The 6’3 blonde Irishman who is currently buying me a drink at the Irish pub. He’s charming, and muscled, and looking at me like I’m his next snack.
This is what I should be doing, at the age of 24, I tell myself. What everyone else is doing. Dating around, playing the field, not being sucked into whatever scheme the father of my child is trying to involve me in. I definitely shouldn’t be having to think about whether the man I’m dating is a security concern, but I do anyway, briefly wondering if he’s part of the Irish mob.
That’s ridiculous. Not everyone is involved in organized crime. The scar on the back of his arm was probably from playing rugby.
I push away the voice in my mind telling me what a bad idea this is and focus on drinking and being charmed by Finneas’s crazy stories. When my phone rings, I answer it on reflex, then hear the deep male voice on the other end.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, what is it now?” I ask him, the alcohol coursing through my veins giving me confidence. “Another fake emergency?”
“Where are you?”
Art sounds pissed.
Really pissed, his voice low and taut like a whip that’s about the crack. But he has no right to be.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Is that your boyfriend?”Finneas lilts, sliding a muscled arm around my waist.
I let him, trying to relax into his touch even as my instinct is to tense every muscle.
The truth is, I’ve never been with someone other than Art, and it feels wrong as hell.
As Lily pointed out when we started swiping through men, Finneas is as close as it gets to Art in terms of appearance. Tall, blonde, muscled, tattooed. He dresses differently, though, with a brightly patterned shirt buttoned so low that I can see the skull tattooed across his chest, dipping between the swell of his ridiculous chest muscles. Art would never.
“No,” I tell him. “Not my boyfriend…. Just some asshole who can’t take a hint,” I say loudly into the receiver.
“Was that an Irish accent?” Art’s growl on the end of the line makes me think that somehow, he knows exactly where I am and who I’m with. “Are you with the fu?—”
“Like I said, it’s none of your fucking business.”
I drop my phone, mid-call, right into Finneas’s pint of Guinness.
“Attagirl.” He continues to knock back the pint anyway, a massive grin plastered across his face. When he offers to take me back to his local bar, I agree.
It’s possible that I’m already a bit drunk. But I don’t regret a thing. Something about Art’s tone makes me think that I will regret it soon.
He sounded like a man on a mission. And for some fucked-up reason, it sent a thrill of anticipation through my nervous system.
18
ARTYOM
I’m already waiting outside.
Finneas Keane. The Irish Mob’s prize boxing champion.
Of course, that’s who my girl ends up seeing to spite me.
I storm into the bar after a few minutes. She doesn’t need to know that I was waiting outside, waiting to be proven right. She shouldn’t have come here. I don’t understand what kind of game she’s trying to play.
I shouldn’t even be here. Even driving down this street is a risk, but parking a distinctive sports car right outside the Irish Mob headquarters? I’m asking for trouble.
But Nina is not gonna make it that easy for me.
“Are you stalking me?”
Nina spits the accusation in my face when I appear at their table.
