“Remind me again why I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?” Emma sat in her desk chair with a ten-inch, salmon-pink dildo in her hand. A few other toys crowded the surface of her desk, along with calipers and a scale.

Bex frowned and leaned her hip against the wall. Standing upright still felt too heavy, and her head throbbed like she’d spent the night in a vice instead of in Gabe’s arms. “Because I messed things up with the one guy who was nice enough to not take advantage of me when I was drunk and half-naked.”

Emma tsked.

“Oh god, Emma. I made him sleep with me and then I kicked him out. And he cooked me breakfast.” She really was the worst.

Emma grinned. “The old eat and run, huh? What’d he make?”

“Pancakes and eggs.” Bex paused. “Wait. Why’s that important?”

“It’s not. I’m just hungry, and I already ate my emergency granola bar today.”

Bex rolled her eyes. “You and food.”

Emma lifted the dildo. “Tell me, this isn’t really the color you wanted, is it?” She eyed the toy suspiciously. “This has to be wrong. It looks like a sunburned dick.”

Bex bit her lip and reached for the Pantone samples she’d carried from her office. “No, you’re right. Ten inches of roasted weiner. Who’s hungry?”

Bex could appreciate the lighthearted banter, even if her stomach was somewhere around her knees right now. She dropped the Pantone chips onto Emma’s desk and rubbed her chest with the heel of her hand.

“You look like you’re going to puke,” Emma said.

Bex frowned. “I don’t even understand why I’m so upset. Because my ego got bruised when Gabe turned me down?”

“Could be.”

She glared at Emma. “It’s not like I was planning out my wedding to the guy. I don’t do relationships.”

Emma shot her a knowing look and gestured at her with the offending dildo. “I know—you only do one-night stands. It could be that when Gabe wouldn’t sleep with you, he took away your chance to do the default thing you always do. And now you have to feel feelings.”

Lord help her. Feeling feelings didn’t change things—Bex’s curse didn’t care that she’d loved her dad and mom, that she loved her brother. It still dealt those awful blows, took the landscape of her life and fucking bulldozed it. But no matter how much easier it would have been to shut Gabe out, he was under her skin.

“Maybe I don’t want to feel feelings,” she grumbled.

“You’ll get over it. Having good sex helps.” Emma dropped the dildo onto her desk. “And I don’t just mean with our sunburned silicone pal, here.”

“Thanks, friend.”

Emma smiled. “I’m here for you.”

Bex knocked her head gently against the wall and fisted in her hands inside her pant pockets. “I just don’t know if it’s more embarrassing that he turned me down or that I got so drunk and desperate in the first place.”

Emma nodded. “Once again, you’re human.”

Bex continued, her mouth twisted. “I mean, his cock seemed to agree with me that having sex was a good idea. But he said no, and—god—what if he really doesn’t want me?”

“Trust me, he wants you. Cocks don’t lie.” Emma brightened. “Hey, there’s another cross-stitch quote for you.” She smiled. “Free of charge.”

Bex huffed a laugh. “I’ll take that into consideration.” She pulled her hands from her pockets and smoothed a palm over her forehead. “I’m just—ack. I’m out practice with this whole thing. I’m willing to try, but I don’t know how to have a relationship.”

Emma shrugged. “So tell him that.”

“He’s not going to want to see me again.”

Emma stood and grabbed her shoulders. She leaned in close enough so Bex could smell her perfume. “He is. He’ll probably show up for Trivia Night again this week.”

Bex shook her head. “He won’t.”

Emma’s eyes gleamed at the challenge. “Wanna bet?”

On Wednesday, Gabe threaded through the crowd at The Walton and aimed his gorgeous body toward the table where Bex waited alone. He wore a tight T-shirt that showed off his biceps, and he somehow looked different today. Good. Not that he’d ever looked bad, per se, but maybe her relief transformed him. She had flipped out and pushed him away, which had been utterly stupid because he was—regardless of anything else—a pretty fantastic human. If he hadn’t shown up tonight, she might have had to do something drastic, like apologize.

Gabe patted the backrest of the chair across from her. “This seat taken?”

She was way too happy to see him. “It’s all yours.”

“Good.” He arranged himself in the chair, and his feet knocked into hers under the table. “Sorry I’m late. I just came from a shoot.”

Bex gestured around the room. “You’re more on time than anyone else on our sad excuse for a team.”

He smiled good-naturedly. “Hey, last week you were calling us champions.”

“Yeah, well.” Teasing him was way better than ignoring him. What had she been trying to prove by kicking him out of her house? She couldn’t stay away from him, and she didn’t want to.

At the front of the bar, Sam brought a microphone to his lips with a squeal of feedback. “Welcome to Trivia Night at The Walton.” He began the run-down of the rules, and Bex’s face blanched. She glanced at the time on her cell phone.

“Where the hell are they?” she muttered under her breath. Emma had insisted on taking separate cars here from the office. She clearly hadn’t gotten her shit together, and Colton hadn’t arrived either. Sam and Aderyn were only here because they owned the place.

She shot a text to Emma: Planning on joining us?

Nope. Say hi to Gabe for me! Emma added a kissing face on the end for effect.

A minute later, a text from Colton pinged through. sorry. can’t make it tonight.

Dammit. This was a set up.

Bex shrugged her phone back into her purse with a sigh. “It might just be the two of us,” she said.

Gabe gave her a low, heated smile. “I can live with that.”

Good thing he could hold his ground. A few rounds in, and he and Bex were in position to win again. Usually combined knowledge was an asset to a team, and while she and Gabe overlapped on a few subjects, he had a wider range of knowledge than she’d expected.

“That’s right. You and Alex Trebek are pals,” Bex said before bringing her beer bottle to her lips.

A shadow rippled across Gabe’s face, or maybe that was just the candlelight doing weird things. He dipped a finger into the condensation left by his pint of beer and used it to draw a damp star on the table. “You start to find patterns in things.”

Was there a pattern to them? To her attraction to him? Because Gabe was so well-matched for her that she considered, again, that she might be willing to break her rules for him.

Or, at least, stretch them.

Anyway, she wasn’t going to do anything stupid to push him away. Tonight she nursed her beer, determined to keep her head instead of getting drunk, and the warm buzz of their conversation heated her.

“What was the nickname given to the largest and best-preserved T. rex specimen ever discovered?” Sam asked the crowd.

Gabe dashed the answer on a piece of paper and turned it to her. “Sue,” he whispered.

“Aww, that’s so sweet.”

“Named after the person who discovered her.” He grinned at Bex while the clock ran down. “What it’s called when a dinosaur gets in a car crash?”

“What?”

“Tyrannosaurus wrecks.”

She groaned. “You did not.”

“I did.” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Just pretend my ten-year-old humor amuses you.”

Oh, it did. She liked that Gabe could be goofy with her, that he was showing her all these sides of himself. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but Sam stepped forward before she could reply. She swallowed her comment. Maybe it was just as well.

“Last question for you trivia buffs,” Sam said. “What was Indiana Jones’ real first name?”

Bex flicked her eyes to Gabe. “Come on. You’re the names guy.”

“Henry,” he supplied.

She shook her head. “You are too good at this.” She wrote down the answer, then walked across the room to hand the answer card to Sam.

“What are our odds of winning?” Gabe asked when Bex returned to the table.

She swept her eyes around the room. “There are eight other tables competing with us, and when you factor in past success rates…” She tossed her head from side to side, trying to work out a number.

Gabe reached for her arm, sending sparks over her skin. He shook his head. “No mental math required,” he said. “Tell me your gut feeling.”

She blew out a breath. Her gut feeling was she wanted to reach over the table and kiss him. To wind her fingers through his hair and hold him tight in this dark little bar. But that wasn’t quite what Gabe was asking. “I think we’re looking pretty damn good.” She glanced at the front of the room, where Sam ruffled through the scorecards. He picked out the winning answer sheet and frowned.

She nodded a chin in Sam’s direction. “Look,” she whispered to Gabe.

Sam trudged to the microphone. “Tonight’s top score, earning a twenty-dollar gift card, goes to”—Sam broke off and glared in her direction, and she knew she had won again—“Team Dildo over in the corner. Come see me at the end of the night to collect your prize.”

Gabe whooped like an overgrown teenager, and she couldn’t help beaming back at him. She reached forward to high-five him, but this time when they connected, Gabe didn’t drop her hand.

He wove his fingers between hers and held her eye.

“Are we okay again, Bex?” His voice was a low plea, and her stomach fluttered. She could feel her pulse jumping against his, palm to palm.

She sucked in a deep breath, exhaled a whisper. “Yes.” Gabe was unraveling her, knot by knot. The more she loosened up around him, the closer she got to forgetting why she had pushed him away. If she was being honest, letting it go was a relief.

“Good.” Gabe brushed a thumb over the back of her hand, and her whole body lit on fire. Good god, just holding hands with him was enough to make her want to change her mind about starting a relationship. “Since you still didn’t tell me what you want from me, I’m going to tell you what I want.”

Bex nodded. “Okay.” It was totally sexy seeing him in charge like this.

“I want to take you out on the town. My treat, my surprise. I’ll help you find a little inspiration for your contest. No strings attached.” He flashed a sexy smile. “Unless you want them.”

Did she want them? She wasn’t good at this, but he was here, offering her another chance. If she asked, he’d let her cross that line again.

Bex bit her lip. His offer sounded dangerous and decidedly tempting. “Okay,” she told him. If he wanted to help her, who was she to stop him? “You’re on.”