“Gabby?”
“What?” She looked at Zoe. “Right. Sorry.” She swallowed the last of her beer and set the bottle down, mentally retracting her claws. What had they been talking about? Ah, yes. “Turned out to not be a date after all. I wound up watching a movie instead and ate tiramisu in lieu of therapy.” At Flynn’s. Where she’d tried to teach him the basics of slow-dancing and got discombobulated instead.
Flynn returned to the table and set their drinks down. To anyone else, he looked exactly as always—observant, carefree, and comfortable. Except she knew his little nuances and tics. Being friends and working together for years trained her to watch his body language. His shoulders were sunk in defeat.
Damn. She had half a mind to storm across the bar and show Little Black Dress what a vapid princess she was.
“Eh hem.” Brent lifted his brows. “How can a date not turn out to be a date? Enlighten me, sugarbuns.”
Story of her life. Even now, surrounded by half the single population of Redwood Ridge, more of the Y chromosomes were skimming right past her and checking out Zoe. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“Uh huh.” Brent crossed his arms. “What in the name of Gucci really happened?”
Avery choked on her drink.
Gabby gave up. “He was interested in someone else.” She flicked a glance at Flynn and away. She was getting sick of men not seeing her. Seeking refuge in Flynn wouldn’t change that. “Maybe I should get plastered and dance on the bar. Think that would get guys to stop seeing me as the good girl?”
Cade rubbed his neck. “Um, you are the good girl.”
She crossed her arms. “I can be bad.” She so couldn’t.
Brent laughed. “Sugarbuns, your idea of bad and my idea of bad are entirely different things.”
Drake glanced at the ceiling like he wanted to be anywhere else, then wiped his face as if trying to remove an unsightly image.
“I can do it. I can dance on the bar. I’ve got moves like Jagger.” She smiled at her joke, hoping no one called her on it or she wouldn’t leave her house for a year due to sheer embarrassment. They’d have to send neighbors over daily just to make sure she was still breathing.
She needed to put her big-girl panties on and pull out of this pity party, table for one. It wasn’t as if her lack of sex life was anything new. She’d dealt before, she’d do it again. Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t productive.
Brent shook his head with dramatic flair. “You got moves like Walking Dead, but we love ya anyway.”
She laughed. “Yeah, okay. No bar dancing for me.” She took another sip, eying Brent over the rim. “Maybe I should start batting for the other team?”
Cade choked on his beer this time, coughing violently.
Zoe shoulder-checked her. “I’d totally do you.”
Because Zoe wasn’t any more of a lesbian than Gabby, she grinned. “Aw. Really? You mean it?”
“Heck yeah!” Zoe accepted her high-five.
“Jesus.” Drake pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now I have that visual.”
“Don’t we all,” Cade muttered, earning a slap from Avery. “What? Two chicks going at it. I’m just a lowly male after all. Even if I have known these two all my life, that’s hot.”
“Visual, visual.” Drake rubbed his forehead.
Zoe’s eyebrows shot so high they nearly hit her hairline. “Statistics say men picture women naked within five minutes of meeting them.”
Drake pinned her with a glare of contempt bordering on…contempt. “We met as infants.” He jerked a thumb at Gabby. “Met her in first grade.”
Zoe shrugged, unaffected. “So you started early.”
Avery leaned forward. “You met me just a few months ago.”
Drake’s you’re-not-helping glare merely widened Avery’s smile.
Aware he wouldn’t win the argument, or that Zoe was goading him, Drake glanced heavenward as if praying to a higher power and wisely shut his mouth.
Gabby laughed until her side ached and met Flynn’s amused gaze across the table. “Thoughts?”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “Just take pictures.”
Cade slapped a hand down on the table. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
* * * *
Flynn drove Brent home, not because his buddy was drunk, but because he’d hitched a ride to Shooters with Avery and was without a car. During the short drive, Flynn did his damnedest to get images of Gabby laughing with their friends out of his head, and how it had turned him on more than the frisky redhead at the bar.
Almost three decades of having Gabby in his life as his best friend, and one bumbled dance lesson shot it all to shit. Yeah, he’d thought about it through the years. A stray what-if in passing. But nothing like recently. Like last night.
This wasn’t happening. Flat out, wasn’t happening. He had to stop letting his mind go there and envision her as more than what they’d always been. Had to stop thinking with his dick. Hard up didn’t give him permission to screw up everything.
He wove through Brent’s subdivision, comprised mainly of gingerbread houses and curbside cedar trees, and drove to the end of the street while a thick blanket of fog rolled in. Once in Brent’s driveway, he turned to face him and did a double-take. His clinic’s vet tech had a wicked gleam in his eye.
Flynn looked at him warily, waiting for the cosmic boom which Brent liked to deliver insight posing as casual chat. Brent turned on the dome light so Flynn could read his lips. Even though Brent could sign, Flynn found that most of Brent’s vocabulary didn’t have a gesture.
“Why didn’t you and Gabby ever hook up?”
His first thought was oh shit. Was he that transparent people were noticing? But he swiftly shut that down. On the surface, he acted no different than normal. Maybe Brent was three-sheets after all. To be safe, Flynn didn’t respond.
“You two can’t function without each other. Just seems to make sense to me.”
His breath stalled. “What are you talking about?” He functioned just fine without Gabby. And vice versa.
“You don’t see it, do you?” Brent turned to face him fully, settling in the seat like they’d be there awhile. “Ever notice when we’re in a group, you focus more on her than the others? She signs every word people say so you don’t miss a part of the conversation.”
She’d been doing that for years, knowing he had trouble keeping up trying to follow lip-reading. The larger the group, the more difficult the task. He’d grown so accustomed to it, he’d just learned to watch her instead. Flynn swiped a hand down his face. Hell, it was second nature.
“You know, she does it sometimes even when you’re not around. She’ll sign a word here or there when talking to someone else.”
Of course, he didn’t know that. How could he? Something settled heavy in his gut. Guilt perhaps. The scales weren’t balanced. He had to wonder what she was getting out of their friendship.
“I think that’s part of the reason men don’t notice her. Let’s face it. She’s a cutie. But the ones who have known her the longest see you two as a unit. Like she’s off-limits.”
Hell. Was that the case? Had he been cock-blocking other guys into not making a move? The hollow