Page 103 of Wild Card
Still, I catch him eyeing both Bash and me now and then, and I wonder if he can tellsomething.
As I’m sidling up to Clyde, making sure he has everything he needs, Tripp pops into the kitchen in search of another drink.
“And how was your flight?” he asks, affably holding his bottle of beer up in a toast.
Clyde scowls at him, and Tripp just smiles back. I can’t tell if he’s oblivious or being an asshole by continuing to needle Clyde with his presence. Either way, the strangest thing about the interaction is that he’s behaving as though we had no confrontation at all this morning.
I’m inebriated enough to play along. “It was great.” I shrug. “I’ve never done that before. Definitely one for the record books.”
“You liked it?” Clyde asks, turning to me with a look of satisfaction on his face.
I grin back at him. “I loved it.”
“Ah, well, good. Maybe Bash can take you up there more often.”
I take a sip of my wine, humming my assent, because yeah, I’d love to fly with Bash more often. But I can feel Tripp’s gaze burning into the side of my face.
He scoffs. “I mean, she’s here working with you. Why would my dad take her up in his airplane just for fun?”
I freeze with my glass lifted, my eyes sliding toward Tripp.Dad?He never calls Bash his dad. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I play it off casually. “I’m too busy for that anyway. Between Clyde and the yoga studio, my days are pretty packed.”
“Ah, yeah, but the two of you have forged a nice little friendship,” Clyde says. “It’s good for you to get out a bit.”
Fucking Clyde is like a dog with a bone right now. I shoot him a grim smile, inclining my head in his direction as though to say,Yep, now drop it.
But Clyde, being Clyde, does not in fact drop it.
Instead, he tips his chin toward the open sliding doors of the balcony. West and Bash both have a hip propped against the railing—the same railing where Bash kissed me for the first time. Beers in hand, they chat away without a care in the world.
I try not to let my eyes linger for too long, but there’s something so easy about the way Bash is standing out there. His usually furrowed brow is relaxed, and his typically downturned lips have taken on more of a natural resting position. Now and then, West says something, and I watch Bashchuckle.
I catch myself shaking my head at him, like I can’t quite believe the change in him. Then I snap my eyes away, realizing I’ve been staring too long. I reach across the kitchen counter for a tortilla chip and scoop up a healthy dose of guacamole. Maybe if my mouth is full, I won’t have to contribute to this conversation.
“Bash needs a little fun too, you know,” Clyde says, looking out toward him and drawing Tripp’s gaze in the same direction. “It’s nice to see him like this. He works so hard. He’s so tightly wound sometimes. Now he’s out there getting all wild. Bare feet, shirt buttons undone one too far…”
I smile and nod along with Clyde’s assessment until I realize that, without his corduroy jacket, the skin on Bash’s chest and neck is far more visible than I realized.
Clyde continues like a steam engine down the tracks. “A beer in his hand, big old hickey on his neck.”
I freeze, but only for a beat, willing myself to act as naturally as possible. Because yes, there is a big hickey on Bash’s neck, and yes, I’m the one who left it there.
I came so hard the first time that I thought I was going to scream. So in an attempt to keep my voice from echoing through the airplane hangar I bit down on his neck. I thought it was more toward his shoulder, but in the heat of the moment, I must’ve shifted up higher. And now he’s standing there, talking to his friends with a teenager-style hickey on his neck.
Tripp’s brows drop low, eyes squinting as he focuses on the exact spot.
“Huh,” Clyde says. “I wonder where he could have gotten that from.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
GWEN
The night carries on through multiple rounds of appetizers, followed by Tabitha’s barbecue feast. Conversation flows and so does friendly teasing, as is to be expected with this group.
But I can’t seem to stop checking on what Tripp is up to. After what went down this morning, his presence has me feeling more off-kilter than it should. Sure, he apologized for his fit, but watching him insert himself into this day has me feeling uneasy, especially since I often catch him staring at Bash with a slight furrow between his brows.
The expression is all his dad’s, which is why I grow worried about what’s going on in his head. I wish I could say that constantly monitoring him isn’t affecting my enjoyment of the evening, but it is.
That nagging feeling that the other shoe is about to drop won’t leave me alone. I slow down on my wine consumption, not wanting to overindulge and let something slip.
