Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)(8)

I laugh, wiping a hand over my mouth. “You seem to be in a better mood tonight,” I say.

“Just have some stuff going on and trying not to think about it. And besides,” she says, raising her empty shot glass, “this helps immensely.”

“How many have you had?”

“Enough that I don’t care much, not so many that I don’t care at all.”

This seems like a pretty bleak response for someone I’ve assumed all along was chirpy and sexy and carefree. Really, though, I don’t actually know much about Harlow’s life. I know she’s a pretty little rich girl, and probably has a line of pretty little rich boys lined up at her door. I know she’s a loyal friend to Lola and Mia, and because she’s apparently one of those people that need to help every human alive, she was a driving force in getting Ansel and Mia back together again. But outside of that, there’s not much. I don’t even know what she does for work . . . or whether she works at all.

“Anything you want to talk about?” I offer halfheartedly.

“Nope,” she says, and tosses back another shot.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and my warm, drunken comfort is quickly replaced by a sense of dread. Without having to look, I know this is the message I’ve been waiting for. Back home my youngest brother, Levi, is running a safety check on the largest boat in our fleet, the Linda, named after our mother, and with the way things have been going, I’m willing to bet the news isn’t going to be good.

Short in the wheelhouse, none of the controls are working.

Fuck.

Although there are about a hundred curse words I want to type right now, I don’t answer right away.

Instead, I slip my phone back into my pocket, pour myself a shot, and throw it back. It helps.

“You okay there?” Harlow asks, watching me.

I clench my jaw against the burn, feeling it warm my body as it settles in my stomach. “Just a little distracted myself.”

“Well then—let’s have another!” She pours two more shots and hands me one. I know this isn’t really going to help. I’m going to sober up in the morning—or maybe a bit later in the day than that— and the controls in the boat will still be down, and our whole f*cking livelihood will still be just as in jeopardy as it is now. But, damn, I’d really like to forget all that for a while.

I pick it up, look at the clear liquid before I lean into her, my lips almost brushing the shell of her ear. “I think you and I both know the last time we drank tequila together it didn’t end so well.”

“True,” she says, pulling back just far enough to meet my eyes. “But there’s no twenty-four-hour chapel nearby manned by some reckless idiot willing to marry us, so I think we’re safe.”

Point made.

Harlow knocks back her shot and winces. “Ooooh . . . I don’t think I can do any more.” She holds up her hands, pretends to count out about thirty shots, and then smiles up at me. “One more and I’d face-plant into the bowl of these Fritos London is so excited about.”

She may have lost count, but I haven’t. Four shots into my time in the kitchen with Harlow and— besides Vegas—I’m drunk for the first time in years.

It feels like he’s been gone for an hour, but Not-Joe finally returns in a cloud of weed-smell. As he approaches, he extends his hand to me, saying very slowly, “I’m Not-Joe . . . it’s nice to meet you.”

Laughing, I remind him, “We met earlier at the store, when Oliver was doing the final walk-through?”

Not-Joe makes a little clucking sound, saying, “That’s why you looked familiar.”

It was three hours ago. This guy must not breathe unless it’s through a joint.

“You’re the lumberjack from Nova Scotia?” he asks.

“Fisherman from Vancouver Island.”

Harlow bursts out laughing. “Poor Finn.”

He looks back and forth between me and Harlow. “So do you guys know each other through Oliver, too?” he asks.

“Not exactly,” she says, and then looks at me with a silly grin. “Finn is my ex-husband.”

Not-Joe’s eyes go as wide as saucers. “Ex- husband?”

Nodding, I confirm, “That’s right.”

The kid looks at Harlow, and then really looks at her. Like eyes moving up and down her body in a way that makes me want to slap him into awareness and so he’ll stop f*cking leering at her like that.

“You don’t look old enough to be divorced,” he finally concludes.

I lean forward to break his attention away from her chest. “But I do?”

Now he looks at me, but with far less interest. “Yeah, actually. You’re older than her, right?”

“Right,” I say, laughing as Harlow giggles delightedly next to me. “Thanks.”

Not-Joe digs his hand into a bag of corn chips on the counter, asking, “It must be weird hanging out at a party with your ex.”

She waves him off, saying, “Nah. Finn is an easygoing guy.”

“Am I now?” I ask her, and this makes me laugh because if there has ever been a phrase to describe me, it’s not easygoing. Easygoing is Ansel. I often get “contained.” I am, admittedly, sometimes a little closed off. I am not easygoing.

Nodding, she studies me for a breath and then says, “Yeah. You like long walks on the dock, making little dream catchers out of your extra fishing line, and evenings spent yukking it up with some Mountie MILFs at the local Mooseknuckle Bar.”