Текст книги "Busted"

Автор книги: Shiloh Walker

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Seven

“Trey . . .”

She said slowly. Somebody had said it once earlier but it hadn’t registered.

A number of eyes zeroed in on her, but she was only conscious of his—those amazing blue green eyes, that seemed so very familiar now.

And that face—lean, maybe leaner than it should be, now that she thought of it. He’d cut his hair, quite a bit, and the shorter length only served to emphasize how sinfully attractive he was.

That nagging sense of familiarity—

Trey—

Her heart kicked up because she could think of only one Trey who was appearing at the event this weekend.

A rush of other details slammed into her mind, almost too fast for her to process everything.

I’m gonna see Uncle Bastian this time . . . is Aunt Abby making cake?

Sometimes he even makes them up. He gets paid to do that, too.

Bastian.  . . .

Trey Barnes’s younger brother was Sebastian Barnes.

Abby . . . Abigale Applegate? She’d read about the marriage to one of the Barnes brothers. The sexy tattooed one.

Slowly, she said his name, one more time, hoping he’d correct her. “Trey,” she said softly.

He seemed focused on the table now.

“I remember Clayton telling me that you told him stories . . . that you even made them up. You got paid to do it.”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s a living.”

“I imagine it is . . . Mr. Barnes.”

He lifted his head now, faced her straight on. “Yeah, well . . . I could try to do something else, but apparently the one thing I’m really good at is making shit up.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

Still a little stunned, she looked over at Max, her gaze bouncing off the glass he had sitting in front of him. “I seem to recall that you owe me a drink.” That said, she snatched his mostly untouched whiskey. If she knew Max—and she did, it would be good whiskey and that was just what she needed. “I’m collecting.”

She tossed it back and closed her eyes as it burned its way down her throat.

“You know Trey, if you’re forgetting the basics of civilized society—like how to introduce yourself to a beautiful woman, maybe you should trade me seats.”

Ressa cracked open an eye at that low voice. Smooth, practiced and all but oozing with charm. And so pathetically obvious. His eyes roamed over her in a patently familiar way and she pointedly met his gaze, then looked away.

“Trey’s just fine where he is,” she said. “After all, this will be the perfect time to ask him for a favor . . . considering he’d been loitering in my library all that time.”

She slid him a look as she said it, watched as his eyes widened.

“A favor.”

“Don’t worry.” She gave him a cheeky smile. “It’s almost completely painless.”

“Baron, don’t sulk. Ressa’s not switching seats anyway.” Max tipped an invisible hat toward him. “Ressa is my guest and I’m going to be selfish—you’d talk her ear off and I haven’t seen her in almost two years now. Far too long.”

He patted her shoulder and she shot him a grin.

He wasn’t being selfish. He knew her. He was keeping the peace. She knew far too much about Baron’s type—the sexist, piggish man-whore had never appealed to her.

Shifting more comfortably in her seat, she took another sip of whiskey. Trey Barnes had knocked her off course.

Over the next few minutes, introductions were made and she mentally filed them away, nodding and smiling. All the while, her brain was mentally whirling.

Trey.

Her sexy CD was Trey Barnes.

How was that possible?

Although, really, if she’d looked, she might have seen it.

If Farrah had actually been able to spend five seconds in his presence, she probably would have seen it.

She settled into her seat and listened to the introductions, staying mostly quiet as the conversation flowed. It paused briefly as a server came around and took orders. Next to her, Trey shifted in his seat. She was painfully, acutely aware of the long, lean lines of muscle, tanned skin, elegant hands.

He glanced at her and she felt the rush of heat suffuse her. How she managed to just give him a casual smile, she just didn’t know.

He quirked a brow at her and then glanced up at the server. While he placed his order, Ressa tried to get a grip. So not prepared for this. Not for seeing him here. Had she bumped into him and he was one of the bloggers, that would have been hard enough, but finding out he was the author she was supposed to hunt down?

Shit. He was probably on one of the extra panels Max wanted her to take over.

Which meant she’d be talking to him outside of this dinner, too.

Not prepared for that either!

Or for sitting next to him. He had a heady scent—cologne, very faint, though, mixed in with his soap, and under that, just him—it made her think of grass and the outdoors and sunshine. Sexy and male. She liked. So very much.

She definitely hadn’t been prepared to have those intense, blue green eyes focused on her again. His eyes could be classified as a weapon of mass devastation. Sleepy, heavily lashed and the kind of blue green you’d expect to find down in the tropics. Trey had the kind of eyes that could put woman into a swoon if he put his mind to it.

Would Farrah absolutely hate her if she gave into this crazy heat that grew hotter and hotter every second she was around him?

She was debating that very thing, had even decided that Farrah would understand. It was just one of those fantasy crushes, and besides, her best friend was crazy in love, and engaged. Besides, this was just a . . . thing. Some sort of fluke and once it was done and he was out of her system, she could go back to thinking straight.

Decision made, she cocked her head and turned to look at Trey as he was reaching for the glass in front of him.

That was when she saw the glint of gold on his finger.

His ring finger.

On his left hand.

Hands that had always been covered by the gloves he wore—the gloves made sense now. Therapeutic gloves, she imagined. The kind worn by writers to help with their wrists.

And they’d hidden that ring.

An ice-cold bucket of water splashing in her face wouldn’t have been more effective. Abruptly, she shoved back from the table. “Please excuse me for a moment.”

Okay, Farrah had rambled on and on about how private the man was, even more so over the past few years. And Ressa knew—obviously—that there had been a woman in his life. But nobody ever came to the library. Clayton never talked about his mother.

It was like she just . . . didn’t exist.

And how he’d given her that little paperweight for Mother’s Day.

She’d assumed . . .

That’s it, you assumed.

Feeling the weight of their combined gazes on her, she sought out the restroom. Once inside, she moved to the sink and braced her hands on it.

She’d almost made a move on a married man.

“You’ve done gone and lost it, honey.”

All because a man had a beautiful pair of eyes and a slow, sexy smile.

Of course, she’d always been a sucker for a man with a beautiful pair of eyes and a slow, sexy smile.

Beautiful eyes, a slow sexy smile had damn near ruined her before and she’d fought long and hard to rebuild the mess that bastard had made of her life.

Her heart hammered and she sucked in a breath.

That man—she’d been right. She really had been better off getting away from him months ago.

He was dangerous.

“Just get through the weekend and you’ll never have to see him again.” The thought caused a hollow ache to settle inside her chest, though.

And instead of making her feel any better at all, it only made her feel worse.

*   *   *

Trey spent the next ninety minutes trying to puzzle out just what had happened.

One minute, she’d been easy and relaxed—oh, Baron—the prick—had gotten under her skin, but she’d handled him, and unless Trey had forgotten how to read people, she’d enjoyed knocking him down a peg, too.

She’d been warm, easy, relaxed.

And then, within the span of a heartbeat, something had changed.

He couldn’t even put his finger on it, try as he might. And he wanted to know what it was. Part of him had kept thinking that maybe he should . . . should . . .

Should what?

Travis’s voice seemed to nag him—a brotherly earworm—

Are you just going to bite the bullet and ask her out?

He’d almost done it. That last day, before Clayton had gotten so upset.

There was nothing in the way now.

Nothing except for that one thing. The one that made his brain shut down, panic crowding out everything. That, combined with the humiliation that had happened the one time he’d even tried . . .

So maybe it was better.

Maybe it was better that the air around them seemed to drop by about thirty degrees and she’d gone from sliding him those quick little glances, to barely looking at him at all.

None of that kept him sitting there next to her, thankful that the table was a barrier that kept anybody from seeing the evidence of just how much Ressa Bliss affected him.

Yeah. Maybe this was better . . .

But damned if he could really get himself to believe that.

*   *   *

“You really do need to think about taking that off,” Max said as they headed down the hall to their rooms.

Since he didn’t, at all, want to talk about it, Trey played dumb. “Take what off?” Inside his pocket, he rubbed his thumb across his wedding ring.

“Son, you know damn good and well what. That ring. The one you use like a shield to keep women from getting too close. The one you wear to pretend that maybe Aliesha isn’t really dead, isn’t really gone.” Max stopped outside his door and looked back at him. “It’s like as long as you wear that ring, you don’t have to let her go. You can keep that part of her. But, Trey, she is gone. It’s time you let go . . . and start living again.”

Jaw clenched, he looked away. Max couldn’t be any more off base if he tried, but Trey wasn’t about to go into the real reasons. But abruptly, he had a sickening realization.

Had Ressa seen his ring?

Son of a bitch—

The news of Aliesha’s death had gone national—hell, global—but not everybody followed some of the things the media chose to sensationalize. Maybe she didn’t know . . . ?

“Did I ever tell you that I was married before Maude and I got together?”

Frowning, Trey shot Max a look.

But Max had a far-off expression on his face as he stared down the hall. “Amelia. We met in high school. Married the day after we graduated . . . man, I loved her so much.” That distant look cleared. “We were together for four years. Four of the best years I ever had . . . and then, one night while I was working, a man broke into our home, raped her, killed her. I thought I’d die, too. The man I had been, he did die. She’d been gone a year when I sat down to write my first book—the purest shit I’d ever seen. It took me three years to finish. The day I finished, I went into our room and sat. Then I started to cry. I hadn’t cried. Not until that day.” He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath, held it for a long moment. Then he looked up, met Trey’s eyes once more. “That much time had to pass before I let myself cry enough to let her go. It wasn’t until then that I realized I wasn’t honoring her memory by keeping her so close. She wouldn’t have wanted that.” He clapped Trey on the shoulder and unlocked his room. “You should think about that ring, son. Think hard.”

As he slid inside, Trey found himself standing in the hall, staring down at the gold band on his hand.

Maybe Max hadn’t been as far off as Trey had assumed.

No, he wasn’t still clinging to Aliesha’s memory. He’d accepted her death. Let her go. But the ring was still a barrier. It was his shield, and sometimes a reminder.

And tonight, when he had actually thought about trying to reach out?

It had been the barrier he’d planned for it to be—only this time, he hadn’t really wanted that.

Chapter Eight

Leaning against the door that opened out onto the balcony, Trey rubbed his thumb over the well-worn script of his notebook. Normally, the thing would be filled with notes by now and he might have even replaced it. And he actually had replaced it—in a way. But instead of just carrying one, he carried two. This one, with the to-do list he’d never finished and then another one that he used for more lists, more notes, the odd and random doodle. That one was on the table with his wallet, his change, his keycard, and phone.

This one, though . . . He stood there, staring at the list he’d written weeks ago.

Start living again.

Shifting his gaze to the ring he wore, he thought about the whispered conversation—if it could be called that—he’d had with Aliesha in the few minutes before they’d wheeled her off to surgery.

Aliesha had known.

His mom had called Aliesha an old soul. She’d been grounded and solid and so serene. Gentle, even. He’d fallen in love with that gentleness and her kindness and her humor.

And she’d lain on the table, gripping his hand and looked at him with knowledge in her eyes. She’d known. She’d been born with a genetic heart defect and maybe that had given her a somewhat fatalistic outlook on life.

She’d been sick often as a child but she’d gotten stronger, healthier as she grew. Both her cardiologist and her OB/GYN hadn’t seen any reason why she couldn’t have a safe pregnancy, as long as she was careful.

Too bad the fucking drunk driver hadn’t been careful.

As they were wheeling her into surgery, she’d looked at him with pain-bright, but clear eyes, her hand clinging to his.

Don’t stop living.

Hadn’t he, though?

That ring that he wore as a shield—he could psychoanalyze it to pieces. Those psychology courses he’d taken in college came up damn handy at times. If he flipped this all around and looked at it dispassionately, he knew it all made sense.

There were times he couldn’t even stand to have a woman touch him. Not in any way that resembled intimacy. Aliesha’s death, her funeral—the very loss of her, and then those dark, lost hours the night of the funeral, they were tangled up in a miasma of guilt he couldn’t get free of.

He still didn’t have those hours back. Whatever shit had been given him, it had been damn effective at turning his mind into a blank slate. He had the vaguest echoes of memory, but that was it.

The only bits and pieces he could call up from that night were the memory of whiskey—as evidenced by the fact that the smell of it still turned his stomach—and the echo of a woman laughing, and then shouts, followed by fury and pain. The fury and pain made sense, in a way. He’d ended up battered and bruised, so he’d sure as hell ended up in a fight with somebody.

And that was probably the last time he’d really let himself feel anything that didn’t involve his son or his family. He’d shut himself down, locked himself up.

He’d done exactly what Aliesha had asked him not to do.

He’d stopped living.

Slowly, he tugged the ring off. It would come off for good this time, too. Something that might have been panic swam up, trying to grab him and pull him back down. He’d fought it before, fought the edges of panic even as he fought the depression that had eventually driven him into a shrink’s office.

If it hadn’t been for Clayton, he wouldn’t have gone.

If he hadn’t gone, he never would have realized just how utterly fucked up he was.

And because he knew how utterly fucked up he was, he made himself close his fist around that ring, made himself put it down.

The phone’s harsh ringtone shattered the silence.

Trey jerked, sweat beading on the back of his neck, his upper lip, slicking the palms of his hands. His phone sat on the bureau, and the picture of his twin, his nose pressed to Clayton’s, both of them mock snarling, lit up the screen.

He grabbed the phone like a drowning man. “Yeah.”

There was a faint pause.

“You’re a fucking mess, Trey,” Travis said, his voice rough, heavy with sleep.

“Suck my dick,” he said, all but collapsing on the edge of the bed.

Somehow Travis had picked up on the chaos Trey was feeling, and it had been enough to wake his twin up. Trey didn’t bother feeling guilty. They’d been like this all their lives and more than once, he’d been the one to call his brother—or at least try—knowing something was up.

“Shit, man. If you’re this worked up that I can’t sleep, you might as well talk,” Travis said, his voice a little clearer. “’Sup?”

“Nothing. Everything.” He stared at his ring, because this was the one thing he couldn’t, wouldn’t share. “Look, my head, it’s just . . .”

“I already told you that you’re a mess. I got that part. Now tell me what’s going on.”

Abruptly, like everything had morphed into a boulder teetering on the edge of a cliff, Trey could feel himself on the verge of giving in. Letting it all out, like a poison.

“Shit. I am a mess. You remember that . . .” He stopped in mid-sentence, uncertain where to even go from here. I saw her again. Ressa. I want her. Except I can’t. And I mean I really, really can’t—

Travis’s sigh carried across the line and then his twin said, “Are you dreaming about Aliesha again? About the wreck? Trey, you know there was nothing you could have done.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he sat there for a moment. “No,” he said, forcing the word out through gritted teeth. Then he opened his eyes, stood, and started to pace. “It wasn’t the wreck. It wasn’t her. It’s . . .”

“Is it that night? Call the shrink.” Travis paused, the words reluctant. He knew how much Trey hated to talk about this. “I know I’m not the—”

“I still wear my ring,” Trey said, cutting in. He stared down at the bit of gold on his hand. “Not all the time, but when I’m out at a thing like this, or if I go to church with Aliesha’s parents . . . if I head back to San Francisco. I wear it. Last night, I saw . . .”

*   *   *

Recognizing the ache that echoed inside him, Travis closed his eyes. Not all twins had that weird connection. Life might be easier if he and Trey didn’t have it, but he wouldn’t cut this out of him even if he had the choice. But he didn’t want his brother feeling the rush of relief that punched through him.

“A woman.”

Trey’s laugh was dry, strained. “You could say that.”

Something about that pricked at Travis—especially combined with a weird edge of panic. It was familiar, something he’d felt too often.

“It was Ressa. The librarian. Remember her?”

For a minute, Travis’s mind went blank. And then, as a smile came over his face, he had to fight the urge to pump the air, or something else equally goofy.

Still, there was a reluctance, a heavy feeling of guilty.

Softly, Travis said, “Yeah. I remember her. Trey, this isn’t a bad thing, right?”

“Fuck.” A world of frustration came out in that harsh, decisive grunt. “The hell if I know. I just . . . I could . . .”

“You could what?”

A taut silence hung between and Travis held his breath, thinking maybe, maybe, whatever poison Trey was hiding would finally spill out of him.

But then Trey just said, “Nothing, man. I can’t do this now.”

Those words, softly spoken, made him close his eyes.

‘Trey, look—”

“I can’t. Look, I gotta go. There’s a panel, and I . . . I think she thinks I’m still married. The ring.”

“Then take it off, damn it.” Travis paused then, as he felt something twist, almost savagely inside him. And it didn’t come from him. “Trey?”

“It’s not that easy.” Then the phone went dead.

*   *   *

Trey disconnected and put the phone on vibrate before he tucked it into his pocket. He already knew what Travis was going to ask anyway and it wasn’t anything he could answer just then.

Why isn’t it that easy? What’s stopping you?

It should be that easy. Nothing stopped him.

Yet something vital did.

He hadn’t had sex in so long, he might well have forgotten what it was. There had been exactly three chances in the past six years—three dates, each with a different woman and each time had resulted in spectacular failures.

The first one had just been a series of stops and starts and when Cassie had looked at him expectantly at the end, obviously waiting for a kiss, he’d just nodded at her so she had tried to kiss him and he’d backed away so fast, he’d ended up tripping over the planter she had on her porch.

Lizette, the cute single mom from Clayton’s play group, had ended up finding another group after their disastrous date and he couldn’t blame her. He’d gone to kiss her and she’d closed the distance and he’d just . . . locked down. Completely.

Then there was the debacle with his neighbor Nadine. Their pathetic date still made him cringe.

It wasn’t just guilt—the psychologist had told him it was normal to feel guilty—normal although there was nothing to be guilty about. But it was more than guilt. Trey didn’t even want women touching him now.

Even theoretically, it wasn’t appealing.

Or it hadn’t been, until he’d met Ressa.

He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the ring he’d all but ripped off his hand. It gleamed at him from the table. Sweat built at the base of his neck.

Swearing, he shoved up and paced the three steps across the floor and grabbed it, hurling it across the room. The platinum and gold band hit the wall and then fell.

It lay there, on the far side of the room, glinting at him, the gold and platinum shining in the dim light of the room. Mocking him.

That didn’t change anything.

*   *   *

It took twenty minutes and a lot of sheer determination to get to the room set up for his panel. He kept his head down, his sunglasses on, and his hands jammed into his pockets so he wouldn’t see his naked left hand.

He kept his mind focused on a plot kink in one of his side projects. The heroine was difficult, fighting him. Too much in her past was just not coming together and he couldn’t figure out why.

That was enough to keep him distracted until he found the right room, trying not to notice the long line that had already formed. A few people saw him and when he heard the speculative whispers, and more than a few whispers of his name, he hunched his shoulders and just moved faster, letting the door all but kick him in the ass as he ducked inside.

Once there, he just stood, took a deep breath. The scent of coffee—

“Mr. Barnes.”

Blood drained, slowly, from his head all the down to pool in his groin at the sound of her low voice—smooth as honey, potent as whiskey. He hadn’t craved that in years, but now, he had a need to taste it. On her.

He had another need, too. The one that seemed to flood him whenever he was near her. Muscles tensed and tightened and it was, yet again, just sheer will that allowed him to blank his face as he looked over at her. He could stand this close to her and still feel it, that need to touch, to taste, to take . . .

Yeah, theoretically, he wanted her.

And fuck the theory—he just plain wanted. Wanted her with a need that bordered on obsession, and it all but blinded him as she stood there, giving him a polite, professional smile.

He cleared his throat and managed to return her smile.

“Ms. Bliss. Ah . . . how are you?”

“Fine, thank you.”

Trey found himself trying not to stare at the way the high-waisted skirt she wore clung to curves so lush, they were all but imprinted on his brain already.

Remember item number four on your list . . . try not to drool.

He could all but feel his smile wobbling on his face now and he looked around, half-desperate. Spying the coffee urns lined up on a table at the far wall, he nodded at her. “Ah . . . I need coffee.”

Coffee. Coffee would work—if it didn’t focus his brain, he could dump it on himself and use it as an excuse to run back upstairs and change. Getting through the panel with a hard-on was not going to—

“Morning there, Barnes. You look nervous. Guess those movie star genes from your brothers weren’t passed onto you, huh?”

The sound of Baron’s voice scraped against his already ragged temper and raw nerves. But it served to cool the flare of heat that had been burning through him. Heat faded, replaced by irritation. And the irritation wasn’t just because Baron stood between him and caffeine.

Teeth bared in a mockery of a smile, he met Baron’s gaze. “What makes you think I’m nervous?”

“A little red in the face, looking kind of desperate.” Baron shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. Not like you do public appearances. These sessions are being recorded, you know. Streamed live, and then shared later for those who couldn’t attend. Has to be nerve-wracking—”

Trey started to laugh. As he edged around Baron, he said, “Thanks to one of those movie star brothers—and actually, Zach didn’t do movies, he did TV—but thanks to Zach, I was used to growing up around cameras and having people ask me crazy questions. I probably had more screen time by the time I was fifteen than you’ve had in your entire career.”

There was a soft laugh from the back of the room. He ground his teeth together and focused on the coffee setup over at the side of the room.

*   *   *

The forty-five minute panel passed in a blur.

There were laughs from the audience, there were questions and grins from the panelists—Ressa remembered that. She did her best not to think about the cameras—there wouldn’t be a day when the thought of those wouldn’t turn her stomach, but she kept her body angled to the side and went with the flow.

When another assistant signaled it was time and she had to tell everybody they had to wrap up, there was a groan that echoed through the crowd.

She took that to mean she’d made it through another one.

Half the time she felt like she was faking it and more often than not, she didn’t even remember exactly what had happened until she listened to the podcasts or watched the videos that streamed out in the days that followed these sort of events.

As much as she hated the videos, she always watched.

But she didn’t have to look at a video or listen to a podcast to know how this one had gone.

One look at Max’s face and she knew.

He caught her hand as she stepped back from the podium. “You knocked it out of the park, sweetheart. Good job.”

Rolling her eyes, she blew out a theatrical breath, although she really did need the oxygen. “Thank you.”

As readers started to approach, she moved away. She’d done her job, now she was going to stand by and watch as the people at the table continued on with theirs.

*   *   *

“How long has it been since you did this?”

Trey studied his numb hand closely. Yep. Still shaking. That had been . . . kind of a rush, he decided. Nerve-wracking in a crazy way, thus the shakes. But fun. Tucking his numb, shaking hands into his pockets, he flashed Max a grin as they moved out into the hall. “About six and a half years. I had that three week tour when Odd Girl came out.”

Neither of them mentioned the conference he’d been at when Aliesha was in the wreck—he’d barely even had time to meet a few people, talk to some of his fellow panelists, before he received the call.

Eyes squinted in thought, Max stared at nothing in particular for a long moment. “That was your first one, wasn’t it? First tour?”

“Yeah.” He sighed as the adrenaline started to drain away, as if those words had just pulled some unseen cork right out of him. “First and last.”

“It’s only been your last because you have too much going on in your life,” Max said softly. “Hard to handle that sort of thing when you got your son to take care of. Can’t really spend two or three weeks flying around the country when you got a young son, now can you?”

“Some people think I can.” He jerked a shoulder in a restless shrug, thinking of the publicist he’d fired only six months after Aliesha’s death. The son of a bitch had insisted it was time that Trey start focusing on his career again—enough time had passed, right?

Max clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You put your son first. You still do. Not a thing wrong with that, Trey. You’re all he’s got and he needs you.”

I need him, Trey thought. Out loud he just said, “I know.” They’d been so busy in the room that the next session of panels was about to start so they managed to slip through most of the crowd.

He wanted to go up to his room for a little while, sit down. Call Clayton—

“Hi!”

A punch of heat that was becoming almost brutally familiar slammed into him, catching him in the throat, the gut—lower.

Ressa cut in front of them, so close now that he could smell whatever she’d smoothed on her skin. She was glowing, the grin on her face was a cross between ecstatic and nervous—sort of how he felt.

“That turned out pretty good, didn’t it?” The words tumbled out of her, a hard 180 from the easy calm she’d shown both last night and during the panel.

Arching a brow, he opened his mouth, but she was already talking.

“Don’t you think? Max, I know you said it went well, but you always say that. What did you—” She stopped, snapping her mouth shut and then blowing out a sigh while the smile on her face turned sheepish. “Sorry. Nerves. They never really hit until I’m done.”

“I get that.” Trey smiled as that blast of heat melted away into something . . . softer. Easier. She wasn’t just sexy as hell, he realized.

Just then, she was . . .

“You know what? I think I’m going to go up to my room for a little bit,” Max said.

Both of them whipped their heads around to look at him.

Trey almost shot out a hand to catch him by the arm.

“But—” Ressa opened her mouth, closed it.

“I’m getting too old to pound the floor all day,” Max said, grinning at her. “I’ll see you both around later. It was a great panel, Ressa. You know better than to think I’d lie.”

As Max disappeared, Trey ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth. He should do the same thing. Go up to his room. He needed to call Clayton. Relax, maybe change into some shorts and go running or something. Swinging his head around to look at Ressa, he opened his mouth.

The words that came spilling out shocked the hell out of him.

“Would you have a cup of coffee with me?”

Her mouth fell open. “Ah . . . excuse me?”

What the hell . . . The words couldn’t be pulled back, but he realized, now that they were out, he didn’t want to take them back.

Elation, and nerves, pounded inside him, but he managed to hide all of that behind a grin as he took a step closer.

It was like riding a bike, he told himself. He hadn’t thought it through, and he hadn’t ended up flat on his face.

In a matter of seconds—a blink, really, her lovely, wide eyes cooled.

“I’m afraid not. I try to avoid having coffee with married men.”