Page 152 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

"Admit you're jealous and move on, flower boy," Beckett rumbles against the top of my head.

August's chin snaps up. He levels a finger at Beckett over my shoulder. "And where didyoucome from? You told me you were busy tonight. You specifically said — and I am quoting you exactly — that you had 'a thing.'"

"I did have a thing." Beckett smirks and nudges that ridiculous hat back with one finger, tipping his chin toward the bar. "They called me in to run security and pick up the slack behind the bar if Cade got underwater. And look around you—" he gestures at the roaring chaos of the room "—the man is drowning. I used to be real good at this, back in the day. Bouncing. Pouring. Keeping the general peace."

"You sound," I inform him sweetly, "like an extremely old man."

A warm laugh comes from my other side, and I turn my head to find Sawyer sliding onto the stool at my right — magnolia and cracked black pepper and aged bourbon folding themselves into the frankly ridiculous bouquet the three of them have already made of the air around me.

"Sorry I'm late, Blooming Apricot." He drops a kiss to my temple, easy as breathing, grinning like the whole night belongs to him. "Had to stop off and pick up a hitchhiker."

"Hitchhiker?!" August demands, wounded all over again.

"BloomingApricot?" Beckett says, at the exact same instant, catching the name, both brows climbing toward that hat.

I press my lips together against a grin, looking between the two of them — Beckett caging me in the front, August bristling at my left — before I turn to Sawyer, the man I am technically, allegedly, supposedly here to have one quiet little date with."So," I say. "Our date's shaping up to be a touch eventful tonight, huh?"

Sawyer sighs, long-suffering and delighted in the exact same breath. "Well. The more the merrier, I always say." He sweeps a lazy hand at the other two. "I can actuallyshare,you understand. Unlike these two possessive fools."

"Hey," Beckett and August say, in perfect, wounded unison.

I can't help it. I laugh — really laugh, the kind that surprises its way out of me.

"Share," Beckett repeats flatly, over the top of my head. "You want to lecture me aboutsharing,Devereaux. You. The man who kept her all to himself the whole night, then rang the three of us up at dawn just to say so."

"That was communication," Sawyer says, entirely unbothered. "You're welcome."

"It was gloating."

"It was gloating as a form of communication. Very healthy. Very modern of me."

"Speaking of modern—" August starts.

"Do not," Beckett warns, without so much as looking at him, "start in on the hat."

"I wasn't going to say a single word about the hat." August's mouth twitches at one corner. "It's doing a tremendous amount of work. That's all. I respect the hat."

"I will put you in the harbor, flower boy."

I lean back into the warm wall of the three of them and let all of it wash over me — the bickering, the low thrum of their mingled scents, the strange, unfamiliar novelty of being foughtoverinstead of foughtpast.So this is what it feels like.I'd forgotten. Or maybe I never truly knew it, back then, too busy being grateful to notice I was quietly being taken for granted.

Then, over the rim of the whole warm, ridiculous moment, my eyes find the bar again. Find Cade.

He's watching. All of it. The three of them wrapped around me, laughing, claiming, being apack— and him behind his own bar, hands gone still at last, face unreadable as a shut door, on the outside of the glass looking in. Our eyes meet for the second time tonight. Something bitter and old and quiet turns over in the pit of my stomach, ugly and familiar.

Once again. Left behind.Even now. Even in the warm middle of all of this. The one who won't cross the room.

For one raw second the old grief gets its hand around my throat — the exact grip I felt at the top of that aisle, watching a set of doors and waiting on men who'd already made their choice. Three of them came back for me tonight. Three of them are standing right here, warm and ridiculous andminefor the taking, if I want them. But the fourth is still behind glass, and some stubborn, wounded, unkillable part of me is busy counting the one who didn't come instead of the three who did.Stop it,I tell myself, hard.Stop grading the men who showed up against the one who wouldn't.

I pull my eyes off him before the feeling can climb into my face. I smooth my expression out easy and give the three warm bodies crowded around me a slow, considering smile instead.

"So," I say. "What if we bar hop?"

All three of them look at me like I've just proposed we rob the register on the way out.

"You," Beckett says slowly, disbelieving. "You want to bar hop."

"The woman who color-codes her own sock drawer," August says faintly, to no one in particular, "wants to crawl the whole strip on a Thursday night."