“Huh?” The drunk guy’s face scrunches up as he frowns up into my savior’s face, who smiles thinly at him.

“My wife.”

Yeah, wait, what?

The smaller, drunk guy swallows quickly, his eyes dropping to the muscled arm slung across my shoulders as if suddenly actually noticing the size difference between himself and “my husband”.

“Uh, look, pal, I didn’t-” He suddenly peers closer at the man standing besides me. “Hang on, aren’t you-”

“Going to let you walk away if you do it right the fuck now?” The man’s voice is somehow both easy and hard - like he’s smiling with a knife in his hand.

The smaller man swallows quickly. “Shit, Taylor, man. I didn’t know-”

“Walk away.”

The other man nods quickly. “Yeah- yeah of course man.” He flashes a quick smile, that piece of food still stuck between his teeth as he gives a final, awkward nod and scurries away.

“Hey!” He turns a few steps away, raising his drink in the air as if the guy that just sent him packing is an old buddy. “Hey, lookin’ forward to an awesome year, dude!”

I am thoroughly, thoroughly confused, and I’m still blinking at the man with his muscled, tattooed arm draped languidly across my shoulders when he turns back to me. He grins at me, and I can instantly feel every drop of booze slamming through my system on overdrive, my head spinning as those perfect lips pull into a grin, and those perfect eyes twinkle at me.

“You okay?”

I blink, refocusing on him instead of drowning in those eyes like I just was. “Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m-”

Lost in that look? Tongue-tied like some sort of schoolgirl?

Drunker than I think I am?

I blink again, forcing myself to focus. “Your wife, huh?”

He grins, that cocky, utterly confident smirk I saw earlier. “I think I saw that in a movie. Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

“It did,” I bite my lip as I smile back at him.

God he’s attractive.

“So, thanks for that.”

There’s a cough behind him, and we both turn to see his friend with the glasses standing there. “So, I guess we’re done for the night?” the man says flatly.

My Texas-drawled savior nods and shrugs casually. “I think we are, Derek.”

There’s a note of thinly veiled sarcasm in his voice, and Derek’s eyes dart meaningfully to me before narrowing at my stranger. “Try and at least give half a shit about what I just said, Austin.”

“Loud and clear.”

Derek gives me a thin smile before he shakes his head and walks away.

Austin - my stupidly attractive savior has a name apparently - turns back, that cocky grin on his face. “So.”

He winks at me, half a smile cocked across his jaw. “So…did you want a selfie or something?”

I frown quizzically. “Uh, no, I’m good.”

The corners of his lips pull up in a grin. “You don’t want an autograph or something like that?”

“I-” I raise an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, is this like a game or something?”

His brow furrows as he peers at me again, almost curiously. “No, I mean…” he grins suddenly and shakes his head. “You’re not really a TV person, are you?”

“Who the heck watches TV anymore? Ever heard of Netflix?” The sass comes out of me with zero filter as I reach for my martini and do my best impression of a movie-star sip, hoping to hell it looks smooth and sexy instead of sloppy and drunk.