* * *
By her thirdcup of coffee, Finn forgave her brother for kidnapping her. Mostly.
“Everything was fine,” she grumbled. “I was working through some things.”
“You were drunk and wallowing,” he corrected.
“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. You could have at least let me change into something decent.”
She gestured angrily at her wine-stained sweatshirt, but their sibling standoff was interrupted when the waitress buzzed by their table yet again to make sure Jake didn’t need anything, then almost tripped as she kept her eyes glued on him while she backed away. As usual, her handsome brother was impervious, his gaze on some important email or other on his phone.
“You can go back to the office now. I’m fine.”
He set his phone down and hit her with his best all-business stare. “Are you? Because I’m not quite sure why you’re in knots over your high school bully.”
A wave of protectiveness surged inside her. “I told you I got it wrong. He wasn’t the bad guy in all that.”
“Okay. But explain the ‘in knots’ part.”
She dragged a fork through the remains of her breakfast-for-late-lunch pancakes. “I think…” Time for confession. “I think the reason I got so mad and stayed mad for so long was that deep down, I liked Tom. Imorethan liked him, even when I was with Dylan. Dylanwasthe high school bully, by the way.”
Jake grimaced. “I never liked that guy.”
“A letterman jacket is a powerful aphrodisiac for sixteen-year-old girls.”
“Oh, I’m painfully aware,” he said wryly.
She flashed a quick smile at her brother, who’d been too busy busting his ass making money in high school to mess around with sports. Then she took a deep breath and confronted a truth she’d kept tucked away for years.
“I used to be so relieved when Tom would break up with whatever girl he was seeing, even though it was hypocritical as hell since I was with Dylan the whole time. When he posted those horrible things, I guess it felt easier to never speak to him again instead of asking myself why it hurt so much.” She shifted uncomfortably on the bench seat, not wanting to meet Jake’s steady brown eyes. “And then eight years later, he magically turned up in my apartment, and it was like I had the chance to work through all of it and maybe have a…”
“A happy ending?” Jake finished her thought.
She flushed and looked up. “Yeah. I thought maybe we could have a happy ending.”
“And now you can’t?”
Could they? Could she fix what she’d done, undo the hurt she’d caused?
“I don’t know.”
“Well, don’t you think you should at least try?”
Dammit. She hated when Jake was right. Her only choice was to change the subject in the most obnoxious way possible. “Soyou’restill single, right? I don’t suppose you finally want to take Josie on a date?”
He scoffed and reached for his all-important phone. “She’s busting my chops. Josie doesn’t actually want to go out with me.”
“Um, everybody wants to go out with you. Our Uber driver wanted to go out with you.”
He looked up from his phone, startled. “She did not.”
“She followed us to the door of the restaurant and stared at your ass the whole time. And she double-parked to do it!”
He waved a dismissive hand at her. “I’ll have time for that later. After I—”
“—make partner at your big, important accounting firm,” she finished for him. “I know, I know.”
They both fell silent, and Finn knew he was thinking about his eternal quest to sock away enough money so she and her mom would never have to lose sleep over it again, even though she was an employed adult and their mother had moved downstate to marry a nice man who owned a hardware store.
