Page 68 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“That’s not a fair bet,” I say with a frown.

He grins, rolls his eyes, and gestures for me to break. “I’m still winning, West.”

The first few minutes almost work the way he intended. The game gives us something stupid and manageable to focus on. Angles. Jokes. Calling shots. Talking shit over missed easy pockets. The simple physicality of it helps too, or maybe it just gives my body something else to do besides hum with tension.

Eli starts smiling again within the first two turns, and some part of me relaxes just because I made that happen even a little. It’s always been that way with him. Give me one clear task where his peace is involved, and suddenly I can breathe better around my own wreckage.

“You leaned too close,” he accuses after I sink the striped seven.

“I absolutely did not. Stop making shit up because I’m destroying you.”

He laughs under his breath and circles the table, cue resting against one shoulder. “You sink one ball and think you’re God.”

“I sink one ball beautifully.”

“That sentence sounded grosser than you meant it to.”

I do laugh then, real enough that it loosens something in my chest. Eli’s grin widens at the sound, and the sight of it hits me with that now-familiar, stupid warmth. It’s such a simple thing, wanting him to smile and wanting to be the reason he does.

The feeling used to sit in a clean place. Friendship. Loyalty. Love of the broad, survivable kind. Now it slips too easily into wanting more time, more closeness, more of whatever changed in his eyes these last few weeks and refuses to settle back into ordinary.

He leans over for the next shot, and my brain betrays me all over again.

His shirt pulls taut across his back, and the muscles in his forearm flex as he braces the cue. His lower lip catches very slightly between his teeth in concentration while the room shrinks by an inch around us. My body still knows how to respond to him even with Blakely’s messages stacking up.

He misses the shot by a mile.

I blink, startled enough that I almost laugh. “What the hell was with that kak shot?”

He straightens too fast, expression already defensive. “Bad angle.”

“That was not an angle. That was self-sabotage.”

He shrugs. “I said bad angle.”

I study him more closely then, and suddenly it isn’t just me who’s off. He looks warm. Not flushed enough for anyone else to notice, maybe, but I do. His gaze won’t stay on mine for long, and it looks a lot like the locker room all over again. Except this time there’s no crowd of other guys, no towels, no easy excuse for why the air just got charged.

Interesting.

The thought is so dangerous that I almost step back from it immediately. Instead, I line up my own shot and say, as casually as I can manage, “You distracted?”

He huffs out a laugh that sounds strained around the edges. “Says the guy who’s been acting like his skin doesn’t fit all week.”

There’s the tell. He’s deflecting harder than usual.

“Touché,” I say, and sink the corner shot.

“Asshole,” he grumbles.

I grin. “Thank you.”

He takes his next turn, and this time he sinks it clean, but not before I have to step around him to get back toward my side of the table. We should not have to pass that close.

The room is big enough and the table’s got space on all sides. Eli still doesn’t move out of my way, and I don’t move around him quite widely enough either. His shoulder brushes my chest, and his hand catches my waist for half a second.

The touch is brief, but it is not accidental. Every nerve in my body lights up so fast I nearly drop the cue.

Eli lets go immediately, but he doesn’t say sorry. He doesn’t joke. He just keeps moving to the other side of the table with that same flushed, too-careful focus on the felt instead of my face. If I had any doubt before, that should kill it. There is something happening here. Maybe not something finished, named, or safe. But something.