“Oh, on the contrary,” she protests. “Tess wants to hear all about this.”

“I’m telling you,” Jarred barrels on loudly, a few beers in himself. “Picture the same lovable Hunter you know now, but, like, maybe fifty pounds lighter—you were a wiry little thing, weren’t you?”

“You’re one to talk,” I snort. “Your lanky ass had to cut extra holes in your belt. Made your ears look huge.”

“Oh my God,” Cat gasps. “You did have those huge ears!” She pats the table excitedly in my direction. “Tess. Tess. Jarred used to braid his hair for football, and let me tell you, those things were like satell—”

Jarred claps a hand over his girlfriend’s mouth. “Let’s not distract ourselves from my story,” he chides. “So anyway, imagine baby Hunter. Seventeen. Starting tight end for the Pleasant Hill Panthers. Hot shit, right? So we all make this bet. We said, didn’t we?” He laughs at me when he catches me shaking my head. “We said the loser would have to do it, didn’t we?”

“You’re killing me,” Tess groans. She snaps her fingers in Jarred’s direction. “Focus. What did baby Hunter do?”

“So the coach, like, had the same routine after every practice. Five laps around the field at the end. Every time. Like clockwork. So it’s our last practice of senior year; we’ve got one more game left, and we all make this bet, right? Last person to the showers has to streak naked across the field after the final game.”

“Shut up!” Tess gasps.

Jarred is already cackling, his arm around his middle to steady himself. “People talked about Hunter’s tight end for years.”

“This might be the best night of my life,” Tess sighs. She pokes me in the ribs. “Make any bets lately?”

I eye her from the side, my mouth curving upward. “I learned my lesson.”

“Tess,” Cat half shouts. “You have to take a picture with me. You probably are the most famous person who’s ever come here. I need to document.”

“Oh.” Tess starts digging in her pocket. “I want one too, actually.”

She hands her phone to me, grinning. “Do you mind?”

I smile as I take it from her, and she and Cat lean closer together over the table to smile for the pictures. Cat is gushing over hers when Jarred hands her phone over, and I notice Tess studying the one I took when she gets her phone back.

“Not bad,” she tells me. “You might have to change careers.”

“Any day now,” I chuckle.

“We should take one too,” she says suddenly, her eyes a little glazed with alcohol. “Can we?”

This makes me pause for a moment, but after a second I collect myself when she motions me closer. With my head tilted toward hers and her body pressed against me, I am assaulted with that nice, warm scent of hers, and I try not to make it obvious that I’m breathing it in as she holds out the camera selfie-style. Her scent reminds me of all the things that happened last night, and it takes all I have not to pop a boner right here under the table, my inhibitions lowered by the beer.

She elbows me lightly. “Smile, Grandpa. Think about whittling.”

“You can’t see half your face,” I toss back. “Let me just…”

I snake an arm behind her back, curling it around her body to pull her in closer to my side. My limbs are warm and heavy enough against her that touching her feels somehow…more than it actually is. It makes me think of all the other places I’ve touched her. And all the places I haven’t yet.

“There,” I murmur quietly, so close now that I’m practically speaking directly into her ear. “That’s better.”

She smiles at the camera even as it takes me a second or two to catch back up to reality and rouse myself from the Tess-related la-la land that I’ve descended into with her touch. Mirroring her smile, I try not to look too out of sorts when I snap a picture of the two of us. I study it after, grinning like some sort of idiot, only a little fazed when Tess leans in again to peek at it over my shoulder.

“Cute,” she says.

“One of us, maybe,” I counter.

She laughs at me as she gives me another elbow, and I teeter to the side good-naturedly as if she could actually move me. She seems to notice then that we’re alone at the table and cranes her neck over the small crowd milling about the room in search of our friends.

“Where did they go?”

I nod toward the dance floor at the back of the bar. “Never takes them very long.”

Sure enough, I can just make out Jarred’s ponytail bouncing to the beat of the old country song blaring from the jukebox. He’s doing some sort of variation on a line dance as he kicks his feet in time with his much tinier girlfriend, who I can barely make out through the crowd.

“That looks like fun,” Tess says in my ear so I can hear her over the music.

I shrug. “Not much of a dancer.”

“How do you know?” Her smile is flirtier now, and I can’t pretend it doesn’t make my heart rate pick up. “Maybe you just haven’t tried it in a while.”

My brow arches as I turn toward her in the seat. “Are you asking me to dance?”

She bites her lip, shrugging a little before saying, “Maybe. What if I was?”

“Maybe I’d be inclined to give dancing another go,” I say huskily. “If you were asking.”

Her smile is wide as she shoves me from the booth, and I move to stand without any kind of protest to let her out. She grabs my hand wordlessly as she leads me through the little crowd, and I catch myself enjoying the warmth and weight of her hand holding mine. I definitely don’t fail to notice the way she curls it slightly to envelop mine a little tighter.

The song is ending when we step out onto the wooden dance floor, bleeding into something slower, something with a twanging guitar and a crooning voice. She reaches up tentatively to wind her arms around my neck, holding them there as if waiting to see what I might do. I don’t leave her waiting long, my hands coming up to rest on her hips. Just the simple touch has my stomach clenching with want. I catch a burst of her scent when I touch her, letting me know she likes it too.

We’re both quiet when our feet begin to move across the floor, keeping it to a slow shuffle in time with the music as we sway back and forth. It’s admittedly a little difficult, given that I haven’t danced in years, but I concentrate on the music and my hands on her as I continue to move. I watch as Tess peers out into the crowd to see Jarred dancing closely with Cat, Jarred leaning down to kiss her as they move, and she smiles at the pair of them, her lips only falling when she turns back to notice that I’m not looking at them anymore.

I’m only looking at her.

“See?” she says sweetly. “You’re not so bad.”

“Only with you, apparently,” I answer quietly.

Her smile really does do something wicked to my insides, and I realize that it has nothing to do with the ways I’ve had her, or even the ways I haven’t yet. No, I’m realizing that when Tess smiles…it almost feels like things might be all right in my world. Which is insane given that I’ve only known her a few weeks.

“So, I’m curious,” she prods. “Why did you decide to come? Really?”

That’s not an easy question to answer. It involves me going back and forth a million times—imagining all the people who might make her laugh, all the ones who might touch her and dance with her—and recognizing that I hated the idea of any of them not being me.

But I can’t tell her that. Not without sounding like I’ve lost it.

“I didn’t thank you earlier,” I say instead. “For calling your friend. I probably seemed ungrateful.”

“I was thinking maybe you thought I needed to mind my own business,” she admits.

I shake my head, not wanting her to feel that way at all. “No. It was…really amazing of you to do that for me.” I clear my throat, feeling embarrassed. “I mean, for the lodge.”

“Right,” she answers back with a smile. “For the lodge.”