Somehow or another the man always managed to be looking at her when she wasn’t trying to look at him. Also, he was closer. Serena and Dillon had retreated into an intimate huddle, and Vic flowed into the space they left.
“What about you?”
It would be childish to ignore him. “What about me, what?”
“Yeah, what was it you rolled again, Gill? I can only remember the hamster.”
She crossed her eyes at Rachel, who wasn’t even trying to act like she wasn’t taunting her. “I don’t know why we even put a hamster on there. Far too ridiculous.”
“You don’t happen to have a hamster, do you, Victor?”
Her look told Evan he’d be lucky to make it to his wedding, but he just crinkled his nose at her.
“Nope. But back when we were kids, I wasn’t allowed to have any pets, so Anton pestered his folks until they got him one, and told me we could share.”
Wait, what? “Samster was your idea?”
Everyone else laughed at the name Samster the Hamster, but she was waiting for Vic to confirm. “I mean, I wanted us to get a llama, but your parents wouldn’t go for that.”
She tried to imagine her parents fielding a request for a llama. Couldn’t even get past the picture of her nine-year-old, quieter-than-Samster-ever-had-been brother broaching the topic. She shook her head. “Anton always would do anything in the world for you.”
The sour kick from Evan’s custom cocktail was wreaking havoc with her heart rate. She excused herself and retreated to the restrooms. Ran cold water over her wrists, did some box breathing. Checked the stalls were empty before jumping in place a couple of times. Ran more water over her wrists and patted the back of her neck with a damp paper towel. Glared at her too-wan expression as she reapplied her plum-hued lipstick.
The thing was: sure. She was attracted to Vic.
He was attracted to her.
They both knew that. But she also knew better than to risk of shattering the bond between Anton and Vic—or between Anton and herself—by acting on that attraction.
Buoyed, she stashed her lippy in her bag and headed back to the gang.
Or tried to.
Vic leaned against the doorway leading to the private party room, arms crossed like she needed to remember what his flexed arms looked like. He wasn’t going anywhere, wasn’t talking to anyone. Was just watching her approach.
Well, she was the one with the doctorate asserting she understood communication. So, fine. “Hi.”
His gaze traversed her body, her face. Her freshly plum-glossed lips. “You rolled a five.”
“I—what?”
He opened his palm to reveal the die, plucked the game board out of his shirt pocket. “On this.”
She shook her head. “Most of the rolls were twos. That’s pretty much all I remember. Hamster and all.”
Consulting the final, sexytimes column, Vic’s lips curved into a soft grin. “Angel, huh?”
“Can you image anything more tedious and holy? No wonder I don’t give that thing any credence.”
“Tedious? Gilly-Bean, if that’s what you resign yourself to, you are so missing out.”
Damn his ability to lay in that touch of sweetness that banished the lingering acid in her heart. She made a point of looking past him to the crowd still having fun just past where they stood, apart, in some kind of battle she was not best placed to win. “Not that it’s your business, but I’m not missing out. So, if that’s all?”
“Nope.”
Why she let his single syllable root her in place, she didn’t know. “Nope, what?”
“The five.” He lifted the game card again. Like the original wasn’t hanging in the dining room of Serena’s house for her to see any time she wanted.
“Remember thirty seconds ago when I didn’t give that any credence? Same thing was true back when we made it, and every day since. Stop acting like that five means anything.”
“Can’t help but notice I’m the only bald man in that crowd.”
“Seriously, Vic? You are aware I date people who aren’t in that room, right? Sometimes they’re even bald. Or redheads, or have green hair.”
“You’ve dated someone with green hair?”
She shrugged. “Okay, ‘dated’ is a strong term for it, but there was a coffee meet-up once.”
“Never made it to cocktails, huh?”
“She was the big sister of one of my students. Nice, though. And bisexual like me. I can set y’all up if you want.”
“You may not be as hilarious as you think, you know.”
“Yeah, well, you may not be as charming as you think.”
He shook his head, which did nothing to lower the intensity of how he watched her. “I don’t claim to be charming. I get along with people, they find me easy to hang with, but it’s not charm. Just part of that chameleon thing where I had to learn to fit in anywhere.”
He didn’t add anything about how his folks never gave him much of a space to fit in with them. How he was the good son archetype when under the Bellamy’s roof, the actor with bonhomie in the theatre department, the on-time employee at the campus bookstore, the steadfast goalie of the intramural team.
How she had to know it wasn’t easy for him to risk disrupting his one point of personal security with all this intent, seductive teasing.
But she did know. She knew all of it, because she knew Vic. Even without all the stories from her brother over the years, she knew what mattered to him.
She swayed forward enough to take the game board from him. There, in the first column, that bald head. It had been her first roll. She never mentioned it, but the moment that die turned up a five, she’d flashed into an image of Victor Anthony. She hadn’t needed to check that five was for baldness; that’s how fast she’d associated that space with him. With her.
With them.
Looking back at Vic, she stroked her fingers up the inside of his wrist until they tickled across his palm, caught on the edge of the die. As she pinched it up, he wrapped his hand around hers.
“I never admitted it, but.” She licked her lips. Caught him watching the move. “I might have wanted to roll the five.”
His fingers flexed. They’d slid right up against each other. “If I’d been there, I’d have run off to get you a weighted dice just to be sure of it.”
That damn green shirt of his. He should use fabric softener to stop it reaching out of its own accord to grab ahold of her bodice. Forcing their bodies to touch with only the barrier of some clingy fabric between them. Bringing her heart perilously close to his.
“I rolled for a ball, too. Thought I’d conjured up a football player. Maybe the coach on campus, he always seemed like a nice guy.”
Something flaring and daring flashed in his eyes. Maybe it was a trick of the venue’s ultra-modern lighting.
Maybe it was a reflection of her own thoughts.
“I don’t think that was it,” he said. “I think it was fate reinforcing how much you wanted it to be me. Ball, bald. Just one letter apart.”
She swallowed, which was a ridiculous tic that had no place in this intense stand-off of theirs. “That’s far-fetched.”
“As far-fetched as the lengths you’re going to deny there’s something between us?”
“I’m not—” Her instant protest died as he curled a strong arm around her back, lifted her hand to the back of his neck.
Kissed her.
Not just kissed her. Kissed the hell out of her.