Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)(68)

I groan. “God, when you put it like that I sound like an idiot.”

Lola makes the Well? face and winces sympathetically.

“This thing with Salvatore could be amazing, Lola. Yes it was risky but it could work out if he only stopped with the caveman chest thumping and thought about it!” Looking at each of them in turn, I say, “By the way? You can’t tell Oliver or Ansel any of this. Finn hasn’t told them yet.”

Lola nods immediately but Mia squirms a little in her seat. Finally she says, “Okay. But I really hope he tells them soon because secrets with me and Ansel? Historically not a good thing.”

“I know, Sugarcube, and I’m sorry I put you in this position.” I lean across the table to put my hand on her arm. “But lest we forget, it was your chatty husband who spilled the cancer details to Finn before I had a chance to, so you guys kind of owe me.”

“I’ll only put out once tonight to punish him,” she jokes.

I laugh. “Troll.”

“Seriously, though. Ansel is half Adonis, half puppy. You want me to be mad at him for worrying about you and forgetting he wasn’t supposed to talk about your mom?” Her mildly raised eyebrow tells me she knows the answer.

I drop my head back onto my arms again. “No. He’s adorable and sweet and I’m an idiot for meddling in someone else’s business, per usual.” Sighing, I say, “Usually it works out so well.”

“What I don’t fully understand is, what was going on with you two?” Mia asks. “I thought you were just sleeping together, and then you weren’t, and now it’s got you like this? I hate to point out the obvious, Harlow, but you’ve never called an emergency conference over a boy before.”

Lola nods. “I was pretty sure you were the first woman in history to make it to twenty-two without a guy crisis.”

“We said the I love you’s last night,” I admit in a whisper.

“What?” they yell in unison. A few café customers nearby turn to stare at us.

“God, take it down a notch, psychos,” I say, laughing in spite of myself. They’re enjoying this way too much. “At first he was this fun distraction from what was going on with Mom and my complete lack of a good job and all those quarter-life crisis things no self-respecting person over thirty has any sympathy for.”

I pick up a paper napkin and start tearing it into little strips. “Then I started thinking about Finn more than I was thinking about anything else, and he had this boat thing going on—though I didn’t know the details until later—so we sort of agreed to cool it.”

“And?” Mia asks.

“And . . . then I was having fun trying to figure out how to fix his problem, and we were spending a lot of time together because you *s were busy with work or husbands or totally oblivious to the men who are blatantly in love with you.”

“Wait. What?” Lola asks.

Ignoring her, I continue quietly: “Finn is sweet, and funny and stoic in this way that is totally foreign to me but I actually really appreciate, coming from the Family That Discusses Everything.

And he’s hot. Dear Lord, you guys. Finn in bed is no joke. And he’s not a whiny La Jolla mama’s boy, he’s a man who was raised to get shit done, and not cry over hangnails. Finn could break your vagina and be just handy enough to put it back together.” I pick at the sleeve of my sweater, dropping my voice even more. “He looks at me like he adores me, but then he’ll make fun of me—which I like, turns out—and he started to feel like my guy, you know?” I don’t even care that I’m babbling now; I’m just letting it all out. “He looks at me like we have this little secret, and we do. My secret is that I f*cking love him. And he was a jerk today.”

Mia puts her hand on my arm and slides it down, weaving her fingers with mine. “Harlow?”

I look up at her. Mia and Ansel have been married since June, but only a little over two months ago they had a huge fight, something so huge and hurtful between them that I could see on her face she was worried she might have lost the thing she wanted more than anything in the world—even more than to erase the accident that shattered her dream of dancing for a living: her marriage.

So I know what she’s going to say before she even opens her mouth.

“You just have to go fix it,” she says simply. “He’s mad, you’re hurt. But as clichéd as it sounds, none of that really matters in the long run. Just go talk to him.”

I LIFT THE R2-D2 knocker and drop it down against Oliver’s front door, but my stomach is already gone, dissolved away from my body and leaving in its place a hollow, aching pit. Finn’s truck isn’t at the curb.

Oliver answers the door shirtless, in lounge pants that hang way too low and expose way too much muscular hip for a guy I’d like to firmly and forever keep in the friend zone. He’s clearly just got out of the shower; his hair is wet and messy, his glasses a little foggy. Even with the panic rising in my throat, I can still take a second to appreciate how cute he would be with Lola if he would just man up and ask her out for real.

“Expecting a booty call?” I ask, keeping my eyes on his face.

He takes an enormous bite of apple and chews it with a wry grin on his face. Finally swallowing, he says, “I think we both know I’m not.” He lifts the apple to his mouth and says behind it, “Just dressed as if I’m hanging out in my house alone, as you do.”