Page 29 of Fate, Interrupted

“You drove past my shop for three years without stopping,” I say, “and now you’re in my trivia bar on a Sunday night because of a flier you saw ten days ago.” I tilt my head. “That’s not serendipity. That’s a decision.”

He exhales through his nose and gives me a small, resigned smile.

His composure changes, becomes more honest, like he’s giving in on this one.

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

Henry, who has been holding very still beside us, exhales. “So,” he says pleasantly. “Trivia.”

I look at Henry, his completely unconvincing attempt at innocence, and then back at Silas. Ten days of being sensible about him, and I’m done pretending I don’t know why he’s here.

“Trivia,” I confirm. “Come on. We have a table.”

I turn and head back through the crowd, and I hear them follow. I don’t look back because I don’t want them to see my smile.

Jewell takes one look at Silas and then at me and then at Henry, who grins at her immediately with the open, uncomplicated warmth of someone who has decided she’s going to be his favorite person at the table. Her shoulders relax, and I can tell she intends to enjoy every second of what comes next.

“Jewell,” I say. “This is Silas. And Henry.”

“Henry,” Henry confirms, pulling out a stool with the easiness of someone who has never once felt unwelcome anywhere.

“You look like trouble,” Jewell tells him.

“Constantly,” he agrees. “But I’m very useful in a crisis.”

“Is this a crisis?”

“Not yet,” he says cheerfully. “Give it an hour.”

Silas takes the stool beside me.

His knee is close enough to brush mine if either of us shifts. I notice that once and make myself look at the answer sheet. I remind myself that I came here to win trivia, true. And that winning trivia is the primary objective of the evening. Less true by the second.

The host calls the first question, and the table leans in. Henry immediately says something confidently wrong, and Jewell watches all of it with the satisfaction of someone who is storing material for a song. Then Silas says the right answer in the low, certain voice that makes my toes curl slightly in my strappy sandals.

I shift on the hard stool and force myself to pay attention to the question.

He leans in to tell me the answer, low enough that it’s just for me, his mouth close enough to my ear that I catch the words and lose approximately forty percent of my ability to process them. I’m looking at his mouth instead of listening properly, the shape of it, the way it moves when he talks, and for one reckless second I want to kiss him right there at the table.

My team would notice. That’s really the only thing standing between me and acting on it, and even that feels like a fairly weak argument at the moment.

My thighs press together on the hard stool, and arousal tightens low in my stomach, a tingle that spreads before I can stop it, and I suppress a shudder that I am not entirely successful at suppressing.

“Are you cold?” Silas asks, glancing at me.

“No,” I say. “I’m fine.”

I am not fine. I am the opposite of fine. I am a grown woman having an inappropriate physical reaction to a man reading me a trivia answer in a crowded bar, and I this is out of the ordinary for my ordinary days.

We get the question right.

“History,” I say, sliding the answer slip forward. “Is that going to be your thing all night?”

“Depends on the category,” Silas says.

“What happens when it’s not history?”

“Then we rely on Henry,” he says.