“He’s my friend. That’s all. Promise. And right now, he’s going to drink that whole fucking whiskey sour, isn’t he, because he got himself into this mess to make a very stupid fucking point?” North met Shaw’s gaze long enough for Shaw to blush and put the glass to his mouth. “And I would very much like to meet you for your smoke break. Just to talk.” North let his eyes grow heavy and hooded, let his voice drop. “At least, for right now.”

“You’re kind of hot when you get intense like that,” Jack said, freeing himself from North and rubbing his wrist. “I’m not going to blow you. Not tonight, anyway.”

North had figured out a long time ago that silence worked better than words, and he let his eyes and the crook of his lips do the talking.

“Jesus, you’re going to be trouble. All right. Say, like, ten minutes?”

North nodded, and Jack scuttled down the bar to help a woman who was, as Shaw had pointed out, snapping her fingers in a frenzy of indignation.

“Put that down,” North said as Shaw drank.

Shaw coughed at the first swallow, and his eyes were the size of dinner plates. That one cough turned into a fit, with Shaw burying his mouth in the corner of his arm.

“I told you to put it down.” North took a sip. It was pretty good; maybe Jack wasn’t just easy on the eyes.

“’sfine,” Shaw croaked. His face was a hot scarlet. Then, still coughing, he set the glass to his lips again. This time, even though he sputtered several times, he downed the whole thing. The glass clinked down against the bar, and Shaw let out another frenzy of coughing. North grimaced as patrons at the bar shifted away from his partner, and then he slapped Shaw on the back.

It seemed to help. Shaw gave one last cough and then wiped at his teary eyes.

“Well,” North said, when he was sure Shaw could hear him. “That was pretty stupid.”

“What?”

North sipped at his drink.

Shaw crossed his arms. The flush was moving down his neck.

North ignored him and kept hitting his whiskey sour. He let his gaze roam the bar again, confirming what he had seen a few minutes ago. He considered the probability that Jack had been the bartender on Saturday night. Not great, considering the likelihood that weekends would have different shifts, more desirable shifts, but not terrible either. A spot as busy as Allure would definitely need more than one bartender on a weekend, which raised the odds again.

“That was pretty good,” Shaw said.

“Yeah, great.”

“Do you like yours?”

“For the love of fuck.”

“I didn’t really know I liked whiskey—”

He stopped talking when North looked at him. And he at least had the good grace to blush.

“Is Matty paying for these?”

“Yeah, I’ll just . . .”

Shaw shuffled through his wallet and dropped some bills on the bar while North finished his drink.