Page 17 of All In

“Yeah,” he says. “Small world.”

“Great costume, by the way,” I add, because I can be magnanimous. Even if I am being somewhat dishonest. Truthfully the costume itself isn’t terrible. Though his uniform is the wrong damn color. Captain red on a Klingon. I nearly shake my head. Instead I tilt my chin up. “The ridges are a nice touch.”

Eric’s jaw works. “Thanks. I made them.”

The silence that follows has a texture to it, thick and a little dangerous, and I watch Juniper’s free hand curl slightly at her side — not scared, I don’t think. Just bracing.

“We should probably get in line,” she says, gesturing vaguely toward the panel hall behind Eric. “Panel’s about to start.”

“Right.” Eric’s gaze flicks between the two of us one more time, doing some final tally I can’t see the math on. “Have fun, I guess.”

“You too,” Juniper says, and there’s real effort in keeping it pleasant, in not letting the relief show too plainly on her face.

He walks off without another word, the bat’leth swaying dangerously close to a nearby pop-up tent as he goes, and Juniper doesn’t relax until he’s a solid twenty feet away, swallowed back into the crowd.

“You okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine.” She exhales, long and slow, like she’s been holding that breath since the food court. “He’s annoyed. Did you catch that he’s annoyed?”

“I caught it.”

“Good. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.” She glances up at me, something rueful tugging at her mouth. “Thank you. For the handshake thing. That was very alpha-male-protector of you.”

“I was being polite.”

“You were absolutely posturing.”

I laugh. “A little,” I admit. “He had it coming.”

She laughs—a real one, loose with relief—and tugs my hand toward the line forming outside the panel hall, and I let her pull me along, watching the tension drain slowly out of her shoulders with every step that puts more distance between us and a guy in bad Klingon prosthetics.

When we’re in line, I pull her back to my front and lean down to her ear. “Later we must discuss that atrocity on top of his head.”

She barks out a laugh. Then spins in my arms. She bites down on her lip. “Come closer,” she says quietly.

I lean down, unsure if she’s going to tell me a secret or kiss me again. I’m fine with either option.

“He made it himself. Did you hear that part?”

“I did.”

“Do you think he used his own foreskin?”

And that’s when I realize I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with this woman.

chapter

five

Juniper

The panel hall is packed, the kind of packed where folding chairs get pulled in from somewhere to handle the overflow. Leo and I end up wedged into a row near the back, close enough to the wall that his shoulder presses against mine the second we sit down.

He doesn’t move it away. Neither do I.

Somewhere around the second question from the moderator, Leo’s arm migrates from the back of his own chair to the back of mine. Then sometime after that, it’s not behind my chair anymore, it’s around me, easy and unhurried, like he’s been doing it for years instead of approximately two hours.

I should probably have something clever to say about that.