“You keep looking at your phone.”
“Lily’s coming over. I was checking if she’d texted.”
“You didn’t say Lily was coming.” Harry scowled. “Thought this was a lads’ evening in.”
Considering we lived together and saw each other every day, I wouldn’t be guilted about inviting Lily. “No one said that. I haven’t seen Lily in ages.”
“Since you became friends with that girl, you have become the shittiest wingman ever,” Zac opined, eyes still on the screen. “And I have a suspicion you haven’t gotten laid since.”
Harry grimaced. “I don’t get it. Why are you spending time with this girl if you’re not getting anything from her? She’s a little fuller”—he gestured with his hands—“than my usual taste, but those curves are nicely compacted. Any bloke with a working dick would hit that.”
Zac groaned under his breath.
Probably because he could tell I was seconds from punching my best mate in the face. “You talk about Lily like that again, and you and I will have problems, Harry. Real fucking problems.”
Harry blanched. “We talk about girls like that all the time.”
“No,youtalk about girls like that all the time. I just haven’t called you on your bullshit until now. Lily is my friend. You don’t disrespect my friends. You hear me?” I seethed.
Raising his palms defensively, Harry nodded. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. I like Lily. You know I do. I just … I don’t get it. Why aren’t you dating her? You’re not sleeping with other girls, so you might as well be in a committed relationship.”
“We’re just friends.” I scrubbed a hand over my face as I looked back at the game. “I think my mum pushing all these girls on me has messed with my head. I’m afraid if I even try to go home with someone, it’ll turn out she was sent by my mother.”
“That’s disturbing,” Zac offered.
“I know.”
Harry clamped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I get it. Why don’t I do some reconnaissance on some luscious ladies so you can get laid?”
I shot him a look. “Harry, mate, I love you like a brother. But you are not setting me up with a woman like a pimp.”
Zac snorted on a swallow of beer and started coughing.
Harry grinned. “Shit. Sorry. Didn’t mean for it to come off weird. I was thinking?—”
“Keen’s got the ball!” Zac rasped out, throwing an arm toward the TV.
With that we were dragged back into a game that suddenly got exciting.
Before moving to Edinburgh, none of us had been into Scottish teams because we supported English teams. I’d been a Merseyside FC supporter my whole life. I’d indoctrinated Harry and Zac into my love of the club. However, when we’d moved to Edinburgh, we started following the Scottish Professional League and had become firm fans of Caledonia United. They were the underdogs, always third behind the two largest Glasgow teams, but with Callan Keen, the country’s top midfielder, in their ranks, Caley had become a force to be reckoned with.
So engrossed in the game, I didn’t hear the knock at the door or the door opening.
“I just had dinner with him,” a familiar female voice announced behind Zac.
We turned to find Lily standing between the couch and the kitchen, gesturing to the TV. She gave me a smile. At the sight of her, of those dimples, I ignored the flutter in my chest.
“You had dinner with who?” Zac asked, grinning up at her.
“Callan. He’s dating my cousin Beth.”
Harry and Zac erupted into a million questions. Lily laughed, surprised by their excitement. I literally cut through them by getting up to cross the room to her. Reaching for her, I took her by the upper arms, bending my head so our faces were inches apart.
“My darling Lily, are you telling me you know Callan ‘the Flash’ Keen?”
Her full lips trembled with laughter at my intensity. “I do.”
“You had dinner with the man?”
