Bea turns and sticks her tongue out at him, crossing her legs and leaning into me. I have an unfairly good angle to see straight down her dress. It takes Herculean effort to set up my Risk soldiers instead.

“I’m pretty confident James is about to execute world domination on my behalf, Antoni.” She sips her sangria. “And then we’re going to annihilate you at Pictionary.”

“Ooh.” Hamza laughs. “Shots fired.”

“She’s not joking,” Christopher says, before he takes a pull of his beer. “The only time I’ve ever seen her lose at Pictionary, she flipped. Threw the marker straight at Jules, who purposefully guessed wrong.” He mimes the action. “Like a javelin.”

“I still have a scar!” Juliet calls from the kitchen.

“You guessed wrong on purpose!” Bea yells back before she drops her voice and says to me, “You’d think she’d have learned her lesson about getting on my bad side.”

I smile and draw her closer in my arms. “I pity the person who underestimates you.”

Bea breaks our gaze first, a blush pinking her cheeks as she sips her sangria. I catch Christopher’s eye right before he glances away from watching us and see something like curiosity. I realize he’s the only one in the group whom I’ve never observed partnered. No one’s trying to pair him off, like they were Bea and me. Which strikes me as odd, given how nosy they all are. Not everyone wants to date or be romantic, of course, so it might simply be that, but the way I caught him looking at us, it seemed almost . . . wistful?

“It’s a long story,” Bea says quietly in my ear. “But the short version is, he has his reasons for avoiding relationships, and they’re serious enough that even Jules doesn’t have the guts to try to interfere.”

I sip my beer. “Did you just read my thoughts?”

“I figured you were curious why he gets a singles pass. And it looked like you caught him watching us. Like you cared.” She pats my thigh gently. “It’s funny, I know you came to us through Jean-Claude and Jean-Claude came through Christopher’s firm, but it feels like it should be the other way around. You seem much more like Christopher’s type of guy. Like you two would be friends.”

I shift beneath her and stare at my beer bottle, knowing where this is going.

“Who are your friends, Jamie?” Bea says softly.

“I . . .” Clearing my throat, I take a drink of my beer. “I haven’t really gotten the knack of friends since college. I was absorbed in my studies, then I was busy with medical school and residency, now working.” I set down the beer bottle and adjust my watch until it’s in its rightful place. “I get along with my colleagues, but that’s about it.”

“Except Jean-Claude?”