“It was fine,” I say as I move to make several chocolate martinis for a group of people.
“Are you dating anyone?” is the next question from him when I come back.
I frown. “What’s with the twenty questions? And I’m sure I never mentioned Vegas to you.”
He gives me a seemingly innocent expression. “Oops.”
Before I can ask what that means, Cas rolls his eyes at him. “Leave Emmy alone. She’s trying to work.”
Brody scoffs. “But she’s so fascinating.”
“I’m really not,” I say warily.
“You’re being nosy,” Cas tells Brody as he tugs him close and lays a sweet kiss on him. Little hearts practically dance around them. I swoon a little. Magic.
“What was that?” Cas asks me, and I realize I must have said it out loud.
“Magic. You two have it. Few get it. Everyone wants it.” I point out Edgar, one of our regulars, an older man with a sad face. He’s sitting in a dark booth, his hand cupping his face as he peers down at his drink. “His last wife left him, but he’s going to find the next one soon. Makes me wonder if he’s never had magic and is still searching.” I nudge my head at Margot, an aging Broadway actress, who’s laughing up at her husband at a table. “She married Tom when she was nineteen. High school sweethearts. They never come in without the other, and they never look at anyone else. They have all these cute little inside jokes. True magic.” My parents didn’t have it, but Gran did.
Brody lights up. “I met Cas online. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight.”
“You thought I was a pumped-up steroid user,” Cas drawls affectionately at his husband.
Brody chuckles. “It was the MMA thing.”
Cas tosses an arm around him. “We texted for two weeks before he agreed to meet me. We met in this very bar.”
“Had to make sure you weren’t going to murder me,” Brody says softly as he threads his fingers with Cas’s. He glances at me. “I’d love for you to meet my brother. He might be your kind of magic, Emmy.”
“The football player?”
He nods.
“Sorry. Not interested. I got a cat instead.” I pause and slap the bar. “Magic! That’s his name, guys, Magic!” Something I’ll never have in real life.
Brody and Cas look confused.
Ciara and Mason whoop as Mason rings the bell we keep for big tips and announces to the bar, “Hey, everyone, Emmy has named the ugly cat who’s taken over my office! He’s also her new boyfriend. Magic, it is!”
Everyone claps.
“Purrfect,” Ciara calls, and Mason hip checks her and chuckles.
Brody leans in. “My brother adores cats.”
Cas groans. “Oh my God, you have to stop.”
Brody shushes him. “Are you writing his dating profile? No, I am.” He takes a careful sip of his drink as his eyes hold mine. Something in them causes me to stop mixing the gin and tonic I’m making.
Unease washes over me.
Alert, alert. Something is wrong! a voice inside my head whispers . . .
He smiles. “Besides, you met my brother in Old Town. I heard there were sparks—and cherry-flavored lube.”
Old Town?
Cherry-flavored lube?
I gasp. “What?”
“Yeah, Graham Harlan—or G. That’s my little nickname for him. I couldn’t say Graham when I was little, and it sort of stuck.”
My breath quickens, doom closing in.
It clicks. Brody’s lips, his familiar jawline . . .
“Wait. Your brother is . . .”
A tall, broad shadow enters the bar and appears behind the couple, and my eyes move up to take in the man who’s sucked all the air out of my lungs. He’s wearing a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of navy slacks. His jaw is shaven, calling attention to his razor-sharp jaw and stark cheekbones.
Tension in the bar rises, buzzing around me as he towers over everyone at the bar, his chiseled face set in hard lines, not that the iciness affects how soul-crushingly gorgeous he is. Stormy gray eyes pierce me. A rush of electricity zaps me like a live wire. I’m a frozen deer in the headlights as he rakes over every inch of me, taking me apart.
The bar noise fades, and it’s just me and him in the bar.
My heart jumps in my chest.
What is this awful thing I’m feeling when he looks at me? Fear? Attraction? Both?
Shit, whatever it is, it’s not good.
His gaze drifts to my lips, almost caressing them; then his nose flares as if he’s angry.