Page 6 of Three Bossy Boyfriends (Honeysuckle Harbor #3)

Finley

I can’t get a good read on Evan Young.

He’s a little bit nerdy, definitely intelligent, and a whole lot of easy-to-be-around.

Plus, he’s pretty. He makes heads turn, both male and female. He wears his suit to polished perfection, has a charming smile, and has polite manners that have the OGs in Raw eating out of his palm.

I may have had one too many martinis, but after we agreed to fake date, the conversation with Evan has flowed readily and has been entertaining.

We enjoy the same music, movies, views on life in general and marshmallows specifically—absolutely disgusting—yet there’s something I can’t put my finger on.

We’ve moved to the bar to give the server her table back, and we’ve destroyed a charcuterie board, two eclairs, and more alcohol than is probably wise.

He’s made no indication he wants to leave, and I’m stubborn enough that I will sit my ass on this stool until close just to prove a point.

What that point is, I have no idea anymore.

Evan brushes a pastry crumb off of my bottom lip, and a shiver rushes through me. He has green eyes with an amber ring around them, and they dance with mirth right now.

“You missed a bite.”

The pad of his finger eases between my lips, catching me completely off guard. I suck in a breath, which only serves to suck his finger deeper into my mouth. His eyes darken. A warm heat pools in my belly, and I realize what I can’t figure out. Is he actually attracted to me?

Because if he is, I think I might be attracted to him, and that seems…messy.

He has the hots for Christopher.

Who clearly has a thing for Evan in return.

I also can’t get Tucker Hastings out of my head.

God, that man is infuriating.

He didn’t even recognize me. He humiliated my seventeen-year-old self and didn’t have the decency to know me on sight?

I had a crush on his stupid, oversized, brawny ass in high school. He was an It Guy . Everyone liked him. He called me weird and creepy. According to my sisters, he’s still popular around town. And I’m a little less weird and a little less creepy.

But I still kind of want to kick him in the gonads.

Or at least prove to him—as stupid as it is—that I am at least attractive to someone .

Even if it’s fake.

“What are you thinking right now?” Evan asks, his finger still in my mouth.

That I want him to kiss me.

I suck it lightly before pulling back. “That I’m drunk and I’m going to have to call off work tomorrow.”

Evan laughs lightly. “We can’t have that. Mary Grace will annihilate you.” He sits back on his stool, leaving my personal space. “Here, drink some water.” He hands me my tumbler filled with water and ice.

I raise the cool glass to my warm lips and take an enormous gulp. “Good thing Fiona already left. She would be cutting me off and dragging me home.” I suddenly have a thought. “How are you getting home? You’ve had at least three bourbons.”

“Five,” he admits. “I’m calling an Uber when we’re ready to leave.”

I don’t want to leave. Not really. I don’t want to go to the guest room at my sisters’ house and stare at the ceiling while I ponder this bizarre turn my life has taken.

Back home in Honeysuckle Harbor.

Ugh.

Not that my hometown is bad. It’s pretty great in a lot of ways. Natural beauty, sand and surf, friendly and caring people. It’s just that I was supposed to leave all the haters behind and make something of myself in New York.

“I think we have the rumor mill churning,” Evan comments, tipping his head slightly toward the restaurant.

I glance around. There are definite side glances and whispers behind raised palms. The bartender, Sheila, has been peppering us with questions all night.

“I think they’re buying it,” I say, draining the rest of my water.

Evan’s hand lands on my knee. “Buying what?”

“That we’re dating.”

He squeezes my knee, his thumb twirling circles over the exposed skin.

His grip is firm—his touch distracting. My nipples harden beneath my stupid work blouse.

He shifts closer to me again. He ditched his suit jacket an hour ago, and I kicked my heels off onto the floor.

It feels intimate, like we’re alone instead of in a crowded popular restaurant.

His gaze drops to my mouth. “Let’s make sure.”

He’s definitely going to kiss me.

I drift toward him, a magnetic pull between us.

But I misjudge the edge of the stool and fall off it, tumbling forward against his chest.

“ Shit! ” I yell out, even as Evan’s hands wrap around me and prevent me from actually falling.

“Okay, you’re cut off.”

A stern voice comes from behind the bar. As I right myself, using Evan’s firm chest as a push-off, I turn my head to see Harrison Reed, my brother’s best friend since practically birth, removing my half-empty fourth—fifth?—martini.

“I’m taking you home, Finley,” he says firmly. “Neither of you are driving tonight.”

“Of course we’re not driving,” I protest. “And you don’t get to tell me when it’s time to leave.”

But Evan sets me gently away from him and stands up. “We probably should head out. We have a nine o’clock meeting tomorrow.”

Harrison nods. “You heard the man. Get your shoes, Finley.”

How does he even know I’m not wearing shoes? God, older brother’s best friends and small towns in general are so annoying.

Fiona has already left for the night, or I would go home with her.

Instead, I’m stuck there, wobbling slightly, while Harrison shakes Evan’s hand as if they’re passing the baton of my care from one to the other.

“I can get myself home,” I insist. “I lived in New York for ten years.”

Harrison is already around the bar, and he’s collecting my purse and my phone. “It’s called looking out for each other,” he tells me. “It’s a good thing.”

Then he ruffles the top of my head and bops me on the nose with a smile like I’m ten.

Grumbling, I bend over to pick up my shoes. “I’m fine,” I mutter.

Though I’m starting to think I’m not fine.

I feel…vulnerable.

It’s being back here and seeing Tucker Hastings. It’s brought up all those yucky feelings about not fitting in, about my sisters being perfect and pretty and my parents’ perpetual sighing in worry over me.

About being called weird and creepy.

“I’m going to put a curse on you,” I tell Harrison.

He laughs. “Nice try.”

He’s trying to usher me toward the exit, but I bat his hands away. “Let me say goodnight to Evan. For fuck’s sake.”

Evan is sliding his arms into his jacket sleeves and picking up his phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the office.”

The near-kiss moment has passed. He gives me a smile and then starts swiping on his phone.

“What about our bill? I can send you half.”

“Don’t worry about it. My treat. I invited you.”

Evan leans over and kisses my cheek briefly. Then he murmurs in my ear, “Goodnight, Mary Jane.”

His breath tickles my ear. I shiver a little as he pulls away. “Goodnight, Peter Parker.”

His smile is slow, dirty, sexy. “I’ll see you tomorrow to save the world.”

Mollified, I make my exit with Harrison.

Once in his passenger seat, I click on my seat belt and tell him, “That was heavy-handed and unnecessary.”

Harrison fires up the engine of his sports car. “I can live with that.”

“You’re going to tell Ford I got drunk at Raw, aren’t you?” I lean my head back against the seat.

“Of course. And that you were hanging all over your coworker.”

“I was not hanging all over—!” I stop talking. Harrison is grinning. I fell right into that trap. “You suck.”

“I do.” The grin widens. “Just about every night.”

My jaw drops. It’s a clear reference to sex with his husband. Then I start laughing. “Then I guess Liam is lucky.”

“As am I.” He pulls out of the lot. “So, you and the lawyer, huh? You work fast.”

“I’m not really sure he’s into me,” I say, because I am always straightforward even when sober, and I’m certainly that way when drunk. “I think he might be interested in someone else. A guy.”

“Oh, he’s into you. I saw it. And who says you can’t be into a guy and a girl at the same time?”

Considering Harrison is also romantically involved with my brother’s wife, Ivy, he speaks from experience.

“Is it hard to share?”

“No. Not at all. As long as everyone is on board with it, it can be very rewarding. We all get different needs met from our different relationships.”

I don’t know why I’m asking about sharing. That’s never really crossed my mind. People casually date more than one person all the time. But if Evan wants to date me and Christopher, I don’t know what that looks like. Which is me getting way ahead of myself.

Evan’s focus is on making partner. Mine needs to be on passing the bar.

This. Is. Fake.

“My needs are simple. Pass the bar and get out of Honeysuckle Harbor.”

“Why the urgency?” Harrison says. “There are positives about being here.”

“Of course. But everyone feels like they have to look out for me, like I’m some sort of loose cannon.”

“There’s nothing wrong with people looking out for you.”

“Sure, if you’re you. If you’re me, it’s because people think you’re still an angsty, volatile teen. The weird triplet.”

Seeing Tucker Hastings earlier has dredged up some buried emotions that have no business showing their stupid faces when I’m already in the midst of a ‘you-were-forced-to-slink-back-home’ crisis.

I can still hear Tucker’s voice as he stood by the lockers after third period with his two buddies, who were taking the twins to prom. They were trying to talk him into asking me to make it a triple date.

“A triplet date, how fucking cool with that be? Just ask Finley.”

“The weird, creepy triplet? No way,” Tucker had declared loudly and vehemently.

So loudly that his stupid voice still rings in my ears to this day, in spite of being ten years in the rearview mirror.

“Nobody thinks that,” Harrison says as he pulls into the driveway of my sisters’ cheerful yellow bungalow. “If they do, I want names so I can bankrupt them.”

Harrison has more business dealings than I can keep track of. He buys and sells properties and investments with dizzying speed according to my brother, and it’s made him very, very rich.

It’s tempting to have Harrison ruin him, but Tucker is already being sued. “Thanks, but I’ll just let karma do its thing.”

Harrison puts the car in park, and I open my door. “Thanks for the ride and for being a cockblock.” Not that I think Evan and I were headed in that direction tonight, but now we’d never know, would we?

My brother’s best friend just laughs. “Any time, Fin.”

I roll my eyes and climb out. The night air is crisp and cold, and I shiver.

South Carolina cold in February is nothing compared to the driving winds of New York City, but my thin blazer is still no match for even a southern winter.

I run up the porch steps and turn the knob on the front door.

My sisters never lock the door, which is insane.

It’s like they’ve never heard a true crime podcast in their life.

“Hello, I’m here to rob you of all your snack foods,” I say as I kick off my heels by the front door and rip my blouse out of the waistband of my pencil skirt.

“You should have eaten at Raw,” Fiona tells me, cuddled up on the sofa with a blanket and a book in her hand. “Or were you too busy flirting with Evan Young?”

“Definitely that. Where’s Frannie?”

“Still out with Hunter. She’s probably spending the night at his place.”

“At least one of us is getting railed.” I sigh and flop on the couch next to Fiona, who shoots me a dirty look when I accidentally sit on her feet. She yanks them out from under my butt.

“I think it’s getting serious. I like Hunter. I’m happy for Frannie.”

“He seems to match Frannie’s energy.” I only met him once at Christmas, but I could see he was attentive and caring toward Frannie.

Fiona nudges me with her feet. “You need to be careful. You shouldn’t be dating a coworker. Dad will flip out.”

“ Pfft . No big deal. Evan thinks Charles will approve.”

I want to tell my sister that it’s just fake, with a hint of underlying attraction, but I can’t. I can’t reveal to her Evan’s plans to get down and dirty with Christopher. That isn’t mine to share.

“You literally just met Evan. Don’t jump into anything.”

I wave my hand in dismissal. “It’s fine. By the way, Tucker Hastings is being sued. I saw him today.”

“Oh, no, that’s terrible. Do they have a case against him?”

“It doesn’t sound like it. But would it be a bad thing if the Golden Boy got taken down a notch or two?”

Fiona drops her book on the coffee table. “That’s rude. You’re not still mad about prom, are you?”

“Yes, I am. I’ll be mad about that until the end of time. On my deathbed, I will refuse to lift the curse I placed on him.”

Fiona snorts. “That wasn’t a real curse, and you know it. You got a dummies guide to witchcraft and lit a candle over his picture. And it’s time to move on.”

“Easy for you to say, Miss Four Guys Asked Me to Prom.”

“It’s because guys wanted to date identical twins.”

There was the issue. “But you’re a triplet. ”

Fiona makes a face. “Tucker seems like a nice guy these days. He coaches peewee football and volunteers at the animal shelter. We’re adults now.”

That’s debatable most days.

“He had his heart broken by Chelsea,” she adds. “It humbled him.”

“Good.”

“Don’t be mean. Seriously. Leave Tucker alone.”

That gives me pause. “Do you have a thing for Tucker Hastings?”

“No, of course not! I have a different type entirely.”

I’m somewhat mollified. “Have you ever hated someone so much you wanted to have sex with them? Like revenge fuck them and then ghost them?”

The idea is appealing when it comes to Tucker.

Not that he would be interested. But if he was…

“Sweetheart.” Fiona leans forward and squeezes my thigh. Her mouth is turning up into a smile. “You’re very, very scary sometimes.”

I grin back at her. “You have no idea.”

I think about Evan almost kissing me and how I felt the force of that look ripple all the way through my entire body.

“Oh, Lord. Go to bed, Fin. You have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mom.” My phone buzzes.

It’s Evan.

Did you make it home ok?

Yes. You?

In the Uber. How do you take your coffee? I’ll bring you one tomorrow.

Black. Like my soul.

Liar. You want to save the world, remember?

Only Monday through Friday.

Then you’re free Saturday night.

I grin.

“Evan?” Fiona asks. “Or Tucker?”

I smack her leg with a throw pillow. “Yes, Evan. I think my first day at the office was a hit. I’ve got him bringing me coffee tomorrow instead of the other way around.”

Maybe the next few months are going to be more interesting than I thought.