The women slide past me and head toward the doorway. Shiloh looks nervous and jumpy. Monroe is all wicked smiles and a loose-limbed stride that somehow manages to scream sex without her doing anything overt. I give our drink orders to Renée, wait for her to fill them, hand her some cash, and follow the women into the back room.

Shiloh and Monroe have their heads close together when I push through the door. The room is exactly like I remember it, if a thousand times cleaner. My shoes don’t stick to the floors as I cross the half-circle booth that takes up most of the space. It’s been reupholstered sometime in the last decade with leather, and the tabletop has been replaced with shiny wood that isn’t cut all to shit. The last time I was back here, there was a knife sticking out of the center of the table.

Monroe grins. “Right on time. I was thinking we’d have some fun and play a game.”

I carefully set the glasses down and eye her. “A drinking game?” I am fully on board with seducing Shiloh, but I’m not going to touch her if she’s drunk. I would assume Monroe is the same; if she hadn’t also been buzzed out of her mind the other day, I don’t think they would have hooked up in the bar’s bathroom. In fact, I’m certain of it. Monroe is too damn protective of the people in her sphere to take advantage of someone like that.

“No, silly man. Drinking games are best done with shots and a determination to get into trouble. This is just a fun little game for friends.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“I couldn’t begin to say. That sounds like a you problem.” She holds up a hand, her expression the very picture of innocence. “Don’t you want to play with me?”

Shiloh makes a choked sound. “You’re so much sometimes, Monroe.”

“You aren’t the first person to say it.” She tucks a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “It strikes me that neither of you had a proper childhood.” She pats the spot next to her. “Stop looming and sit down.”

“I’m not looming.” But I sit, curious on where she’s headed with this. “I had a childhood.”

“You had Bauer Paine as your father, a dead mother, and five younger brothers that you mostly raised.” She snorts. “You had to grow up fast.”

Monroe isn’t exactly wrong. My mother died a long time ago, and my father was hardly the poster child for good parenting. Abel did his best, but he always had his eyes on the role of leading the faction. It inevitably fell to me to supervise my younger brothers. Considering my brothers, that was a full-time job.