Not just the WILD card. Griffin was going full deck. All in.

Chapter Twelve

Miles

“Are you sure you don’t want to join us?” Maggie asked, and Miles made an exaggerated effort to examine his neatly trimmed fingernails.

“Manis and pedis, Mags? I mean, I am well-groomed, but I draw the line at spending money for someone else to do what I can do for myself.”

She shrugged. “I’m just flattered the bridal party invited me along. Plus, it’s Elaina’s cousin, so it won’t cost much.”

“So there’s still going to be a wedding?” he asked as Jordan strode up behind Maggie.

“I don’t know,” Jordan said. “Elaina is pissed. I told her the guys found Duncan and are bringing him back. Noah said he wasn’t ditching her, that he’d actually been hurt and detained and was afraid to tell her about it in a text. They were rushing to get their flights figured out. But no matter what I say to her, she just gets angrier.”

“Why?” Maggie asked.

“Because Duncan called Griffin instead of her. Look, all I know is she’s going through with everything that was on the docket for today. And if Duncan shows up…I mean when he shows up…” Jordan hesitated, winding a lock of hair around her finger until the tip turned white.

“Whoa,” Miles started, watching Jordan fidget where she stood. “I’m sensing I’m about to get more drama than I bargained for.”

Maggie backhanded him on the shoulder.

“What?” he said with a laugh. “I’m just glad the spotlight’s off of me.”

“It’s okay,” Jordan said. “He’s right. I am being a little dramatic. It’s just…Duncan and Elaina? They’re the ones who got it right from the start, you know? Zero drama. He liked her. She pretended for maybe five minutes not to like him, and then bam. Perfect couple. And now?” She shrugged. “They’re going to be fine, right? If he was never thinking of bailing, then they’re still the model couple.”

Miles nodded to Maggie, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. “This is why I keep my distance, Mags.” Then he turned to Jordan. “Look, I’m sorry if I seem like an insensitive asshole, but I’m good without the whole mani-pedi thing, and I’m good without”—he waved his hand in the air—“the drama of will they or won’t they.”

Miles kissed Maggie on the cheek and backed toward the rear of the restaurant.

“I’m gonna go walk on the beach.” Clear my head.

Maggie glanced out the window and then back at him. “It’s not as warm as it looks out there. I think the taxi driver said it was just below forty degrees.”

Miles zipped his black leather jacket over his hoodie, then winked at her and grinned.

“I know people who’ve hitchhiked in worse.”

She rolled her eyes, and that was enough to convince him she wouldn’t push him to share what the hell was up his ass—because, honestly, he wasn’t 100 percent sure. He was just…off.

So what if somewhere in this city was a guy who’d driven him crazy in an airplane bathroom? Somewhere in this city—right. Like Miles had the city to hide him. Come this evening, Alex would probably be working the party. What were the odds that a restaurant’s sous chef was not working the owner’s own daughter’s wedding? When he’d walked into that bathroom with a stranger, he expected to part just the same. But something happened in that confined space, in that miniature pocket of time, and it wasn’t about the foreplay that almost was.

He watched as Jordan pulled Maggie toward the group of women who were converting part of the restaurant into a miniature salon. Then he exited to what was, for the season, an unused patio.

The wind was brisk, but the cold air felt good. It felt like freedom.

He threw up his hood and headed toward the water.

He breathed in the salty air, making it close enough to the shore for a fine mist to spray his cheeks.

“You are a grade-A asshole,” he told himself. But that? He glanced back toward the restaurant. That was why he was no good at weddings. Watching two people pledge their lives to each other made him long for something he’d convinced himself a long time ago wasn’t in the cards for him. And watching an almost-couple like Duncan and Elaina almost not make it? All it did was remind him that wanting something and holding onto it were mutually exclusive. He’d experienced that firsthand. So he taught himself not to want anything more than fun, and that was working out pretty well for him. Did he want Duncan and Elaina to crash and burn? Of course not. Did he see that as more of a possibility than Maggie and Jordan did? Sure. But he didn’t need to spread his jadedness all over their hope for a happy ending.

After a few deep breaths, he turned to walk a stretch of the hotel-lined beach. Short white buildings bordered the sand, and even in the cool weather there were tourists enjoying coffee on a balcony and a couple a few yards off removing their shoes to dip their toes in the surf.

He jumped back as a wave rolled in, coming closer than the rest. Then he laughed at himself for being afraid of the consequences of making contact with the water. What did that say about his emotional state? He could write his doctoral thesis analyzing it, but with only five months to go in his program, it probably wasn’t wise to change topics now.

He checked his phone. There were a few hours before he had to get ready for the rehearsal dinner—provided it was still happening. He’d run inside and make sure Maggie was cool with him taking off for a bit, and then? He’d just walk.

As he started to hike back up to the patio, he spotted a figure leaning against the restaurant’s concrete ivory facade. The guy stood with one leg crossed over the other and his arms folded in front of his chest. After nodding in Miles’s direction, the man took a drag from the cigarette dangling from his lips and then reached for it with his right hand. He waited to speak until Miles was in earshot.

“Did you know?” Alex asked, an almost-smile playing at his lips. “You weren’t surprised when I told you my name in the airport. Did you know who I was?”

Miles played with the idea of a lie, but that wasn’t him. No matter what came of this situation, he was nothing if not upfront.

He retrieved Alex’s business card from his pocket and held it up for him to see.

Alex nodded slowly. “So why not tell me? You sat there the rest of the flight pretending you didn’t know this might happen.”

That was a legitimate question. But what was he going to do? Tell this stranger that kissing him in an airplane bathroom felt anything but strange? That he’d let his guard down long enough to wonder what it would be like to kiss this man again only because he’d thought he was safe from that ever happening. And now here he was, staring at those lips again, wanting what he shouldn’t want.

“It’s complicated,” was all he said, and he rolled his eyes at himself. God, he hated that word, hated that he’d become the kind of guy who used it as an excuse to shut down.

Alex took a long, slow drag of the cigarette, then turned his head to the side to exhale.

“We were on a fucking plane, Miles. Strangers on a goddamned plane. We could have had a nice chat about what I do, about how you know the Tripoli family. It’s just talking,” Alex said. “You sat there the whole time knowing who I was, knowing my name…”

Miles studied his own shoes before looking at him again.

“I know,” he said. “I’m just— I liked you. I like you now. And I don’t want to.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Liking a stranger is one thing. We meet. We make out. We never see each other again. And I may wonder, What if? But there’s nothing I can do about it. But knowing your name and that I might bump into you again? That changed the game.”