“Are you happy?” he asked me.
“With you? That remains to be seen, but the chances aren’t looking good.”
He rolled his eyes. “With Darren.”
Darren tensed in front of me, like he thought there was a chance I’d say no. What an idiot. “Probably the happiest I’ve been,” I said truthfully.
“When we get out of here, I am going to do so many things to you,” Darren muttered under his breath.
“Yes please,” I whispered back. Then, louder, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Mike smiled that slippery smile of his. “See, funny story, and stick with me here, okay? So, I may have stretched the truth about how much trouble Jack It was in.”
“What,” I said flatly.
“Once upon a time, I saw this—”
“Mike.”
He sighed. “I signed the new contract on Jack It.”
“When?”
“The week after your lunch with Andrew Taylor.”
“What?” I shrieked, immediately feeling guilty when Darren winced.
Mike shrugged. “Do you know how much shit I’ve got on him? On his entire administration? There was never any chance the contract wouldn’t get signed. It probably also didn’t hurt that Lambda Legal sent the city of Tucson a nice inquiry letter, asking why a new contract hadn’t been provided as of yet. That letter, coupled with a few phone calls to remind certain officials of favors that were owed to me for keeping my mouth shut and voila! Jack It is contracted to remain open until sometime in the next decade.” Then he frowned at me. “Though, if you plan on running naked through my bar, that might not always be the case.”
“Darren, you need to move,” I growled.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m about to commit murder.”
“Yeah,” Darren said. ?
??I don’t think I’m going to do that. I just got you and I don’t think I’m the type to go for conjugal visits.”
“Rude,” I said. “And don’t lie. You’d find some way to break me out. And if you couldn’t do that, then I’d expect you to at least commit a crime so that you’d be incarcerated with me. Our love burns bright.”
“Not that brightly,” Darren said, the snarky bastard.
“This is so nice,” Mike said, smiling dreamily at us. “I can’t believe this worked.”
“What worked?” I snarled at him.
“You two,” Mike said, as if it were obvious. “I got you together. That was the whole point of this.”
We both gaped at him.
He rolled his eyes. “You seriously haven’t figured that out?”
“What the fuck,” I said faintly.
“Look,” Mike said. “I knew Darren was in love with you, but wasn’t doing anything about it. And I knew you had feelings for him, but instead of manning up and admitting to yourself what everyone else could see, you decided to act like a bitch toward him. And I told myself, Mike ol’ buddy, you need to find some way to get these two crazy kids together.”
“Is this real life?” I breathed to Darren.