I flinch. ‘Something like that.’
‘Who’d leave you? Fuck that guy.’
I sit back in my chair, not far, but enough to mark distance, and adjust the napkin in my lap. ‘What makes you think I wasn’t the problem?’
‘Because you’re sitting here on your Saturday night, helping me fix my mess.’ He points his fork at me. ‘You’re a fixer, not a breaker. You care.’
I don’t have anything to say to that. It’s oddly perceptive, and it catches me off guard.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Too much?’
‘No, a bit unexpected.’
‘I’m full of surprises, darlin’.’ He smiles, and it’s miles apart from the charm he flashes for cameras or the cheeky trademark grin.
I’m ready with a sarcastic reply, but it never makes it out. Not when he smiles at me in a way that triggers a full cranial vasodilation response, which is the scientific term for what happens when your face glows like a traffic light.
As I said, debilitating.
‘Your turn again,’ I say quickly. ‘Why rugby? It looks like it hurts a lot.’
His smile morphs into a grin. ‘It does. But I had to channel my ang—…energy somewhere.’ He pushes his fork through the lasagne with a little too much focus. ‘My PE teacher shoved me into this Active Schools thing when I was nine. Coach there said I had legs and no fear, and sent me to a club team. Told me to show up and not fuck it.’
‘And did you?’
He gestures to himself. ‘Here I am, in all my glory. I fuck up everything else, but never rugby.’
‘There’s more to it than that.’
He pauses, fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Maybe. But that’s for the second fake date, don’t you think?’
He’s hiding something. Not just the usual deflection, but something deeper. It’s in the careful way he constructs each answer, revealing just enough to satisfy without exposing anything real.
It scratches at my curiosity. And that’s dangerous.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘But I’m onto you, Lennox.’
‘I bet.’ He reaches across the table and takes my hand, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. ‘The photographer got her phone out again.’
His skin is warm, rough in places. Every slow pass of his thumb drags awareness across my skin. I don’t get how someone built to break through walls can touch like this. But I let him.
‘You’re good at this,’ I admit.
‘So are you.’ His eyes meet mine. They’re bright and disarmingly direct. No smirk, no shield. He sees more than I want him to, and he doesn’t look away.
There’s that flutter again.
Because I wasn’t talking about being good at faking it. I was talking about the touching part. He’s an absolute genius at that.
Woah. This is only to save Elite Edge and Charlie. The job I love, I remind myself. A sacrifice, as he called it. But as I intertwine my fingers with his, the part of me that’s meant to stay untouched doesn’t feel so untouched anymore.
I’m in control. I’ve got this.
And if I keep thinking it, I might even believe it.
Chapter 6
Finn
