“I can hardly contain my excitement.” Arsène took a pull of his beer, his voice paper dry.
“What’s Joe Biden’s middle name? Holmesgirls, this goes to you and will pass to the STDs if you can’t answer the question.”
The women huddled with their heads touching, whispering, before Arya straightened her spine and said, “Robinette. Final answer.”
“You’re correct. Huh. Didn’t know that.” Dr. Italian Stud scratched his stiff hair. I doubted he knew what continent he was on, so that didn’t surprise me. He turned to us. The room was still crowded, brimming with people who wanted to see which group was going to hit the jackpot.
“Next question goes to the STDs—how fast does the earth spin?”
“One thousand miles per hour.” Arsène yawned.
“Holmesgirls—what did the Romans use as mouthwash?”
“Urine!” Jillian called out, practically leaping from her seat, the cocktails on her table sloshing over. “They used urine. Which is super kinky, but who are we to judge?”
“Correct! STDs, what was the ice cream cone invented for?”
“Holding flowers,” I said without missing a beat.
Dr. Stud whistled. “Dang, I’m finding out all kinds of interesting things tonight! It almost makes me want to open a book.” He turned toward our rival team. “Okay, Holmesgirls—what can’t a cheetah do that a tiger and a puma can?”
Arya opened her mouth instinctively to answer, but the words didn’t come out. She frowned, taken aback by the idea of not knowing something.
“Cat got your tongue?” I arched a brow, scanning her in amusement.
She turned to Jillian. They whispered back and forth. I sat back, folding my arms over my chest. Arya Roth out of sorts was my favorite view in the world. More than the sunrise, probably.
“I’m guessing you’ll want to take that one when they pass it to us.” Arsène was selling stock on an app on his phone as he spoke.
“Hey!” Dr. Italian Stud shrieked. “You’re not supposed to use your phone! You’re cheating.”
“You’re not supposed to be hosting a knowledge-based game. You’re a dumbass,” Arsène retorted, not taking his eyes off his screen. “Yet here we are.”
But Riggs snatched the phone from our friend, tilting it toward Dr. Italian Stud so he knew Arsène was selling stock, not googling anything.
Arya scratched her cheek, and my dick twitched in my slacks. I would never touch her again with a ten-foot pole—I’d learned from my first and last mistake with her—but it was tempting to make her scream my new name and deny her an orgasm or two.
“Holmesgirls?” Dr. Italian Stud probed, checking the time on his phone. “The clock’s ticking. Ten more seconds before I pass it to STDs.”
“One moment,” Arya snapped, turning her gaze back to Jillian and the other women. For a second, I saw the old Arya. The scraped-kneed girl who would growl in protest when we did laps in her pool and I’d start a nanosecond before her. She would splash me, then proceed to talk me into a dozen more competitions—who could hold their breath underwater the longest, who could cannonball farther into the pool—until she won something. We were both fiercely stubborn. That hadn’t changed. What had changed was my willingness to pacify her. To give up something just for the pleasure of seeing her smile.
Arya’s ears turned a nice shade of scarlet. Our eyes met. Something passed between us. A faint recognition.
“Four . . . three . . . two . . .” Dr. Italian Stud counted back the seconds.
“Swim!” Arya cried out. The word stabbed me in the gut. I’d just been thinking about our pool time together. “Maybe a cheetah can’t swim? And a tiger and a puma can?”
“Your answer is incorrect.” Dr. Stud made an exaggerated sad face, shifting toward us in his seat. “I’m passing this to the STDs. If you get this answer right, you win.”
I turned to look at Arya, staring at her dead in the eye, her humiliation radiating from her body in waves. “Retract their claws.”
“Excuse me?” Her eyes narrowed.
“The one thing cheetahs can’t do that pumas and tigers can is retract their claws. Not all felines were born equal.”
“Correct!” Dr. Italian Stud cried out. “S Team D, you are the winners!”
“No!” Arya stood up, stomping her foot. It was ridiculous, bratty, and—underneath all of this—stupid adorable.
Because it proved she was still the same spoiled little princess I loved to hate.
There was a flurry of excitement. Dr. Stud even shot a confetti gun and called us up to the stage to receive our prize and an unnecessary bro hug. Arsène threw a wad of cash at Elise and retreated into the night without as much as a goodbye, done with the human race for one evening. Riggs moved to a corner of the bar, being pawed by the Girl Squad chicks, who cooed over him. Arya thundered into the restroom, her cheeks flushed, probably to cry into the sink.
A wiser man wouldn’t follow her. Yet here I was, making my way to the unisex restroom. Since going inside with her was deranged, I opted for loitering around and answering emails on my phone until she got out. Still creepy, but not restraining-order worthy. When she stepped out, her face was wet, her shoulders slumped. She stopped midstep when she saw me.
“Are you following me?” she demanded.
“Funny, I was about to ask you the very same thing. This is my hangout spot. There are over twenty-five thousand nightlife establishments citywide. What are the odds of you showing up here for the first time in my life right after news of the trial broke?”
“Pretty good, considering we probably live in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, and travel in the same social circles.”
“Got me all figured out?” I stroked my jawline, my eyes skimming her face.
She tilted her chin up. “More or less. Although I will say, you’re a hard man to track, Mr. Miller. Not a whole lot of info available about you on the net.”