“Oh, you will,” Violet puts in. “Jake won’t stop asking me about you. He’s convinced he’s the Aces’ number one fan, so a new teammate is a big deal for him.”

“That’s cute. I already like him.”

The conversation breaks as our waitress makes the rounds taking everyone’s drink orders, and the drinks barely make it to the table before a song I don’t recognize starts playing and everyone in the bar gets fired up. Those who are coupled up head to the small dance floor toward the back of the bar to dance, leaving me and Grant at the table alone.

“I’m glad I don’t have all of this crap to distract me from my game,” Grant grumbles before he takes a swig from his glass bottle of beer. “That’s all love is, a distraction.”

I sip my beer too, watching the couples dance—or what they probably think passes for dancing. Then I turn back to Grant. “I don’t know about that. It doesn’t seem to be hurting any of their games.”

Grant just grunts, which I’ve heard is his default mode of communication, so I spin back to watching the dance floor. I definitely don’t share Grant’s outlook, but watching Reese, Theo, Sawyer, and Noah hanging out with their women, and seeing how head-over-heels they are for each other, really makes me miss Hannah.

God, I wish she was here.

It’s not like we’d be able to dance together if she was, and I’m not delusional enough to think for a second that she’d ever agree to hang out with us like this in the first place—her dad definitely wouldn’t approve, and it would just be a ticking time bomb for giving away what’s going on between us—but you can’t blame a guy for dreaming.

Still, thinking about it makes me reach in my pocket for my phone. Maybe she can’t physically be here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t include her. I snap a quick picture of the three couples on the dance floor and tap to attach it to a message to her.

ME: This is how my night is going. What about yours?

I tap to send the message and wait for the status indicator to switch over to “read” almost instantly, like it does pretty much every time I text Hannah now, but it doesn’t. Disappointed, I set my phone on the table and tap the screen periodically to keep it from turning off so I don’t miss her response. I’ve just finished my beer when my phone finally buzzes.

HANNAH: Sorry, I’m just now leaving a yoga class. Didn’t see your text until I got outside. But I feel like I should be apologizing just as much for you being subjected to… whatever the hell is happening in that picture.