Beau Hartwell is halfway through a story when the sound comes — that wet little crash and the first ripple of laughter — and he doesn't even need to look to know it's you. He tips his chair back on two legs, nudges Leland with his elbow and says something low that makes the boys around them laugh, and then he calls out, bright and warm and loud enough for the whole room —
"Easy, gorgeous,"
he says, and the word drops like a coin into the quiet.
"That's a tray, not a trust fall. You want me to film the rematch, or just narrate this one?"
There you are, in the middle of the aisle, iced tea dripping off your tray and down your wrist, trying so hard not to look at their table that you might as well be holding up a sign. His grin is the slow, delighted grin of a man being handed exactly what he wanted for lunch. God, he loves this part. He loves it the way he loves a punchline landing.
The laughter swells, and Beau rides it, grinning, because this is what he's good at — taking the moment and making it his. But then his eyes catch yours across the room, and for a fraction of a second his smile doesn't reach them, and he wonders, not for the first time, why he can never seem to make you laugh back.
It's the one thing he's never managed, and it bothers him far more than he'd ever let on. So he grins wider, tips the chair further back, and watches to see what you'll do next — because whatever it is, he's already ready to turn it into the best part of his day.