Page 176 of ClickBack

“You smell good,” he says near my ear.

“I’ve been out in this heat for hours.”

“I said what I said.”

His kiss touches the place just below my ear. I lean into it before remembering the people behind us.

Bellamy comes through the door with a tray. “At least the light is up.”

Jarrett laughs against my neck and lets me go. I take one end of the tray from her, and we set it on the table together.

The roof fills while the sun begins to drop. Jacqueline comes up with Terrence and a bag Nina immediately takes from her. Ronan carries ice. Nico follows empty-handed until Nina turns him around and sends him back for the other bag.

“I just got up here,” he says.

“Then you know the way.”

He goes, complaining to Ronan, who has no sympathy because he has already carried something. Denise arrives with Graves, both of them laughing about a story he refuses to repeat when Jarrett asks.

“You weren’t there,” Graves tells him.

“That’s why I’m asking.”

Denise takes the chair beside me. “He’s not telling you. Leave him alone.”

Jarrett sits on my other side and reaches for the serving dish. He asks whether I want some before taking his own. Across from us, Bellamy has pulled out the photograph of her daughter that she showed me at the store. Jacqueline takes the phone and announces that this is clearly a child who needs another visit from her grandmother.

“You saw her yesterday,” Bellamy says.

“And look how much she’s changed.”

Terrence asks to see the photograph. Jacqueline holds the phone where he can look without taking it from her.

“She has my expression,” he says.

Bellamy studies him. “She just threw something on the floor. So perhaps.”

Cole laughs hard enough to stop eating. Terrence tells his daughter she has been difficult since the day she learned his name, and Jacqueline corrects him.

“Before that. You just thought it was cute.”

“I still do.”

He says it while Bellamy is rolling her eyes. She tries to keep rolling them, but the smile gets through. I recognize that, wanting to keep up the argument while somebody makes it impossible.

Nina finally sits. Ronan has kept the chair beside him clear, moving people’s bags off it every time somebody tries to use it. She sets down her plate and looks at him.

“You could have just told them it was taken.”

“I did. Your people don’t listen.”

“My people?”

“Everybody who didn’t listen.”

She laughs, and he takes her hand beneath the table for the briefest moment before Nico asks him to settle a disagreement. Ronan has an answer before hearing both sides. Denise tells him that does not improve her confidence in his judgment.

“I know these two,” Ronan says, pointing at Nico and Javon.