Few atmospheres can match the vibe at LIVE. The bar was small, intimate. A square room with a stage and a dozen tables that made you think of cabarets and showgirls.

I was the first person in our group to discover the comedy club, though Charlie was now tightest with the co-owners, Jack and Mia since she ran their PR. Mia was also a headliner once a week, though she swapped off every other month to do shows in LA, New York or Montreal. Her punk-short hair, dyed hot pink this month, was at odds with her dry humor. It didn’t matter. The woman slayed.

I looked around the circle at the corner booth by the bar Charlie’d scored for us. It was a cozy fit for eight, but when Max and Payton appeared with the carrier in tow, a cheer went up.

Max pulled up in front of the booth, setting the carrier on the table. We peered in at the sleeping bundle.

“It doesn’t bother him in here?” Thea asked.

Payton shook her head. “He’s got baby headphones”—she pointed to the device over the baby’s ears—“and it’s dark enough in here. Unfortunately he got Max’s sleeping habits—not long enough.”

Charlie careened over on leather-clad stilts that passed for legs. She set a tray of full shot glasses plus a salt shaker and a bowl of lemons on the table with a flourish. “On the house.”

“Who is going to consume those?” Payton mused as Charlie leaned in to hug her.

“Not you, honey. So everyone else,” Charlie said as she pulled back.

She disappeared as quickly as she’d come, and the team peppered Max with questions about life as a parent.

“It must have been a strange week,” a voice said at my ear.

I turned to find Payton studying me. “I should be saying that to you. Is Alliance knocking down your door asking you to come back yet?”

“I thought it would feel weird being off work, but honestly it’s been so busy I’ve barely noticed. When you have a child, everyone has an opinion. Questions. But the reality is people get it. The time it takes. The not sleeping. The uncertainty. They don’t get what it takes to run a company.”

“Yeah, well. That’s the world we live in.”

“Max knows it too. Even if he doesn’t always say it. Thank you for picking up the slack.”

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a sideways hug, her dark hair tucking under my chin. “You’re welcome.”

The knot in my chest eased a little, and I relaxed into the music that played through the sound system.

Over the next hour, the group caught up. A few of the shots were downed.

Eventually Payton excused herself to feed Tristan in Charlie's office. I watched her go, and my gaze landed on a figure hovering by the door.

I saw Sam a moment before her gaze locked on mine. Her jacket tucked under her arm, she wore brown leather pants and a sweater the color of snow with a scoop neck.

“Nice to see you, Daddy Donovan,” she commented as she approached our table.

“You too,” Max said. “Thanks for helping with Phoenix. When Ry told me about the prototypes you sent, I couldn’t imagine they’d live up to the hype. But they do.”

“Thanks.” She shot me a look. I ignored it, introducing her around the table.

“Squeeze in,” I said when we’d finished, and she glanced at the only empty seat next to me. It was a tight fit, and her body pressed against mine.

Friendly, I reminded myself as we did introductions around the table, and the conversation picked up where it’d left off.

The group discussed everything from the new game, to the movie, to music, and of course, life as new parents. Sam seemed interested in all of it, never once looking lost and jumping into the conversation a couple of times.

An hour later, Payton and Max said their thank yous before crossing to the door, Tristan’s carrier firmly in hand.

The coders followed in a trickle of Friday-night excuses ranging from ‘need to get home to the wife’ to ‘going to a concert’ to ‘playing games with a friend’.

“You got somewhere to be?” I asked when the rest of them had gone and it was just me and Sam. I realized I wanted her to say no.

“Just checking on my dad when I get home. Caregiving doesn’t exactly lend itself to a scintillating social life.” She smiled.

“He’s lucky to have you. I hope you know that.”

She rolled her eyes, brushing off my words. “It’s just what you do.” She shifted to face me, her knee bumping against mine under the booth. “So your team is cool. But there’s one thing I can’t figure out.”

“What’s that.”

She took a sip of her soda. “Where you fit in.”

I barked out a laugh. “Welcome to the club.”

Back when I finished law school, I’d received an offer from the firm I’d articled with. They’d toured me around the offices, a strange courting dance meant to at once convince you this was the place to be, and also, prepare you for the grunt work of starting from the bottom.

The offer was everything I could’ve wanted for a kid who, once, didn’t have a home. Six-figure salary. Supervision from some of the best partners in corporate litigation.

I turned them down.

Because the same week, Max showed me the first version of his game, Oasis.

What I saw in that game had me walking away from the offer as a first year associate, and everything that came with it.

(Okay, I did keep the suit.)

“It’s strange,” she went on. “You could fit in anywhere you wanted to. Which begs the question.”

I raised a brow and she leaned in.

“Why do you want to?”

I glanced past her toward the empty stage. The stool and mic setup that would be in use this time tomorrow for amateur’s night. “Why do I want to what?”

“Do this. Titan.”

When Max had shown me that first demo of Oasis, I didn’t just see entertainment. A challenge to occupy your mind and fingers for a few hours.

I saw an empire.

The barriers to us, two guys sitting on a couch staring at a screen, getting there were just that; walls to scale. Hurdles to vault. Ladders to climb.

And though Titan will always bear Max’s name, it’ll have my fingerprints. And every hour I put in, every decision I make, every corporate legal job I could’ve had instead… it’s all worth it when I see who we are.

She shifted. “Yesterday at my house you said something. That writing the story behind Phoenix was a passion project. Is that what you'd really like to be doing?”

I shook my head. “No way. Omega’s going to be our first game with facial recognition. Which means when you frown, the game gets easier. When you smile, it gets harder. Max is also doing some R&D for motion capture. Controlling the avatars with your movements.”

Her eyes widened, and I realized they were lined with something because her lashes looked even darker than usual. “Sounds like Star Wars Jedi shit.”

“Exactly. It should hit our next game after this one.”

“Intense.”

“Yes and no. It’s easy to get caught up in making the latest game, making it faster, or cheaper, or a crazier experience or whatever. We could be so much more than a gaming company, Sam.” I hesitated, trying to put my feelings into words. “If a game is a magic show, the gameplay is just the smoke. The lights. The explosions. Facial recognition, motion capture, VR… none of that is what has people on the edge of their seats. What sends shivers down their spine.”

Sam watched me, lips parted like she wanted to drink it all in.

I’d forgotten how addictive it was to be the center of her world, even for a moment.

“Phoenix isn’t about wings, or explosions, or battles.” I leaned forward, my biceps flexing under my shirt. “It's about being human. It’s about the journey. Losing everything only to rebuild it from the ashes. Realizing you can only rise after you fall.”

I hadn't meant to say the words but they'd spilled out of me, like things always had around her. If I'd been wondering if I'd built up some kind of immunity after all these years, now I knew.

Her lips curved in a slow smile. “Wow,” she drawled. “Very poetic. I see how you get girls.”

I reached for one of the remaining nachos, lonely on a huge plate that'd been full an hour ago, and popped it in my mouth. “Come on. I’m opening my heart to you and you’re giving me shit.”

She tilted her head. “That’s why you should never open your heart,” she said, her voice sounding different than it had a moment before. “The world might rip it in half.”

Before I could respond, her phone vibrated on the table in front of us.

Fucking Jonathan.

“Did you open your heart to him?” I asked.

“I didn’t open anything to him,” she said, the wryness back. “I’m not the girlfriend type. I never have been.” When she leaned in an inch, I could smell her shampoo. “What about you? According to GQ, you're single.”

“But I am definitely the boyfriend type. Anniversaries, birthdays, romantic dates…this guy delivers. I’d rather know someone before I know someone.” I flashed a grin. “If you know what I mean.”

Her low laugh had her shaking her head. “You would say that.”

“Well, aren’t you two adorable.”

Sam turned toward the voice, and I leaned back in the booth as Charlie popped a hip on the table.

“Sam, this is Charlie. Charlie, Sam.”

“You’re the one who did those drawings. And who messed up Ry’s face.”

Sam looked Charlie up and down. “It was a misunderstanding.”

“It was inspired. He looked hot with bruises.” I shot her a warning look, but Charlie pressed on. “Tell me. In high school, did every girl secretly have a crush on him?”

“Not every girl. I heard the interest level went up considerably after he spent the summer working on Max’s uncle’s boat.”

I folded my arms. “So that’s what happened? Shit. I had no idea high school girls were so shallow.”

“What about you?” Charlie asked, her attention refocusing on Sam. “Come on. Don’t tell me you two never…”

“No,” Sam said the word quickly. “We were friends.” Her gaze found mine. “Just…good friends.”

The background faded away and I lost myself again. Replaying nights of us lying on her bed, having flashlight wars on the ceiling and talking movies, or books. Our inside jokes at school. The way she’d wait for me at lunch, drawing on my locker in pen.

Warmth spread through my body, like they’d turned up the heat and the humidity at once.

It felt like yesterday, and I wondered if she was thinking the same thing.

“Sounds like unfinished business.” Charlie broke into my thoughts. “Know what’s great for unfinished business? Tequila.”

Charlie gestured to the three remaining shots on the table.

“I can’t put those back in the bottle, kids. So do me a solid and put them to good use.”

I watched her vanish, her long strides carrying her across the room and down the hall toward her office and the bathrooms in a matter of seconds.

“I should get going,” Sam said, straightening in her seat and stretching out her arms.

“Did you drive?”

“Uber.”

I nodded, realizing I didn’t want her to go. “I’ll drop you off. If you help me clean these up first.” I slid one of the shots in the middle of the table over to her.

She took the shot, sniffed. Sam reached for the salt and lemon, staring at me and for a moment I thought she was going to tap out.

“You don't think I will.”

“I don't know the new Sam. You tell me.”

With an impish look, she tossed it back. Then reached for the lemon as an afterthought.

“I’m impressed, Martinez. I never saw you drink in high school.”

She took a deep breath to get rid of the burning. “Well, good thing we’re not in high school.”

“No. We stopped talking after high school. Why was that, Sam?”

I hadn't meant to go there but hanging out like this felt too personal all of a sudden. I couldn't let it go.

She blinked at me, incredulous. “I spent months working up the nerve to tell you what I told you that night, Riley. And you blew me off.”

“You know how many times I tried to get in touch with you after? I sent you thirty-four texts. From a flip phone. Eleven emails. Five phone calls. Two letters stuck in your door. You were the one who cut me out.”

It’s incredible how pain can lie dormant in you for months, years. When it’s uncovered it springs to life as vivid as ever.

I forced myself to take a breath, averting my eyes to keep from looking at her, hoping the pain would ebb.

This time Sam reached for the salt, she shook it on my hand, not hers. Her gaze met mine over our joined skin. The dare in it warmed my body, the blood thrumming in my veins.

“She’s wrong, you know. Charlie.”

“About what.” My hand tingled from hers.

“That there’s unfinished business between us.”

Before I could ask her what she was doing, she pulled my hand to her lips.

Her tongue swiped across my skin. My vision blurred, the hot wetness of her mouth sending a jolt of lust straight to my dick.

We’d never been adults together. Never done body shots that’d held zero appeal for me in college.

Now, the idea of seeing Sam on some frat house table, a lemon in her mouth, had me feeling something I didn’t want to look at too closely.

She dropped my hand, tossed back the shot and grabbed the lemon with her teeth.

“Tell me something,” she murmured when she finished, her voice softened by the tequila at the edges. “Is it still the worst kiss you’ve ever had?”

My chest tightened. “Sam…”

Her thumb stroked my hand, sending prickles up my arm. “What were you thinking? When I kissed you?”

I took a breath, a dangerous feeling rising up. “Believe me. You don’t want to know.”

Her dark eyes flashed. “If you wanted to prove something, you should’ve just done what any other guy would’ve done senior year. Fuck me then tell your friends.”

I reached for a half-full water glass in front of me—someone’s, I didn’t care whose—and downed it. “I’m driving you home, Sam.”

Sam reached for one more shot and I pried it from her hand, rising from the table. “If you drink that I’m carrying you inside your house and up the stairs.”

She made a noise in her throat. “That's demeaning.”

“It might be necessary.”

I helped tuck her into her coat and walked her out to my car.

“Whoa.” She pulled up short of the Bentley, wrinkling her nose. “What are you compensating for.”

“Low self-esteem. My dick is enormous.”

Her snort echoed in the night as I got her in the passenger side and rounded the hood.

“It’s okay,” she murmured as I slid into he driver’s seat. “Because no matter what you do, or wear, or drive… I still know you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Under the money, the success, the clothes…” The ripple of awareness hit me as I fastened my seat belt. “I know you, Riley McKay. You were mine first.”

She tucked her head against her folded hands and shut her eyes.

I stared at her sleeping form for a long moment before starting the car.