“Fuck, no!” I retort. At checkout, my heart leapt when the receptionist mentioned there was a message for me. Maybe she’d left me her number after all?No such fucking luck.Though there were looks. Weird ones as I opened the envelope and a good chunk of cash almost spilled from it.
“That’s not what it sounds like.” Oliver remains impassive; meanwhile, glee dawns slowly on Fin’s face.
“You American gigolo, you.” The bastard enunciates each word slowly, delightedly.
“Isn’t that an old movie?” Oliver looks mildly confused.
“Yeah, with Richard Gere. Though he’s more like Richard’sgear,” Fin adds, pretending to grab his junk under the table.
“I don’t understand why you’d do such a thing.”
“It’s not like I set out to,” I complain.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Fin says, reaching for his glass. “Not usually envelopes stuffed with cash. Seems I’ve been missing a trick.”
“Literally,” Oliver adds dryly.
“Hilarious. Fuckin’ comedians.” I fold my arms across my chest. “Go on—don’t let me stop you. Yuck it the fuck up.” This is why I didn’t want to tell them. It’s not like either of them is a paragon of virtue, but I’m not in the mood to waste my breath.
“Sorry,” Fin offers. “It’s quite a tale. Kind of hard to resist.”
“I honestly thought I was doing the right thing. At least initially. I didn’t want to encourage her—pretty and pretty crazy can go hand in hand. And she had this wild story from the minute we met. I wasn’t sure she was serious. Or right in the head.”
“The crazy ones do have their attractions.” Fin nods sagely. He would know.
I glance between the two of them and their frowns, and as succinctly as possible, I tell them what went down. I touch on how we met, my sympathy for Ryan’s plight, and my reluctance to go to another wedding. I explain how she misunderstood me, and how I just played along with her assumption—I was so feckin’ sure I wouldn’t be going to another wedding. I tell them about her ex and the sickening company culture she worked in. Describe her fucknut colleagues and how their misogynistic bullshit culminatedin that despicable bet. And I tell them how all this swayed me. How I played the part of a doting boyfriend and how, as that boyfriend, I dealt with the ringleader. Then I admit our mutual attraction carried us to a hotel suite.
From there, the tale is a closed door.
“Sunk cost fallacy,” Oliver says out of nowhere.
“What about it?” Fin asks.
“Matt’s lie. I can see he was trying to protect himself, but his mistake was investing so heavily in that lie that he couldn’t give it up. Even when it became apparent that the truth would’ve been the more favorable strategy.”
“Not true,” Fin interjects. “The truth would’ve meant the evening ending with nothing but angry words. Not amazing sex.” He glances my way. “Or the potential for more.”
“But he’d have a clear conscience.”
“My conscience is just fine,” I snap. “And I am actually sitting here, so stop fucking talking about me as though I’m not.”
“His conscience is just fine too,” Fin says, glancing at his watch. “I expect she’s a couple of cocktails deep with my wife.”His conscience named Evie.
“Sex wasn’t the reason I didn’t tell her.” But I silently admit it was less about her in that moment than I told myself.
“Sex was definitely part of the reason.” There’s no bite or teasing to Fin’s response. “I think it’s more the case that you’ve been hoisted by your own petard. If you’d admitted the truth, you wouldn’t have gotten to spend the night with Ryan. And you wouldn’t be filled with what-ifs right now.”
“Dreyland Capital,” Oliver puts in, cutting off my retort.
“Yeah. You know the outfit?”
“I know the company. Heard of them, at least.”
“Good or bad news?” Fin glances Oliver’s way.
“There have been some ... less than complimentary reports, as I recall. Not that I’d hold that against them.”
“Yeah, well, I hold it against their fuckin’ throats.”
