It reminded me so much of Gram and me. I’d look at pictures of us and laugh because we were mirror images, smiling our wide smiles, that tooth-snagged one, our eyes nearly closed with the force of our happiness. I sense the same pure joy in the connection between Theo and Paul, and I can’t wait to introduce them to the world.
But not tonight. Not with this text waiting for me.
I reread the invitation. Nonchalant as it sounds, that’s exactly what it is. I just don’t know if it’s an olive branch or something else.
I’m crouched over my suitcase before my brain catches up. I packed one semi-appropriate Vegas outfit, and I shimmy into it now—the black sleeveless bodysuit that dips low in front, revealing the subtle slope of my breasts, the jeans that lift my ass into outer space. I layer a couple of delicate gold chains around my neck, pull my hair out of its haphazard ponytail and finger-comb it into a hot, careless tousle. I even put on mascara, tame my brows into submission with brow gel, and use a cherry red balm to flush my cheeks and lips.
I look like I just had sex and had to quickly put myself back together. Mirror-me’s grin is diabolical.
Theo said he wanted to look. I’ll give him something to look at.
Instead of texting him back, I slide my phone into my pocket, slip into my strappy sandals, and make my way downstairs.
The bar is in an open-concept area not far from the checkin desk, curving sleekly around a towering display of liquor bottles. It’s quiet, even for a Monday.
Theo’s seated at the bar with his hand curled around a glass. He’s watching a baseball game, eyes glazed with boredom. He looks down at his phone, illuminating the screen with his knuckle. Whatever he finds there—or doesn’t—makes his mouth pinch with displeasure. His attention drifts back to the television.
Until it snags on my approach.
Surprise flashes across his face, his eyebrows pulling up. But he recovers quickly, and watching the awareness sink into his gaze sends white-hot power surging through my veins.
There’s a confidence in the way his eyes drop down my body, a confession that he’d know exactly what to do with me. That I’d like it; he’d make sure of it. He traces the shape of my hips from twenty feet away. My breasts and neck from ten. By the time I’m standing next to him, his gaze is bouncing up from my mouth.
It pulls up under his attention. “Hello.”
“Hello,” he echoes in a smoky voice. “Couldn’t manage a text back?”
“Figured it’d be redundant, since I made it down here so quickly.” I slide into a seat, tilting my head to appraise him. The sweep of my hair over my bare shoulder pulls goosebumps onto my skin. “Unless you were checking your phone waiting for my response or something.”
He grins, caught. “Such a little stalker, Shep.”
I give him a cheeky wink. “What’re you having?”
“Bourbon.” His dimple pops as his mouth pouts into a smirk. “Two fingers.”
I lift my hand to get the bartender’s attention. “I don’t respect a man who can’t handle three.”
Theo chokes on a laugh as the bartender approaches. If this were a tennis match, the point would go to me.
I nod toward Theo’s glass. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
He leans in as the bartender moves away, his shoulder grazing mine, breath brushing my ear. “Two fingers are enough to satisfy you tonight, huh?”
A quiet chuckle follows the shiver I fail to stave off. I dip my chin, leveling him with a look. “We’re supposed to behave, Spencer. Don’t get all riled up.”
He grins. “Who’s riled?”
Our noses are practically touching. He has the faintest scar just above the severe stroke of his right eyebrow.
A glass slides into my periphery—my drink. I pull it toward me.
Theo mirrors me, pressing his glass to mine with a soft clink. “Cheers, Shepard.”
“What are we cheersing to?”
“Looking, I guess.”
I can’t help my laugh. “To looking.”
With our eyes locked, he takes a slow sip. I follow, imagining the bourbon on my tongue is from him.
Theo breaks the connection first, setting his glass down and swiping his tongue along his bottom lip. I shove my hand under my thigh so I won’t run my thumb over his mouth to feel the dampness there.
“Have you recovered from the excitement of today’s letter?” he asks.
My chest warms at the question. Maybe he’s simply moving us into neutral territory, but at the very least he cares enough to want to hear my answer. “Mostly. Is this boring for you, since you know their story?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t really. Like I said, Kathleen wasn’t a secret, but my granddad didn’t go around dropping tons of details.” His gaze moves up to the TV. “I like learning about it like this. On the road, I mean, with him.”
His eyes move to me. He doesn’t say it out loud, but I can read it on his face anyway: with you.
Another little pebble. My heart shimmies nervously. “When you say she wasn’t a secret, what do you mean?”
“She was a point of contention between Granddad and my biological grandma, apparently. He met her right after he graduated.” One side of his mouth quirks up. “It was supposed to be a one-night thing, but she got pregnant.”
My eyes widen. “With your uncle?”
He nods. “They had to get married. I don’t think Granddad was over Kathleen by that point, even though it’d been a couple years.”
“I’m pretty sure Gram had met Grandpa Joe by that point.” They got married New Year’s Eve in 1959. If she’d stayed at UCLA, she would have graduated the previous spring. “So, not the best start for Paul and . . .”
“Anne,” Theo says. “Not the best start and it never got better. They tried. Back then you did your best to stay in a marriage, but eventually it was too toxic.”
“Paul told you all this?”
Theo pauses, taking a sip of his bourbon, a long, slow one. When he sets his glass back down, his eyes stay focused there. “My granddad told me some of it, and my dad . . .” He trails off, his jaw going tight.
I let my knee fall against his, just to watch the tension briefly flow out of him.
With a smoky-scented exhale, he shakes his head. “My dad grew up with parents who never loved each other. He held a lot of shit against my granddad, his feelings for Kathleen included, and aired all his grievances to me. He knew how much I idolized Granddad and he wanted to punish him. After a while the punishment wasn’t very distinguishable between Granddad and me.”
I rub a hand over my chest, wishing I could rub it over his instead. Is it the alcohol making him so willing to share right now, or is it me?
“He seemed hard on you,” I venture. “The times I saw him.”
Theo’s laugh is humorless. “Still is. If I fuck up, it goes in his told ya so file. I remind him too much of his dad, I guess.”
“What about your mom?” Theo’s dad has always loomed so large that she’s an underexposed image in the family portrait stored in my mind.
“She intervened sometimes, but my dad can argue a person into exhaustion, and she never had the stamina for that.” His thumb arcs slowly across his glass. I can see the memories playing behind his eyes. “Now that I’m an adult, she lets us work it out ourselves.”