“They always have games,” Billie says dryly, offering a commiserative glance. “You don’t have to play, but it usually turns out to be fun. We’ve played hide and seek.”
“Pin the tail,” JP adds jovially.
“Dodgeball,” Amanda laughs.
“We broke a twenty-thousand-dollar vase that night,” a male voice says from behind me. “Needless to say, no more dodgeball.”
I turn to face the voice, and immediately recognize the guy who goes with it. The dark-eyed, petite, sexy-as-fuck pixie I can’t stop thinking about was with this dude the last time I saw her.
“Chase, right?” I ask, making a conscious effort to un-bend my eyebrows because I can feel the scowl forming. “I think we met at a Christmas party a few months back. You’re a photographer?”
You were with Lotus is what I think, but don’t say.
“Yup, great memory.” He smiles, and I want to snatch the dirty blond man bun from his scalp hair by hair. I recognize it’s an extreme reaction, but that is the only way to describe how I feel when I’m around that woman. Extreme.
“Chase is the reason we found each other,” JP says, giving him a pleased smile.
“How so?” I ask. This alliance is looking less likely with every passing minute and each revelation.
“Your arms.” Chase nods to my forearms, exposed by my short-sleeve shirt. “Remember at the party I said you had great arms?”
He says it like that should explain everything, but I raise both brows meaningfully, silently encouraging him to elaborate.
“When JP told me he was looking for a watch spokesperson,” Chase continues, “I thought of you.”
My mind latches on to a vague improbability. “Do you know Lotus, too?” I ask JP directly.
“Know her?” JP laughs heartily, shaking his little paunch and straining the buttons on his silk shirt. “She works in my atelier.”
Note for later: Google atelier.
I’m not one to believe in fate, but my first week in a city this big, I have a six-degrees-of-separation with the one woman I‘d summer fling and summer fuck. When fate knocks, you answer.
“So is she . . .” I clear my throat. “She’s not here, is she? On the boat?”
“Why?” Chase asks, suspicion lacing his voice now, the easy friendliness from minutes ago gone.
None of your damn business, is what I want to say, but Banner’s still in my ear.