Page 39 of Playing His Game

“Hi!” he said breezily, tugging Adam’s hand until Adam followed like an obedient dog. “I’m Mo and this is Adam. Are these seats taken?”

Wine Mom shifted her glass of white over a few inches out of Mo’s space. “All yours.”

He fluttered his lashes. “Amazing.” God, they were going to play this gameagain? “We’re paint-night virgins. Do you have any tips?”

Adam resigned himself to a long night of teeth grinding.

Cocktail Lady gave him a commiserating look. “I’m Bess,” she said. “The hurricanes are good here.”

Before Vicky arrived to offer alcohol, the instructor called the class to order. “Hey, everybody! Thank you so much for coming out to paint ’n’ sip. Tonight, we’re going to be painting a classic desert sunset, complete with cacti of your choice. I brought a couple little miniatures you can see up here on the bar with me for inspiration. So the first thing we’re going to do is prepare our canvas…”

Adam glanced sideways at Mo. Miraculously, he did not make a joke about proper prep.

Vicky came just as Mo and Adam reached for their first paintbrushes.

“Absolutelylovea beer, darling, thank you. Modelo?” More fluttering lashes. He’d absolutely dialed it up on purpose.

“Sure thing.” Vicky nodded and clicked her pen, then looked at Adam. “And for you?”

Fuck it. Mo wanted to play? Adam would change the rules. “Actually, I heard the hurricanes are great.”

Vicky smiled broadly. “You heard right. Coming right up.”

She walked back to the bar, and Mo squinted at Adam. “What’s your angle?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.” Adam picked up his brush. “Did you catch what they said about the back painting thing?”

During the first portion of the night, while Adam worked on his hurricane and managed to make enough small talk that Bess gave him some real advice, Mo stewed grumpily and made sad faces at his beer. His fault for choosing to drive—they could have taken a cab.

Maybe he couldn’t find a pink one.

Finally, halfway through his admittedly excellent second hurricane, Adam asked, “Why paint night?”

Next to him, Mo froze as if caught. On Adam’s other side, Bess was deep in conversation with her neighbor about something called phthalo blue.

“Because you thought I’d hate it?” Adam kept his voice low enough not to be overheard.

Mo exhaled audibly through his nose, but his posture loosened a bit. “I actually just thought it’d be fun for me, and you could sit there and drink and be happy enough.” He flicked his gaze over as Adam selected a particular orange for highlights. “And then Mads texted me about doing the same thing and I’ve been in my head about being a real hockey girlfriend ever since.”

That explained the bitchy behavior. “No worse fate,” Adam said dryly. “Than being in your head, I mean.”

Mo kicked his chair leg. Adam spread paint where he hadn’t meant to put it. “Hey!”

“You’re such a jerk,” Mo said, but he was laughing. Then he looked at Adam’s canvas. “Fuck sake. I made you screw up and your painting still looks better than mine. What the hell?”

“It is turning out better than I thought,” Adam admitted. He’d selected a light, middle, and dark of each color he intended to use, knowing he’d never be able to match anything he mixed. His painting looked a bit pop-art-y, but not in a bad way. He had a tall saguaro cactus along the right side, balanced with a pink-flowered senita on the other side. They framed one that was apparently called old man’s whiskers in the middle. Adam had painted it so that it sort of looked like a stegosaurus. “Why, are you having—” He turned to look at Mo’s painting and stopped. “Oh.”

Mo flushed. “The paint was too wet.”

Adam cleared his throat. “I see that.” Mo had done his background in pretty oranges, reds, and purples, inexpertly blended but still nice colors. He’d chosen a bunch of hedgehog cacti for the foreground—simple upright cylinder shapes with light purple flowers at the top. Except as he’d mentioned, the paint was too wet, and it had pooled at the bases of the plants. Mo had tried to blot it but ended up spreading it around instead. Then the purple had run too. The end effect resembled?—

“I’m going to call itPricks,” Mo decided with strained gravitas.

Adam bit back a snicker. “Happy little trees?—”

“Oh my God.”

“I’m just saying.” Adam finished his drink. “Looks like something’s on your mind.”