by Darcy Burke
“Anyone for a cocktail?” Kyle asked.
“Oooh yes,” Sara cooed, doing to Dylan exactly what Sean had been picturing Tori doing to him. She sidled up beside him, and he curled his arm around her waist. She looked at Sean. “Kyle makes the best drinks—he spent the last few years as a bartender in south Florida.
“So I heard.” There were, it seemed, a handful of things he knew. All of it old news. Kyle had moved far beyond the beach bartender stage.
Kyle surveyed the liquor behind the bar and then looked in the fridge. “Something sweet for Sara. I’m thinking blood orange cosmos. Anyone else?”
“Me,” Maggie said.
“And me,” Chloe chimed in.
Kyle nodded and began setting bottles on the counter.
“Me, too.” Derek looked at Dylan and Sean defensively. “He’s making blood orange cosmos. You guys are pussies if you don’t like them.”
Dylan laughed.
Sean held up his hand in surrender. “I never said I didn’t like them.”
Kyle arched a brow at him. “Do you?”
“Uh, not particularly.”
More laughter, this time from everyone. “Loser. What can I get you and the other loser?” He nodded toward Dylan.
“Beer me,” Dylan said.
Kyle snorted and jerked his thumb toward the Kegerator. “Beer yourself.”
Dylan chuckled as he went over to pull a beer. “Sean? Looks like this is a porter or something.”
“Perfect. The darker the beer, the better.”
“Spoken like a true Brit, right?” Kyle asked as he lined up five martini glasses.
Five. What about Tori? Sean realized she was the only one who hadn’t put in a drink order. He hadn’t expected her to go for the sweet cocktail Kyle was making. She liked beer, wine, and, if he remembered correctly, a really good scotch.
He got his beer from Dylan and went to where Tori was standing near the pool table. “Does your dad keep scotch on hand?”
Her gaze flickered surprise. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything.” He hadn’t meant the statement to be suggestive, but it certainly came out sounding that way. Or maybe it was the way his gaze lingered on her striped top, which seemed to gratuitously taunt him with her breasts. “Sorry,” he murmured, “it’s hard not to look at something I deeply appreciate.”
Her cheeks colored slightly, and she turned to a cabinet at the back of the bar on the end. “The scotch is in here.” She withdrew a bottle of Balvenie 12-Year DoubleWood. “This sounds good. Or maybe this.” The next was a 25-Year Bunnahabhain. Sean hadn’t had Bunnahabhain in forever. Not since he’d moved to the US. Dad was half Scottish, and he took his scotch quite seriously. His parents even took an annual pilgrimage to Scotland to tour distilleries.
“Tough call,” Sean said.
“You want a glass?” She pulled a small tumbler down and reached for a second.
“I just got a beer.”
“So? The Sean I remember couldn’t say no to scotch.”
Just hearing her recall something, and with a half-smile no less, was enough to make him say yes. “Sure.”
He remembered telling her about his parents’ trips and saying they should go with them some time. She’d been excited by the prospect, and they’d talked about going this fall. He felt a surprising pang of disappointment—both that they’d never take that trip together and that his parents were never going to meet the woman he’d married.
She poured the amber liquid into the two glasses.
“Going for the heavy stuff, eh?” Kyle said from the other end of the bar, where he was shaking the cocktails.
“Always.” Tori sipped her scotch and smiled. It was a look of such pure satisfaction that Sean felt a jolt of lust as he recalled putting that very expression on her face on several occasions. “But don’t give me shit. He’s the one with two drinks.” She nodded toward Sean, who’d just sampled the scotch and was now experiencing a visceral reaction to the sweet, delicious finish.
“God, I’d forgotten how good that was,” he said. “Screw the beer.”
Tori inclined her head in agreement, and for a brief moment he could almost believe they were together. Or at least that they weren’t apart.
Kyle poured out the cocktails. “Are we playing pool or what?”
“Guys against girls,” Dylan said.
Sara mock pouted. “That’s not fair. We have Maggie.”
“What’s wrong with Maggie?” Sean quietly asked Tori.
Tori leaned over and answered him in low tones. “She’s terrible. Never played pool before, what, August?”
“But you also have you.” Dylan kissed Sara’s forehead. “And that’s more than enough to compensate.”
Sara grinned. “True.”
“I take it Sara’s a pool shark,” Sean said to Tori.
“Better than any of us, really. Except maybe Evan. He’s unbeatable. His ability to see things spatially is ridiculous.”
Sean knew that Evan had Asperger’s and that Tori was particularly close with him. “He doesn’t come home for Oktoberfest?”
She shook her head. “He rarely comes home—just holidays, family stuff like Derek’s wedding.”
“And Sean’s an unknown,” Dylan said, continuing the pool-playing aptitude conversation. “For all we know, he’s as bad as Maggie.”
“Bad news, guys,” Tori said, frowning at the others. “He was down here earlier, and he’s definitely played before.”
Sara and Chloe groaned.
“What’re we playing?” Derek went to the table and began collecting balls from the pockets.
“Straight pool. To a hundred?” Sara asked.
Everyone nodded or confirmed their agreement.
Tori looked at Sean. “You know what that is, I presume?”
“Yes.” He set his scotch down on the bar, intending to save it for when he finished his beer. He went to the cue holder mounted on the wall and reached for the one he’d used earlier.
Kyle joined him. “You can’t use that one.”
Sean turned, his hand poised over the cue. “Why not?”
“These belong to the family.” Kyle gestured to ten or so sticks on the right side of the holder.
Sean stared at him. “You all have personal cues?”
Sara came over and grabbed one. “Of course. Dylan just got his last month, and Maggie doesn’t have one. Yet.” She threw Maggie a grin before turning back to Sean. “You have to pick from one of those.” She pointed to the left side.
“I see.”
Maggie took the one on the left end. “I suppose it doesn’t matter which one I choose, unless you’ve managed to find one that will shoot for me?”
Kyle took his cue down and then pulled Maggie into a quick embrace, laughing. “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”
Feeling a bit disgruntled—he liked the cue he’d used earlier—Sean went to the left side and surveyed his choices. Everyone else took their cues down, but the one he preferred was still there. “Since no one is using it, can I?”
“No.” Derek shook his head. Then he leaned close and whispered, “That was Alex’s. We’re all pretty territorial about our cues. And since he’s not here to defend it . . . ”
“Got it.” Sean snuck a look at Tori, who was busy chalking her cue and looking as though she was trying to ignore Sean’s faux pas. Of all the cues he could’ve picked . . . Annoyed with himself, he went back to the left side and pulled one from the wall.
Sara gasped. “He did it.”
“What?” Dylan asked, turning to look.
“He chose The Humiliator.”
“Oh God.” Kyle laughed and was joined by his siblings, including Tori, whose eyes were alight for the first time since Sean had arrived in Ribbon Ridge.
Maggie winced. “Bad luck, Sean. I picked that my first time out, too. Not that it would’ve mattered—I suck no matter what cue I use.”
On the contrary, Sean thought it was g
ood luck, especially if it made Tori look happy, like the Tori he remembered. “I’m afraid to ask why it’s called The Humiliator.”
“For precisely why you think,” Tori said. “It humiliates anyone who uses it, regardless of their skill level.”
Sean went to put it back. “I’ll just get another one.”
“No!” Derek, Sara, Kyle, and Tori said in unison and then laughed. God, Tori laughing was about as sexy and stirring as anything he’d ever seen.
Get it together, Sean. There’s no future with her, even if she comes out of her self-imposed hibernation tonight.
“Once you’ve made your selection, you can’t trade it,” Sara said in utter seriousness.
“But I didn’t know that. Maybe I would’ve taken greater care.”
Kyle shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Archer rules.”
Sean stared at all of them. “You people are vicious.”
“Utterly,” Derek said. “It took me years to figure out their secret shit, and even then things are always fluid. Rules are rules until an Archer decides to change them.”
“How impossible.” Sean shook his head but smiled. “I suppose there’s a method to determining who shoots first?”
“It’s usually age, which is often Sara,” Kyle explained. “How old are you, Sean?”
“Older than us,” Tori said. “By a few months.”
“I think it’s Maggie,” Kyle said. “Sorry, babe.”
She shrugged. “Eh, at least it gets my turn out of the way.”
Sara racked the balls. “Everyone know the rules?”
“Not really, but it doesn’t matter,” Maggie said, chalking the end of her cue. “I don’t even know what I’m doing to this stick, but since you all do it, I guess I should, too.”
“You people are cruel as well as vicious,” Sean said, shaking his head at the Archers before he spoke to Maggie. “It’s to increase the friction so as to avoid a miscue—you don’t want the ball to slip in a way you haven’t directed.”
Maggie went and hugged Sean. “Thank you. It’s so nice to have an ally.”
Tori cleared her throat. “He’s on the other team, Maggie.”
Maggie drew back, smiling. “Oh right.” She winked at Sean, then went to break.
As perhaps expected, she fouled right out of the gate, putting the girls in the negative. Sara groaned, but Chloe assured her that she’d make it up on her turn.
Next up was Kyle, shooting for the guys. After four quick, easy drops, Sean suspected this was going to take a while. He went to where Tori was standing near the bar. He took a drink of his beer and set the glass down next to his scotch. “Are you all this good?”
“Pretty much. George—he’s the bartender at The Arch and Vine—used to play in a league. He made sure none of us embarrassed him.”
“Brilliant.”
“He’s pretty good at darts, too, but I know you Brits tend to want to claim that as your sport or something.”
Sean chuckled. “My dad would undoubtedly kick his ass at darts, but I guess we’ll never find out.”
Damn, he hadn’t meant to cast a dark cloud, not when the evening seemed to be going so well. He’d anticipated suffering through tonight, not enjoying himself.
“Foul!” Tori cried, laughing. “Kyle, that was a terrible shot!”
“Shut up.” He went over to his drink on a nearby table. Maggie playfully made a show of consoling him, and their good-natured, clearly romantically based teasing nurtured an ache in Sean’s gut.
“Sara, you’re up,” Dylan said. “Everyone get comfy. This is going to take a while.”
Kyle had required a rerack, but Sara made short work of what he’d left and quickly moved onto breaking another rack.
“Damn, she is good.” Sean sipped his beer.
“I’m not quite that good,” Tori said.
Sean turned toward her. “Does that bug you? The Tori I met seemed rather competitive. And that’s not a criticism. If you recall, I liked that about you.” A lot.
On day two in Kuala Lumpur, a young blonde with a killer figure and a stark interest in Sean had hit on him while Tori had gone back to the buffet. When she’d returned, you’d have thought a cat had come in and taken a piss on her purse or something. Tori had slid onto his lap and made it extremely clear that he was spoken for. They’d subsequently ignored the food she’d just brought and gone back upstairs, where he’d shagged her against the door as soon as it closed.
Tiny dots of pink bloomed in her cheeks, and she glanced away. Was she remembering the same thing he was? God, he hoped so. Or maybe not. There was no sense thinking about the past, especially when it had zero chance of repeating.
Fuck it all.
“No, it doesn’t bother me,” she said finally, watching Sara expertly name the balls and knock them into the appropriate pockets. “It used to, when I was younger. You’re right that I was competitive.”
Was? “You don’t see yourself that way anymore?”
“Not really.”
He wanted to argue, but maybe she had changed that much since her brother had died. He had a sudden urge to demand she tell him why she was so bloody defeated. She was too young, too smart, too vivacious to let life beat her down like this. He also wished he could have ten minutes with Alex and tell him just what his act had done to his sister.
He leaned close and spoke low against her ear. “Maybe you haven’t had a reason to be.”
She turned abruptly, her eyes wide before narrowing. “I’ve done, like, three races. Of course I’ve had reason to be competitive.”
Ah yes, her races. They’d talked about those, too. Sean was an avid cyclist, and he’d missed riding during the production in Europe. He’d found a bike and gotten a few rides in here and there, and he’d managed to watch a stage of the Tour de France, which had been amazing. In fact, he just remembered that Tori’s father was also a cyclist. He bet there would be an extra bike for him to ride. But would her dad let him borrow one? He hadn’t been rude earlier, but he hadn’t exactly been welcoming either. And Sean didn’t blame him.
“Did you win?” he asked, knowing she was a strong competitor in her age group.
“One of them. Came in third in the other two. Half marathons,” she clarified. “And it’s worth noting I won the Wine Country Half, which is nothing but god-awful hills.”
He laughed softly. “Yep, still competitive. You’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise, Tori. And don’t be so quick to embrace change. I like you just the way you were.” He let his gaze linger on her plump lower lip. She darted her tongue across it, and heat shot straight to his cock in response.
Not good.
“Ha!” Laughter and high fives from the guys drew them to turn, interrupting the moment. Thank God. All he needed was a raging hard-on in the middle of her family, especially when they were supposed to be “figuring things out.” Sporting wood in plain sight would certainly advertise where his head was at.
Sara was bent over the table groaning, her head resting on her forearm. “Damn it!”
“How many points was that?” Tori asked.
“Thirty-seven,” Dylan said patting his fiancée’s back in a condescending manner. “There, there, dear. You’ll do better next time.”
Sara glared at him before stalking back toward the bar. “Your turn, Sean. It is Sean’s turn, right?” Her voice brightened right up, indicating her frustration had been an act.
“I don’t know,” Derek said. “I’m a March birthday, and Tori said you were a few months older than them?”
“April, so yeah, it’s me.” He took a long drink of beer and went to chalk his doomed cue. “Come on, Humiliator, let’s break this curse.”
Sara had left four balls on the table. Sean surveyed his options and saw his shot. “Nine ball in the corner pocket.” He gestured to the appropriate corner and bent. Almost in slow motion, he watched as his perfect strike sent the cue ball skidding off course. It barely struck the nine ball and instead went
careening into the twelve ball, sending it hobbling toward the opposite corner. It stalled out before it got there, however, and that was the end of his turn.
Uproarious laughter erupted from all sides. Sean stood straight and bowed. Then he held up the cue. “Ladies and gentleman, I give you the Lord High King of Failed Pool: The Humiliator!”
“Hear, hear!” They all raised their glasses and toasted.
“Your turn, Tori,” Derek said.
She looked at Chloe. “Do you mind going? I think I need to comfort Sean.”
Derek laughed. “More like rub it in.”
Chloe playfully slugged her husband in the bicep. “Shut up. I’ll go, no problem.” She flashed Tori and Sean a grin.
Sean retreated to his spot by the bar and polished off his beer.
“You’re a good sport. I’m not sure I would’ve done the same.” Tori smiled. “I guess the competition is still there.”
And recognizing it was half the battle. Hope surged in Sean’s chest. If she could cling to just a bit of who she was buried underneath all of her grief and anxiety, maybe he had a chance. But wait, he’d written her off, hadn’t he?
“I ought to break this damn thing so it can end its reign of degradation.”
She giggled in response. “You can’t. But maybe you could deface it a little.” She went behind the bar and dug in a drawer, coming back with a black Sharpie. “Here.”
He took the pen and looked at the cue in his other hand. “What do you suggest? A mustache? Maybe something obscene?”
Her eyes lit with mischief. “I think you should write an insult. You’re really good at those, if memory serves.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Insult-a-thon.” They’d had dinner with some of Sean’s friends when Tori had come to LA for the weekend. After dinner, the host had brought out his homemade game, Insult-a-thon. Players drew cards with a word or phrase that they had to work into an insult about a topic that was drawn for each round. They took turns going around and offering their insult, and whomever’s was deemed the most offensive won the point. Sean had won a crushing victory. “We Brits do know how to deliver a brutal set-down.”
Tori’s eyes sparkled. “That was a fun night. I still use ‘shagging shit spike of doom’ whenever I can.”