Right. River snorted as she watched Graham completely ignoring the next person in line. “How do you even stay in business?” This man’s customer service skills were the absolute worst.

“Not without a lack of trying for the opposite. Your food’s there on the counter.”

Jessie looked horrified. “That’s ours? Dude, why didn’t you say anything?” He grabbed the tray and hustled off to the table Bree had saved for them.

Food served, Graham turned his full attention back to Zoey. The pair were adorable in their inability to focus on anything but each other. Which gave Easton a clear third wheel type of presence.

Drinking his beer with the occasional measured swig, Easton was studiously avoiding interrupting the love story happening three feet away. River was still starving, and her burger was calling her from the table, but she lingered.

“So, that reporter…”

“I’ll make a call,” Easton offered. “But my gut says Tasha’s not going to write a very nice article about you.”

“Yeah, well, she wrote a not-very-nice article about you. I couldn’t give two craps about what she says about me. So, the reporter. Tasha. How long were you two together?”

Easton raised one eyebrow of his own.

“You’re a really tall, very strong man. Men like you do this thing with their shoulders when they talk to someone they’re attracted to. They kind of drop them, a subconscious effort to make themselves less large, less intimidating.”

The eyebrows furrowed together, giving him a confused, cuddly bearlike appearance. “I’m not seeing her,” he finally said.

“I wasn’t worried,” River replied. “You were only dropping one shoulder. You didn’t go both shoulders, so I figured you weren’t totally on board.”

Easton’s voice was a warm, low rumble, like rocks snuggling up to each other. “No, both feet are firmly in the ocean and swimming for shore.”

“To smoother waters.” River tilted her glass to him. Easton clinked his beer to her Growly Bear, then they both took a sip. “Yikes. What does he put in these?”

“Enough sugar to mask the consequences.”

“Don’t worry. I can hold my liquor.” Licking the sweetness off her lips, River added, “This isn’t actually a date, you know. I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t date people who might leave me on a mountain summit if they get their feelings hurt.”

“Are my feelings going to get hurt?” His eyes crinkled.

That voice. She could wrap herself up in that voice and cuddle on the couch all day in it.

“Let’s say that I don’t have a track record of happy exes in my past. They always expect one thing, and when they realize I’m nothing like what they imagined, it always goes downhill. Really, really fast.”