Page 12 of IRL: In Real Life
“Oh?” I asked.
“That’s what we on tonight?”
“We not on anything.”
“Sure.”
He dragged the word out like he already knew I was lying.
And maybe I was.
Because even then, before she ever looked my way, before I knew if her voice in person would match the one I’d given her in my head, before I knew if she’d be warm, cool, amused, or entirely unimpressed by me, my body had already leaned in her direction.
That was the first sign.
I wanted her to be real.
Talia turned slightly toward the room, scanning the way people did when they knew enough faces to expect one of them to claim their attention sooner or later. Her friend said something, and Talia’s mouth curved again, easy and bright enough to pull my gaze lower before I could stop it.
Hips.
And more than enough ass to make a man briefly forget every self-improvement podcast he’d ever suffered through.
I looked away on principle, and because I was still raised right, even if my thoughts were already acting like they had been raised somewhere else entirely.
“That her from the group?” Devon asked, because he knew damn well.
Somebody near the bar called Talia’s name, and she turned that way first. Then her eyes slid past one shoulder, over another, and landed on me and stayed there.
The recognition was immediate, quiet, and somehow heavier because she didn’t rush past it. She knew my face, at least. Knewenough to let her gaze hold mine for a second that made the room feel like it had shifted around us.
That was the strange thing about knowing someone online. Familiarity could arrive before touch, before voice, before any proof that the chemistry you imagined had somewhere real to go.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then Bryce Nash appeared out of nowhere with his host smile on, the same one he’d been using all night to pull people into handshakes, introductions, and conversations they might have avoided if left to themselves.
“Micah,” Bryce called, already waving me over. “Come here for a second.”
“See, this is why I don’t trust y’all,” he said, clapping me once on the back before steering me toward her side of the room, his neck-length dreads falling into his face. “You mean to tell me y’all be in the same comments and never met for real?”
Talia watched us come over, her mouth already curved like she had heard enough to know Bryce was about to do the most.
“Apparently not,” she said, low and easy.
Bryce looked between us with theatrical disgust. “This city too small for this.” He turned toward her friend. “Kendra, I’m borrowing your girl for two seconds.”
Kendra gave me a quick once-over. Dark mocha skin, long dark hair over her shoulders, pretty in that striking, put-together way that let you know she probably missed very little and forgave even less. The kind of friend a man respected immediately because getting past her by accident was not going to happen.
But Talia had most of my attention.
Up close, she was badder than her pictures could have prepared me for. Better skin. Better mouth too, soft and full andglossed in a way that put kissing her in my head before I could even pretend to be sensible.
But it was her eyes that really got me.
Online, I had noticed the color and half-assumed the camera was helping, because filters had earned that kind of suspicion. In person, there was no mistaking them. Amber, clear, and steady enough to make me feel like she was seeing more than I had planned on showing.
That look made me want to do something foolish. Say too much too soon. Step closer than the room allowed. Let my voice drop into a place too intimate for a first conversation with Bryce standing right there, pleased with himself for making this happen.
