "just enough to give me a taste."

Shira picks up her glass but doesn't get further than that. Her eyes have a teasing edge. "You gonna drink this off my tongue?"

"Sure." Blake actually smirks. "To start with."

That gets Shira's laugh. She sips a thimbleful of bourbon, looks up at Blake with parted lips.

They kiss—not just kiss. Shira ends up in his lap, his arms around her, their tongues sliding against one another. Blake groans, like some tension has gone out of him, even as his hands find the soft curvature of her hips.

Fuck, you're beautiful. I must say it out loud because they end their kiss and look at me, wild, wicked, and it takes everything I have not to fall to my knees. For both of them.

Even as Shira plucks Blake's hand, places it on her thigh, guiding it below the hem of her short black dress. "You want something else to taste?" she asks.

Blake issues a single syllable, like his daring has been caught in his throat. Until he does something below the table in the dark invisibility beneath Shira's dress. She moans, rolls her hips, like she might ride his fingers to orgasm right there.

"Shh," Blake says, and does it again.

Shira's gasp echoes around the emptied room. They both freeze as if waiting for the server to return and stiffly ask us to leave. No one appears.

I pick up my glass of bourbon, take a sip. It's warmed enough that I can start to appreciate its complexity, the smokiness buried underneath its bite. "She didn't tell you to stop," I say to Blake. It's not a request.

Blake's throat bobs. His arm tightens around Shira. I can just see the barest action of his wrist under her dress like a tease.

"She's wet," I say. Another non-question.

Blake nods. "Soaked."

"Good work." I take a sip of my drink. "Now make her come."

He arches an eyebrow as if he's about to object to doing this in public—as if the bourbon, and the meal, and the looseness that comes from having been on the road for three days, haven't entirely washed away his common sense. But his hand keeps moving.

Shira's nipples tighten against the thin fabric of her dress. She's making noises, bitten-off gasps like she's afraid of being overheard. I want to hear her someplace she can be as loud as she wants. I want to hear what they both sound like when they're lost in one another.

"Are you thinking about sliding into her right now?" I ask. "Pulling her dress up, pushing her panties down." I aim the next question at Shira. "You want to walk out of here dripping with him?"

She shakes her head. That's enough to make Blake pause. Until her smile goes electric. "He's gotta earn that first."

"What am I gonna do with y'all?" But Blake speeds up his fingers, lets his other hand drift up to the low vee-neck of Shira's dress, slipping inside. For a second, he looks almost quizzical. "There's a lot of straps."

"You're a smart boy." Shira lays a kiss on his neck. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Blake groans at that, full throated, then obviously does figure it out, because I can see the flash of the bra Shira's wearing. Wine red. Is that the same one…? It must be, from the way she's grinning.

He catches her nipple between his fingers, rolling it as he continues to stroke her pussy under her dress. I shouldn't be surprised: he learns quick. Jealousy surges through me. If they're together, what do they need you for?

Until Blake nods to me with a defiant tilt to his chin. "She's almost there." Like he's doing this for me as much as her.

Shira's biting her lip to keep from crying out. I can't see anything beyond a sliver of her bra, her bunched-up dress revealing the line of her thigh. "You look incredible," I say.

She laughs. "Feeling pretty incredible right now."

"He making you feel like that?"

"You both are." As if this is a group effort. "Only…" She cast a look around. "I might need more."

At that moment, a noise emanates from the kitchen. Blake stills as if spooked, then inches her off his lap. For a second, they both just sit there panting before Shira fixes her dress and pats a few stray wisps of her hair.

Blake reaches down, adjusting himself where he's clearly hard against the zipper of his pants. He groans like he might get off from that friction alone.

"You know," I say to him. "You never picked."

"Picked what?"

"What you wanted to do today."

He casts a look around the restaurant. "This."

"This?" Shira asks.

Blake turns to her. "If I'm with you, I don't really care what else we do."

Shira kisses him on his cheek, her lipstick leaving a smudge he doesn't erase. "Just this?" She circles her finger around the rim of her glass. It emits a single, fragile note. "Or was there something else you might want?"

He takes a swallow of bourbon. A drop clings to his lower lip before he flicks it away. "No, not just this."