“Well,” I say, shrugging, “You did ask me to be honest. The dude from the app stood me up today, so he’s not a factor, and Bryn helped me realize that there’s no reason I shouldn’t do a no-strings-attached arrangement with Cole.”
He gives me the kind of look that would make a flower wither. Maybe he needs to get laid too. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have cut his shenanigans short the other night. I open my mouth to say so, but he beats me to it. “You expect me to believe Bryn said that?”
“Well, she said something that I chose to interpret that way, yes. Anyway, what were you trying to get the old battle-ax to do?”
He grabs the back of one of the chairs at the table and leans on it. “I want Tina’s friend to get the co-hosting job.”
My eyebrows wing up. “Why do you care?” I glance around, taking in the wreck of the house. Man, we really do suck at cleaning. “Is it because of the house? Because Nana’s probably going to give him such a hard time that he’ll want nothing to do with any other Mayberry. Besides, I thought Willow liked having him around.”
And Rowan’s about as likely to willingly upset our little sister as he is to shake Cole’s hand. Still. Willow is newly engaged, and even if Harry is freakishly neat, she and her fiancé might want an empty house.
“She does,” he says, rocking the chair a little. “But she’s cool with it. Harry really wants the job, and he’s a nice guy.”
It’s my turn to give him a shrewd look. “You’re not doing it solely out of the goodness of your heart.Beep. Try again.”
He gives me a long-suffering look. “I’m not an asshole.”
“Swear jar.”
“You said ‘fuck’ earlier,” he adds sullenly.
“And you just said it, so you need to donate twice, and I will once. Besides, I never said you were an…a-hole, but you’re not a saint either. None of us are. It’s not in our blood.”
“Fine.” He gives the chair another rock and looks away, then seeks out my gaze. I feel a little thrum of excitement. Whatever he’s hiding has to be interesting. “It’s Oliver,” he says, referencing his best friend since childhood.
I lift my eyebrows. “Let me guess. He needs a kidney, and Harry has the same blood type.”
He scowls. “No. Youknowwhat I’m thinking.”
Surprised delight washes over me. “No.”
“Don’t make me say it.”
“You got the matchmaking gene too, my friend! You could hardly help it.” I get to my feet and clap him on the back, as if he just earned a participation award.
“I’m not trying to matchmake,” he says, the tips of his ears going red. “I just figured it might be nice for Oliver to have another friend around. One who gets it.” He scrubs a hand over his head. “There’s not exactly a huge dating pool for him. I think it would be…nice for him to have another guy around who gets it.”
“And if they just so happened to trip into bed together, all the better,” I say, grinning.
“That would be their business,” he says with a grunt.
I give him another back pat. “You know, they’re not going to like each other just because they’re both gay. That’s not the way it works.”
“Like I said, what they do—or don’t do—is their business.”
“Just like it’s my business that I plan to jump Cole the next time I see him.”
His disapproval is obvious, but he says, “You’re right. You’re a grown woman.” Something crosses his face, and he adds, “But I haven’t forgotten what I saw back in high school. Or the look on your face when you saw him with that woman last year.”
I’dlike to forget, but my brain still hasn’t harnessed the ability to forget on demand, like most men seem capable of doing.
I clutch my chest with plenty of drama. “Et tu, Brute?”
A side of Rowan’s mouth hitches up. “He stabbed Caesar in the back.”
“Sure, but it would have been less cinematic and more awkward if I’d clutched my back.”
He heads into the other room and grabs his coat off the chair.
