“Hey,” he tells the woman. “She’ll have…”

“A shot. Tequila.”

He winces. “I just purchased alcohol for my friend’s underage sister. Brilliant.”

“It’s perfectly legal. I’ve been drinking since I was sixteen, anyway—”

“Did not need to know that.”

“—so I built up some really good enzymes.”

A shot slides my way. I down it quickly, feeling Conor’s eyes fixed on my bobbing throat, the heat that starts in my stomach and spreads in all directions.

When I slam the glass on the dark wood, the bartender pours me another.

Conor’s eyebrow rises.

“Shots are smaller here.” I lean against the counter, facing him. “So, do you like my friends?”

“Sure.”

“Sure?”

“Some of them are great. The birthday boy will go far in life.”

“Yeah, Sami’s awesome.”

“But the one in the tracksuit?”

“Jethro.”

“He’s thinking of starting a podcast. And I’m not sure that what he has to say is monetizable.”

“I’m not convinced anyone listens to him for free.” I snort. “Have any of the guys asked you for a loan yet?”

He shrugs. “Not in so many words, no.”

“But?”

“The guy with the fringe tried to pitch me his dating app for adult diapers lovers.”

“Grant? I always suspected that he was a weirdo, but—”

“The weirdo is someone else,” a voice interrupts me. When Conor and I turn, Alfie is standing close by. Wasn’t it just the two of us, a couple of shots ago?

“Excuse me?” I ask. But Alfie’s not looking at me, and his face is ruddy, like he drank too much.

“You are the perv, aren’t you, mate?”

“Well, yeah.” Conor nods, unfazed. “Not sure how you found out about that, though.”

“Takes a single look. How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

Alfie’s smile is mean-spirited. I’ve never seen his face do anything like that. I like to believe that if I had, we wouldn’t have lasted as long as we did. “Do you know how old Maya is? Twenty. She could be your daughter.”

“You’re way overestimating the game I had at fourteen, mate.” Conor takes another sip of his stout, then sets it aside. “But it’s only fair that you worry.”

Alfie puffs up. “Glad you see the issue.”

“Of course I do. You care about Maya, who’s very young—younger than the both of us—and you wouldn’t want me to take advantage of her…naïveté, shall we say?” He must notice my scowl, because his fingers rise up behind me and drum against my spine. Patience. “You respect her, want the best for her, and cannot stand to see her hurt. For all you know, I’ll exploit her trust, and maybe even break her heart. And that would be so fucking callous of me, wouldn’t it?”

Alfie’s cheeks grow even redder—from the alcohol, the heat inside the pub, the shame, I can’t tell. All I know is that Conor’s arm is wrapping around my shoulder, tugging me closer, curling in to rub his knuckles against my jaw.

Nice. It’s nice.