I stare at him, perplexed. “How can you be so calm about this?”

“Why do you care so much?” he fires back. His words almost knock me out of my seat.

But he’s right—why do I care so much?

The question is almost like truth or dare.

I say the truth, I’m done for. I don’t and he takes on the biggest dare of his life.

“Because…” I lift my shoulder as I drag out the word and play for time. “Maybe I think you’re not telling me everything about what happened that night.”

“Even if I wasn’t, why would that matter to you?”

“Because I don’t want to put innocent men in prison when I can do something to avoid it.”

I watch his hand tighten around the cup. His eyes stare down into his drink.

“Tell me what happened that night in Liv,” I say softly, coaxing him.

He doesn’t speak for a long moment. When he lifts his eyes, I hope to see something in them. The truth, maybe. But what I see is nothing. His eyes are blank. “I told you what happened,” he says. “I got the drugs from a dealer in a bar. Then I went to Liv and the cops busted the place. I was arrested. End of story.”

He’s hiding something. His expression might be blank, but the small shift he just made and the way his eyes darted to the left—both movements tell me differently. I had a hunch that that was the case in my office the other day. But here in the coffee shop, I can see it clearly. And I’m not willing to let it go this time.

“How long were you in Liv before the cops showed up?” I ask. I want to question him to see if I can learn anything new.

“An hour, maybe.”

“And the search, how did it go down?”

“They came into the VIP area. We were one of the first to be searched.”

“‘We’?”

“My friends…and my brother.”

Interesting. I didn’t know he had a brother. I wonder if he looks like him.

“And you didn’t think to try to dispose of the drugs at any point?” I ask. Of course I don’t condone that type of thing, but I see it time and time again—dealers disposing of drugs before the arrest can be made. It’s hard to make a charge stick if the drugs can’t actually be found on the person. Especially in a public place like a nightclub.

I hold my stare and watch Grayson shake his head. I don’t know how else to push this, even though I know there’s something he’s not saying.

So I shift the conversation elsewhere—to football. He relaxes immediately, and we spend the next hour drinking coffee and talking sports.

One could call it a date. But it’s not. It’s definitely not.

But I won’t deny that I like talking to him. He’s smart and fun, and charismatic. He’s also nice to look at, which is always a bonus.