After that dinner at the bar, things had changed between them at the office. He wouldn’t go so far as to say they were friends or anything, but they no longer went out of their way to avoid each other.
They even smiled and said hello.
As if summoned by their thoughts, Tori and Grace walked by James’s office. Both women gave a small wave, not breaking stride or their conversation, before continuing on.
“Goddamn, she is so hot,” Ryan muttered. “You see Tori’s sweet ass in that skirt? One day soon, I’m going to—”
“Shut thehell up.” James lost it. “I’m not here for this locker room talk, or whatever the hell you’re trying,” he rasped harshly. “Maybe you should worry about the consent part first before you go planning your night together.”
His cousin froze and his face reddened slightly, but then he composed himself again and gave a small laugh.
“You’re right, sorry. Work isn’t the place for this conversation, and you’re probably the wrong guy for it anyway. You being the nice, uptight guy who hasn’t gotten close with a vagina in over a year.”
Ryan gave him a hard look before leaving the office and shutting the door behind him.
James let the air hiss out from between his clenched teeth.
He must’ve really gotten to Ryan’s fragile ego when he’d cussed him out.
Good.
Hopefully, Tori kept her head on her shoulders and stayed the hell away from his cousin.
Had Ryan always been this vile toward women?
Maybe. James wouldn’t have known since they’d never spent this much time together. Working at the same firm had shown a side of Ryan that James would rather have never known existed.
With a sigh, he thrust a hand through his hair and tried to bring his focus back to work and the email he’d been working on.
Tori wouldn’t leave his head, though.
She was so much more than a pretty face. Sometimes when he saw her walking around at work, attracting all the usual attention like she did with Ryan just now—he thought back to that comment she’d made at the bar about wanting to be invisible.
Talking comic stuff was as common to him as talking legal stuff. Maybe more so, since he’d been consumed with superheroes since he was a kid. So it hadn’t fazed him initially when she’d made the comment, and then it’d sunk in who he’d been talking to.
Tori, the woman who both drove him nuts and made him hard as a rock when he thought of her at night. And at that dinner, she’d just casually dropped aCaptain Marvelreference.
He’d been ready with a follow-up question to make sure she hadn’t just been possessed by the ghost of a comic geek, but then Ryan had returned to the table.
And since that night, he’d felt the guilt more than once at having written her off as a gorgeous goddess who liked all the attention she got from men.
She wanted to be invisible.
Which he could understand. He wasn’t big on crowded places and events where he didn’t know anyone. She’d kind of nailed that fact about him at dinner.
The only exception he made being Comic Con—because it was absolutely awesome.
And the Gem State Comic Con was this weekend. He’d be flying to Idaho Friday—which was right around when he was supposed to get the bar results back.
Hallelujah.Good times all around.
But for now, he needed to focus on work. And maybe make plans to go to that game tonight after all.
Because it was growing increasingly hard to deny Ryan’s predator vibe, and James hadn’t lied about feeling protective of Tori.
He’d go tonight. If only just to make sure she felt safe and comfortable. Because if Ryan had upped his game that much around James, he didn’t even want to imagine what it had been like for Tori.
Chapter Seven