“Just dinner with Lola,” I tell him.

“ ‘Just dinner with Lola,’ ” he repeats with a smug tilt of his mouth.

“Go home, Ansel.”

“I’m going,” he says, and laughs to himself the entire way down the hall.

I open the door and my heart jumps at the sight of her standing there, dressed like she’s just come from some sort of media interview or event.

“Oliver’s grouchy tonight,” Ansel tells her.

“Is he?” she says. “I was going to suggest we play some poker but now I’m not sure this competitive maniac could handle it.”

“Get him drunk and take all his money. It’s the least he deserves.”

She turns her smile on me, obviously pleased with this idea. “I was planning on it.”

I give her a small grin. “Best of luck.”

“As much as I would love to stay and watch what I’m certain will be a bloodbath, I’m taking Mia to dinner. Goodbye friends,” Ansel says, and bends to kiss her quickly on the cheek. I’m almost certain I hear the words, “Finish him,” before Ansel is bounding down the front porch, and it’s just the two of us. Again.

Lola walks into the house past me, and there’s something new in the way she moves. Something more feminine, more aware.

“All good?” I ask.

Near the kitchen she turns and looks at me.

“All good.” She slides her thick hair behind her ears. It immediately falls forward again and she grins up at me, looking even younger than she is. “Did you have a nice visit with Ansel?”

I give her a confused smile. “Yes? It was a nice visit.”

Her smile stays put, eyes glued to me. “I’m glad you guys got to see each other today.”

“What’s going on with you? You’re as terrible at small talk as my aunt Rita from Brisbane.”

With a laugh, she turns into the kitchen, and I hear the refrigerator open, bottles clinking, and the door closing again. “Maybe I’m nervous,” she calls.

My pulse is rolling thunder in my neck. “Nervous about what?”

There’s more rustling in the kitchen, more glass, and the sound of liquid being poured before she returns.

In a few of those long, hip-swinging strides, Lola hands me a beer and a shot of tequila, and looks up at my face.

“We have a lot to talk about tonight,” she says.

I swallow, wanting to melt into her. Smiling reflexively with her this close, I say, “We do?”

She nods, using her free pinky to free a strand of hair from where it’s caught on her lip. “You said a lot of interesting things up in L.A.”

“Surely nothing you didn’t already suspect?” I say quietly.

“I may not have suspected it,” she says, mimicking the low volume of my words and looking at my mouth for a lingering moment before blinking back up to my eyes. “But I’d wanted to hear it for a long time.”

I open my mouth to respond, but she cuts in, brighter now. “But rule number one tonight: no making out.” She takes the shot and winces, chasing it with a swig of her beer.

I choke on my own shot, coughing. “Pardon?”

“You heard me,” she says.

I take a long pull of my beer, and swallow through a grimace. “No making out when?”

“Once we’re drunk,” she explains. “I want to talk.”

My chest feels too full for everything inside it; lungs, heart, the expanding emotions inside don’t leave enough room to breathe. Is this it? Is it happening now?

I reach for a strand of her hair and ask, “Is there a rule number two in case rule number one gets broken?”

Her smile is a slow-growing work of magic. “Don’t be cute.”

Smiling back, I whisper, “I’ll try.” Every single drop of blood in me is rioting. Fucking finally. “What’s happening here, Lola Love?”

She gives me an innocent shrug. “We’re playing poker.”

“I’ll clean the floor with you,” I warn, before tilting my bottle to my lips and sipping my beer again.

She watches me swallow. “You can clean the floor with all of your clothes while I watch.” I raise an eyebrow at her and she adds, “We’re playing strip poker.”

With a surprised laugh, I say, “We really do have a lot to discuss tonight if we’re playing strip poker but we can’t make out.”

Lola turns and retrieves a deck of cards from the drawer in the kitchen, and then gestures for me to join her at the dining room table.

This all feels so sudden . . . but at the same time it seems I’ve waited an eternity for this. I want the friendship barrier to dissolve. I want the next step, and the one after that. Lola has entered my house like a bulldozer, and although I’ve never seen her like this, not in a million years would I try to slow her down.

A determined Lola is a sight to behold.

She pats the tabletop to rouse me from my thoughts and I blink, carrying my beer to the table. Sitting across from her, our eyes lock, and neither of us breaks the tension by looking away. We’ve danced around each other for so long and I swear my skin is on fire, my brain thrumming as I wonder how this night will unfold.

“Ante up,” she whispers, reaching beneath her hair to remove her earrings. She drops them in the center of the table and looks up at me expectantly.

I glance down at what I’ve got on. A watch. Jeans, a shirt, belt, glasses. I’m not even wearing shoes or socks. “This seems a little uneven.”

“Lucky me.”

She has no idea that I consider myself the lucky one. To have earned her trust. To have earned her affection. To witness her take-charge attitude. I smile at her, wanting to just say it again right here: I love you.

Instead, I unfasten my watch and drop it on the table as she begins to deal out five cards each.

We look at our cards, shifting them into our preferred order, and holy fuck, I have two fucking pair: two jacks, two threes, and a seven.

“Your actual poker face is so bad,” she says, giggling. “This is the shock of a lifetime.”

“I may get you naked with this one hand,” I say, waving my cards at her, and feeling everything inside me pull to the middle in a warm tightness when I see she catches my double meaning. “I’m going to open.” I reach for my belt, slowly pulling it free and coiling it before dropping it in the center of the table. “See or fold, Castle.”

“Do you know if we’d stayed married I would be Lorelei Lore?”

I nod. “Thought about it once or twice, though I always assumed you’d keep your name.”

“I’m traditional in weird ways,” she says, putting her cards facedown. Just when I think she’s folded, she reaches for the hem of her sweater and pulls it up and over her head.

She’s wearing nothing but a bra beneath.

“Raise or call,” she tells me and I realize I’m staring.

Looking down at my cards, I know I really could get most of her clothes off right now, but I need to savor this as much as I can. “Call.”

I lay the seven facedown and she hands me a fresh card. I peek at it: the three of hearts. And now I’ve got a full house.

She gives herself three new cards—the maximum—and grimaces. “Oof.”

“You’ve also got a terrible poker face.”

Lola looks up at me, saying, “You can raise, if you want.”

My shirt is off, dropped in the middle of the table. “You can fold, if you want.”

Her bra comes off, landing on top of my shirt, and I stutter out a few sounds before reaching for my beer with a shaking hand. I can barely process the sight of her bare breasts. They’re so full, so firm. My mouth waters, and I rest my lips against my beer but don’t manage to tilt it fully to get a sip.

“You’re staring,” she whispers.

“I can’t help it; you just took off your bra.”

“Let’s see your cards.”

What cards?

I blink hard, squeezing my eyes closed, and then look down at my hand again before laying it on the table. She groans, showing me a pair of fours and then a trio of mis-suited jack, ace, and six. Dropping her head onto her arms, she shakes with laughter, looking back up only when she hears me sweeping the pile of clothes over closer to me. I put my shirt, belt, and watch back on. I put her bra on my head, her sweater around my shoulders, and her earrings stay on the table near my beer.