Lysandra

I cursed as I reached for my clutch on the center console and met air. “What is it?” Aelin slurred from the passenger seat of her own car. Despite my offer to drive her home from girls’ night out, Rowan—ever the doting husband—came to pick her up himself. Newlyweds were something else.

“I left my purse inside somewhere. Who knows who snatched it up by now. My credit card, my ID—”

“Just go back inside. Look, you know I picked this bar because my cousin’s an employee. The over protective pain was watching us all night. If you left your bag, there’s just as good a chance he grabbed it and missed us leaving as some stranger picking it up.”

He was the bartender. The hot bartender dropping bad pick up lines when I went up for my one and only drink as a lightweight driving myself home. I groaned. I hadn’t seen him since Aelin and Rowan’s wedding where we hadn’t spoken a word, but he was certainly acting familiar tonight. “Alright. I’ll go check.”

Slipping back into the empty bar, I found the blond wiping down the counter. “Looking for your clutch?”

“Aelin said you probably picked it up,” I said, hope rising.

He nodded, dropping his stained rag on the bar top. “Rowan asked me to keep an eye on you girls.” He chuckled. “Aelin calls me over protective. Let’s just wait till she finds out her husband’s the one hounding me about watching you two.”

I smirked, sure my friend had a good enough idea about her husband’s interventions. “I guess we should thank the both of you for keeping us from becoming a Friday night bar horror story. That’s it,” I confirmed as he raised my black clutch from a shelf behind the bar.

He drew his hand back before I could take the purse from him. “You’ll get this back on one condition, Miss Lysandra.”

I crossed my arms, already irked by his little game. “That being?”

“Dance with me.” I snorted. “Come on. One dance right out here on the floor. No one’s watching.”

“I—” He raised his brows. “Fine.”

Stepping around the high counter, he turned a cheesy slow dance on his phone, sweeping me into his arms.

Taking a step, he led the first pattern. Oh, the man was smooth.

Here I had expected awkward out-of-time steps and stiff turns, but this man could dance. He gave a full laugh, easily reading my surprise. “So little faith, Lysandra. Why? I am the prima donna’s cousin. Shouldn’t I have maintained a skill or two we learned in our childhood?”

“I didn’t see you dance once at the wedding. I made my own assumptions, I suppose.”

He spun me under his arm—once, twice, drawing me in closer as we resumed our original stance. “Maybe I was waiting on the right partner.”

I met his eyes, surprised at what I found there. He held me like a gentleman, leaving space between our bodies, but the heat in his eyes promised something else, dare I welcome it.

“Are all of you Ashryvers such smooth-talkers?”

He grinned, leaning down as the song faded to its outro. “That depends. Is it working?”

~~~~~

Aelin

“So, did he have it?” I asked, waving a magazine over my freshly painted toes.

“Yes. Thankfully,” Lysandra said. “Replacing that stuff would have been a pain.” I grinned, glad we were speaking over the phone. How Lysandra hadn’t put together my history of pick-pocketing and my cousin finding her purse, I didn’t know. “Aelin, would it be weird if he and I went out? Like to dinner.”

My grin widened. “Lysandra, I think that’s a brilliant idea.”

~~~~~

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