Chapter Three
“Have you thought about Tinder? Online dating is how all the boys do it these days.”
ALL RIGHT.Nate could hear it. Said out loud, standing in Flynn’s own kitchen, that did sound worse than it had in Nate’s head.
“Okay, I can see that sounds a bit offensive.” He drew the words out carefully. “But hear me out.”
Flynn scowled at him. He drew his dark, heavy brows down to shadow his chilly, sea-gray eyes, but he waited. That was great. It meant he was open to discussion, which was more than Flynn had ever been about the idea of renting the lighthouse out as a honeymoon suite.
Of course it also meant that Nate had to find a way to put his plan that didn’t sound like it was “my loved ones would rather I die alone than date you.” Since that was the plan, it wouldn’t be easy. Nate bit his lower lip and tried to think of a less abrasive way to explain that.
“You going to say anything?” Flynn asked. “Or just stand there looking pretty?”
“Would that work?” Nate asked.
Flynn looked him up and down, from his hair to the sneakers that he was, one day, going to replace with grown-up shoes. The slow, unabashed study flushed a dull heat under Nate’s skin, and he shifted uncomfortably. It might have been the wrong tack to flirt with Flynn. He seemed the type to take things too literally, and the whole point of being there was to put a temporary pin in Nate’s love life, not complicate things by noticing that Flynn actually looked sexier with a lean jaw and crow’s feet weathered into pale skin than he had when he was young, meaty, and St. Tropez amber. Of course, Nate had a wholly inappropriate crush on him back then too.
A sly little voice that he hadn’t heard for a while nudged his brain suggestively and reminded him that fifteen and twenty was inappropriate. Thirty-seven and forty-three was—
“No. You’re not that pretty,” Flynn said flatly and interrupted Nate’s train of thought before it could get away with him. “Look. I don’t see any way you’re going to convince me to play your bit of rough because you don’t have the balls to tell people to fuck off. So either come up with something good or get out of my house so I can eat my dinner.”
Usually Nate didn’t have a problem coming up with a convincing line. He routinely talked fathers of brides into putting down a large and nonrefundable deposit at the Granshire. He convinced brides to compromise on having owls fly in and drop the rings into the couple’s waiting hands. He cozened Mr. Saint John into putting on his Irish and making an appearance at the occasional wedding. This time he had nothing.
He wished he hadn’t used the “pissing off Max” angle to get through the door. If he’d thought about how bad the whole “I want to rent you” thing was going to sound, he’d have kept that in reserve. Instead all he had was a couple of flaccid rejoinders scraped from the bottom of the barrel. Since he was pretty sure “I’ll pay you” would make things worse, that left him only one.
“Have you got anything better to do?” he asked.
There was a pause as Flynn stared at him. “I work for the Emergency Services,” he finally said, each word stated slowly as though Nate might misunderstand. “I save people’s lives.”
“I’m sure that’s very rewarding. It’s not like you can plan your Friday night around someone falling down a hole, though.”
“You’d be surprised,” Flynn muttered. He popped the door of the microwave open and pulled out the bowl of curry and rice. The heat made him juggle it from hand to hand. “If I wanted to party on a weekend, I’d still live in London.”
From what Nate had heard, that wasn’t an option. But he let the statement pass unchallenged and stepped out of the way to let Flynn get a fork out of the drawer.
“And if you wanted to be a hermit, you’d have moved to a smaller island,” Nate countered. “Come on. You go out with me for a couple of weeks, get to go to a bunch of events and be a dick to Max. Where’s the downside?”
Flynn pointed the fork at him. “Do you want me to list them? For a start, it’s not dating. It’s being paraded around downtown while you ring a bell and shout ‘bad boyfriend’ like I’m some sort of relationship leper. I have to lie to everyone. I have to pretend that I want to bang you.” That stung. Nate swallowed the bitter pill and pretended it was sugar. If nothing else it undercut the distracting awareness of Flynn’s broad, muscled frame. “Besides, despite what you think, not everyone on this island hates me. I’d like to keep it that way. You need anything more?”
The answer would probably have been “not really,” since that had been a pretty comprehensive list. Flynn took a pointed step toward the door, but Nate held his ground and blocked the way.
“C’mon, Flynn,” he said. “You know you’ve got a reputation around the island. Nobody thinks you’re a danger to the sheep, but nobody’s granny is trying to set you up either.”
“Move.”
Nate backed out of the kitchen into the big white round of the main room. He was briefly distracted by the space. The lighthouse really would be ideal for some of his couples—an indulgent, one-night stay, honeymoon getaway. Even if the rent went straight into Flynn’s pocket, the word-of-mouth would be great.
He dragged his mind back onto topic as Flynn kicked a chair out and sat down at the stripped-pine table. It wasn’t going nearly as well as he’d imagined.
“I don’t want you to steal my life savings and release a sex video online.” It was probably a push to sit down, so Nate leaned on the squared-off back of the chair opposite Flynn. He tapped his fingers on the wood. “Just be yourself. That’ll get up Max’s nose, and I’m sure one of my mum’s friends will fill her in on what bad news you’re meant to be. We ‘break up’ and they get off my back without me having to—”
“Talk to them?”
“Fight with them.”
Flynn shoved a forkful of rice and curry into his mouth. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, sat back, and hooked his arm over the chair. The sleeve of his T-shirt crawled up his bicep and flashed a blurred tangle of faded black ink lines that curled around his bicep.
“You asked me to hear you out. I did. I’m not interested in playing your bit of rough. Time to go, Mr. Moffatt.”
