I went to step around them but Emily grabbed my elbow. “We’ve been looking for you.”
I stared down at her hand and back up. Girls like this were tricky, what with how they could spin innocuous moments like this on social media. “Hey, we’re sorry. We really are. But we have to get up early tomorrow for a... a—”
“Team bonding event,” Finn said with a straight face. “Coach likes to make sure we don’t twist off too hard on New Year’s and get in trouble.” He touched his hand to his forehead in a salute. “Maybe we’ll see you around another time.”
In one smooth move, he inserted himself between the clinger and me, allowing me to fall into step beside him as we headed out.
“But... but... Bax.” She drew my name out to three syllables, but we were already at the door.
Freezing wind slapped us in the face as we stepped into the parking lot, so we didn’t waste time hustling over to my truck. After I fired it up, I said, “That was some quick thinking back there.” I bumped my fist to his.
“Let me guess. You lost that one’s number.” He chuckled.
“Nope. Couldn’t lose what I didn’t ask for.”
“Heartbreaker,” he said with a snort. “She sure acted like she’d made an impression, if you know what I mean.”
“Laughing at your own jokes again, Finnegan?” I slid him a side-eye. “She left an impression all right. Pure vanilla. Emphasis on ‘pure.’”
“Yeah, not your type at all.” He smirked.
“Hey. I’m not a slut, but I prefer a girl who has a clue what she likes and what she wants.” A picture of violet eyes staring down at me as Piper rode the hell out of my cock flashed through my mind. “What’s the story with you and Piper’s friend Chessly?”
I made the roundabout and headed down our street, slowing for the drifts the winds were building down the middle of the road.
Finn slumped down in his seat. “There is no story.”
Pulling into the driveway, I killed the engine and twisted in my seat to stare my roommate down. “Then what was that reaction to Chessly doing her groove thang on the tabletop and your red face when you saw those two guys standing behind her and Piper in that second video?”
He ran a hand down his face and focused his gaze on the front of the house. “I hooked up with her on Homecoming.” A tiny grin tugged up the side of his mouth. “Two science nerds discovering some chemistry.” Blowing out a breath, his chin dropped to his chest. “Then Tory Miller showed up, and I was nice to her as always.”
“And...?” I rolled my hand in the universal gesture for “go on.”
“I discovered Tory and Chessly have a bad history. Tory implied to Chessly that she and I have something going on.”
“Do you?”
His head snapped up. “Course not! I’m not a total idiot. Besides, she’d set her sights on Callahan and was only using me to get to him,” he mumbled. “Anyway, I fucked up, and now Chessly despises me. I don’t have the first clue how to fix it.”
“Judging from your reaction to that video, you want to though.”
We pushed open the doors on the truck simultaneously and headed up the sidewalk into the house.
“Don’t think that’s possible.” He kicked off his shoes and hung his coat on a peg by the door.
I followed suit. By silent agreement we headed to the kitchen. Automatically, I pulled a carton of eggs and a roll of sausage from the fridge and started cooking up a sausage scramble for return-from-the-bar breakfast. For once, Finn helped without being asked by loading slices of bread into the toaster and setting out a couple of plates.
“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” I asked with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“We certainly are.” He cracked open a couple of beers and set them beside our plates on the table.
Stuffing our faces with food meant we didn’t have to talk about girls. To cap off our pathetic night, we playedCODuntil four in the morning. When the sun poked its weak rays through the living-room window, I woke up in the recliner and shook my head at Finn sprawled across the couch.
“Happy fucking New Year, buddy,” I whispered and dragged my ass upstairs to collapse in my bed until noon.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Piper
