Page 39

Not accustomed to being overlooked, even in favor of my hottest friends, I was highly insulted. “Wow?” I asked her in my sternest voice. “He’s not more wow than me, I hope you know.”

“Yeah, but you’re crazy. He looks sweet.”

“Not your type at all. Look away.” I covered her eyes when she just kept staring. “And for your information, he’s as much of a slut as I am, he’s just sweeter about it in the morning.”

Several people were laughing at our quiet but vehement interaction.

Iris, in the pool now and standing in the circle of Dair’s big arms, was laughing the loudest.

“That’s Carter,” Iris said, answering Ro. Ro pushed my hands away from her eyes and looked at the other woman. “He’s a romance author and a high school teacher.” She giggled adorably. “Can you imagine? His female students must be losing their minds…”

Iris and her penchant for older men was well-known and even documented now in the form of a marriage license.

And why did women love the fact that he wrote romance so fucking much?

I rolled my eyes. “First of all,” I told Iris, “you’re screwed up, but I think you know that. And second, so is he. He doesn’t even need the money. He’s rich. He teaches because he likes it.”

I caught the look on Ro’s face and saw that she found that charming.

Barf. “Stop that,” I told her quietly. “Bad girl. If you don’t stop looking at him, I’m going to send you to bed with no supper.”

She looked at me like I was the one out of line.

Louder even than the background music was Iris laughing at me. I tried to ignore that she-devil completely.

Carter was still making his way to us, slowly, because of course every woman between us and the door stopped him for a long, tight hug.

“Poker’s at your house next month,” I told him when he was close enough that I didn’t have to raise my voice.

I’d maneuvered myself so I was standing directly in front of Ro.

He looked around, holding out his arms to indicate the party at large. “This does not count as you hosting poker, I hope you know.”

Ro tried to peek around me, but I shifted with her, effortlessly blocking her view. I could and would do this all night.

“I saw people playing poker earlier,” I said. “It’s not my fault you’re late.”

He shrugged and smiled in that good-natured way of his. “Okay, my place for poker night next time, fine.”

Another round of shots came by, passed around the pool in little plastic cups on a big tray, courtesy of evil Frankie.

I dumped Ro’s in the pool while she watched. She grabbed at another. I dumped that too.

Carter waved the tray away without taking one. “I work in the morning. No shots.”

He was just too good. I couldn’t imagine him getting so much as a parking ticket. When we talked women, he even managed to make sleeping around seem harmless. He was friends with every one of his exes. They all fucking loved him. It was unnatural.

“When you break bad it’s going to be something interesting, I bet,” I mused out loud.

He looked amused and unfazed by that.

“He does work at a high school,” Iris threw out.

“Hey now, what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, looking much less amused.

He was flushing to the point I actually thought she could be onto something, sinister savant that she was.

“Some of the seniors have got to be eighteen,” Iris added.