Let Me (O'Brien Family, #2)(9)

“Hell, yeah,” I tell her. “Want to feel?” I ask, leaning in.

I don’t think she’s going to touch me, but then she reaches out, grazing my skin so lightly, I barely feel it. When most girls touch me, they really touch me, making it clear they want to do a lot more. With Sol, it’s different, more like she’s afraid to cause me pain. Weird, especially since she knows I bust people up for a living.

She finds the spot where my nose curves just slightly, her features revealing sadness I don’t expect. “Wow,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all good. Part of the job, you know?”

She nods like she understands, but it doesn’t erase that hint of sadness I catch. I watch her hand as she pulls it away and carefully places it on the table. Yeah. Sol’s different. But I’m starting to think she’s different in more ways than I originally thought. “What about you?” I ask.

“I can honestly say my nose has never been broken,” she answers.

I chuckle, knowing that now she’s the one trying to lure my grin. “You know what I mean. What’s your best feature?”

“My brain,” she says. She points to her skull when my stare lowers to her perky round breasts. “This one right here.”

“Sorry,” I offer, not really meaning it. “Didn’t mean to get distracted by your . . .”

“Personality?” she teases, “Sparkling wit, dazzling sense of humor?”

All right, two can play it that way. I lift my arm, bending it enough to bulge the muscles along my bicep and pecs as I pass my hand through my hair.

Sol’s gaze drags along my shoulder, chest, arm, all the way up to the broody stare I’m pegging her with before she catches herself. “Looks like we’re even,” I say when her lips part.

She covers her face with her hand and shakes her head. “You are seriously unbelievable.”

“You forgot hot,” I remind her. I shift my position so I’m as close as can be with this damn table between us. “So, when are we going out?”

So much for not over doing it.

She lifts her face, raising her brows. “Going out?” she asks.

I glance around like I’m confused. “Yeah. We can’t exactly make out here . . . unless you really want to.”

“What happened to being classy?” she asks, giggling.

“This place is classy.” I motion to the mini juke box perched at the end of the table. “Where else can you hear the Rolling Stones for fifty cents?”

“Good point.” It’s what she says, but then lifts her coat from where it’s lying beside her.

“Where you going?” I ask. “I thought we were having fun.”

She pauses in the middle of buttoning her wool coat. “Finn, I did have a good time―and please know I appreciate you keeping me company. This . . .” She purses her lips, cutting herself off. “I’m sorry. I have lot going on in my life right now. I’ll see you around, okay?”

“That’s it? You serious?” I ask, standing when she does.

Her smile softens, but when she looks at me, her gaze doesn’t pass along my form, doesn’t stop to take in my muscles, doesn’t invite me closer. She simply stares at me, as if trying to gather her words. “You’re really sweet,” she finally says. “But this is a bad time for me to get to know more of that sweetness.”

I frown when she slips a twenty out of her purse and places it on the table. Considering she only had coffee, that’s one hell of a tip. “You’re not paying for me,” I say. “I got this.”

She places her hand on my wrist when I reach for my wallet, the same way she touched my nose, barely grazing my skin, but having one hell of an effect. “Don’t,” she says. “It’s my way of thanking you.”

I cock my head. “For what? Keeping you company?”

“No,” she explains quietly. “For giving me a smile I didn’t know I had in me.”

It’s what she says. But as I watch her walk away, I realize she did the same damn thing for me.





CHAPTER 5


Finn




I reach into the back of Killian’s F-150 for a giant tray packed with what smells like stuffed peppers, but Sofia’s clasp to my arm holds me in place. “How are you doing?” she asks. “You were really quiet on the way over here.”

She waited for Killian to head into her brother’s house with another tray of food before asking. I haven’t talked to Kill about all the shit going on in my head lately, not like I used to. He’s noticed and probably told Sofia I’ve been pulling away. But I can’t seem to talk to anyone anymore, not about anything real. It’s probably one of the reasons I’ve been getting worse, but I don’t want to admit as much.

“Good,” I answer. Just tired. How you doing?”

“You know what I mean,” she says quietly.

I don’t want to worry her, or him, or hell, anyone. But somehow I always manage to screw that up. “I’m in counseling,” I answer like a dumbass, like she doesn’t already know.

Her long springy curls brush against her shoulder as she tilts her head. “Do you think it’s helping?”