Another moan from Mal grazes his ear, hairs on the back of his neck rising like he walked through a phantom. Their movements get messier, sloppier, the more into it they get, and by the time the song ends and fades into the next, they’re all but panting into each other’s open mouths. Staring at one another, drinking in the sight of sweaty and flushed faces, and Rowan swears Mal’s eyes dip down to his lips.

And then he leans forward and—

“Gonna go get a drink,” Mal shouts in Rowan’s ear, hot breath tickling at his earlobe and making him shudder. “Want anything?”

Disappointment curls itself in Rowan’s belly.

“I’m good. Gonna go back to the table for a bit.”

Mal nods, and in a flash, he’s disappeared into the crowd, and Rowan’s left in the middle of it, cold and achingly hard.

But he shakes it off, wandering to the other end of the bar to flag down a glass of water. When the cold glass is placed down in front of him, he takes a long, deep drink, the cool liquid a lifesaver for his dry throat.

He downs half of it before he sees Jeremiah and Mal talking across the bar, blissfully unaware of Rowan watching them through the gaps in the ceiling-high shelves of liquor.

Even with the pair yelling loudly over the thrum of the music and his probably better-than-average ability to read lips thanks to his job, he’s still only able to make out snippets of what they’re talking about.

“… laid on your birthday?” Jeremiah shouts. “Just ask….”

“… not askin’ him….”

Rowan’s heart thuds in his chest. Did Jeremiah tell Mal to ask him to fuck? Because yes. His answer is hell fucking yes, if Mal will only ask the question.

But the rest of their conversation is cut off when they’re pushed aside by a group of drunk bachelorettes. When Rowan finally returns to the table with his half-empty glass in hand, alone, it’s like the exchange never even happened.

MAL’S BEEN eyeing him across the bar, where he’s now been planted with Jeremiah and Amy for the last half hour. Rowan knows, ’cause he’s been eyeing him right back from the table where he’s sitting with Clover and Camilla. Despite that enough time has passed since his only real drink, he still feels tipsy enough that the lingering stares are sending wave after wave of heat and want coursing through him.

Rowan’s not listening to what the Monroe twins are saying. Something business-related, maybe. Maybe something about some hot woman at the bar. Rowan is mm-hmming and yeahing along at what he hopes are appropriate times when it feels like they’re talking to him, but his attention is solely on Mal.