down those roads or he was never going to be able to sit here comfortably.
Pike poured one of the beers the waitress had brought over into three shot glasses and smiled over at Cela. “Alright, doc. The way this works is one person says ‘never have I ever,’ then lists something they’ve never done. If the other two have done it, they have to drink. If they haven’t done it, they don’t. Got it?”
She peeked over at Foster then back to Pike. “I have a feeling y’all are going to end up drinking a lot more than I am.”
Pike laid a hand on her knee and squeezed, sending a tweak of jealousy through Foster. “No worries, doc. It’s all in good fun. Why don’t you go first?”
“Okay.” She fidgeted with the cocktail napkin in her lap, folding it into thirds, thinking. “Hmm, well, never have I ever … watched Star Wars porn.”
Her sly smile pulled a laugh from Foster despite his plummeting mood. “Low blow, doctor.”
Pike glanced at him, shrugged, and both of them tipped back their shot glasses and swallowed.
“Oh my God,” she said, laughing. “So you guys were only half-kidding when you mentioned it.”
“It was college,” Pike said in mock protest.
“I couldn’t look away,” Foster said at the same time.
“Pervs,” she declared, but her eyes were crinkled around the corners. “Okay, your turn.”
Foster refilled the shot glasses and sighed. He needed to come up with something neutral. Safe. “Alright, never have I ever … owned a pet.”
Cela’s jaw dropped as if he’d just admitted he liked to dress up in women’s clothes and sing Broadway tunes. “Like ever?”
“Nope.”
“Not even like a fish or something?” She drank her shot.
He watched her throat work as she swallowed, imagining things he shouldn’t. “My parents traveled a lot. They didn’t trust me to take care of a pet.”
She frowned. “Kids usually do a better job than most adults.”
“Yeah, well, my track record on taking care of things wasn’t so great,” he said, failing to keep the tinge of bitterness out of his voice—the old, always-present guilt surfacing.
“I’m sorry.” The stark sympathy that swept her features had something knotting in his chest. God, why had he admitted something so personal? He could’ve just said no and left it at that.
Pike drank his shot, and Foster sent him a curious look. When he’d met Pike, the kid had barely owned enough clothes to get him through a week. He and what passed for his family wouldn’t have been in a place to fund a pet.
Pike shrugged. “A stray cat used to live under our house when I was a kid. I named him Jagger and fed him, so I think that counts. I wanted him to be mine.”
Cela looked between the two of them. “I’m dragging both of y’all to the vet school shelter. Clearly, you need a pet.”
Pike laughed. “Doc, we can barely be trusted to care for ourselves. Let’s not inflict a poor animal with owners like us.”
Owners. Foster could think of one thing he’d like to own right now—at least for a little while. He dragged his focus away from Cela and nodded at Pike. “Your turn, drummer boy.”
Pike narrowed his eyes, that nickname always serving to annoy him, which is why Foster loved using it so much.
“Fine. Let’s see if I can come up with something less depressing than yours.” Pike sat back on the couch, his eyebrow arching in challenge. “Never have I ever …”
The pause was long. Too long. Pike smiled and leveled a gaze at Foster.
Oh shit. Foster knew that look. Don’t do it, Pike.
“Gotten off while eavesdropping on my neighbor,” Pike finished.
You fucker.
Cela’s expelled breath was audible even over the music. Well, shit. Now he was going to look like a creepy asshole. Foster ventured a glance her way, his gaze colliding with hers. Her panicked-rabbit expression made him wish time could be rewound and deleted.
“Dammit, Pike,” Foster said, gearing up for damage control. “Cela, look, Pike’s just messing around. He likes to—”
But before he could finish, Cela reached out, lifted her shot off the table, and downed it. When she finished, she wouldn’t look up. She stared down at her hands and the empty glass, her knee bumping up and down—as if she were contemplating running.
The silent admission and ensuing bashfulness were like strokes to Foster’s cock, oil on a fire he was trying to tame. This girl may be inexperienced, but she was brave—bold in a way that had him getting surprised at every turn. And it’d been a helluva long time since anyone had surprised him. He leaned forward in his seat. Like a predator scenting blood in the water, the dominance rose in him, locked her in its sights.
“Cela.”
She put her hand over her face, shaking her head. “Let’s just go to the next turn. Please.”
“Look at me, Cela,” he commanded, his tone harsh.
Her attention snapped his way, as if she couldn’t stop herself from obeying.
He held her eye contact and slowly drained his own shot.
Poured another, drank again.
Then another, drank again. “I could keep going.”
In Foster’s peripheral vision, Pike gave a slow, satisfied grin. “Honesty. I like it.”
Cela’s throat worked as she swallowed hard, her lips parted, closed, opened again as if she had words to say but couldn’t pick which ones.
“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” Foster said, keeping his voice even. “You don’t need to be afraid to say what you’re thinking.”
She licked her lips, the pulse at her throat visibly jumping. “First, I need to know what this is—tonight.”
Pike angled toward her on the couch. “We told you, doc. It’s your night to have a good time, whatever that may be.”
She looked to Pike, then back to Foster and lifted her hand to the neckline of her dress. Her fingers dipped underneath the material and moved along her sweat-dampened skin, riveting Foster’s gaze. She pulled a small square of paper out.
“What’s that?” Pike asked.
“In less than a month, I’ll be back in the small town I grew up in. Everything there is planned out for me in a nice, neat path. The job I’ve always known I’d have, the guy I’m supposed to date, the place I’m going to live.”
She hesitated and stared down at the paper, her thumb rubbing across the smooth white surface over and over again. Pike put a palm to her back, a gentle grounding touch that seemed to replenish Cela’s resolve. She gave them both a wavering half smile before continuing.
“I’ve lived my whole life working toward exactly that goal. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long. But I realized tonight that I’ve missed out on a lot of experiences that weren’t bullet points in the plan. I don’t want to go back home with a Never Have I Ever list a mile long.” She set the square of paper on the table, let her fingers linger on top of it for a moment, and then pushed it toward the center. “And I was hoping you two might help me scratch some things off the list.”
Foster’s attention zeroed in on the note, his heartbeat climbing up a notch.
“Whoa,” Pike said, her declaration apparently stunning the nothing-shocks-me musician.
Before Pike could take