Sweet Little Lies

Finn sighed. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”

“Just hurry up and handle it and get your ass back to work.”

“There he is.”





Chapter 32



#TakeMeToYourLeader


When Finn finally made his way to the pub that night, he stood in the middle of the bar as music played around him. His friends and customers were all there having fun, laughing, dancing, drinking . . .

The pub was a huge success, beyond his wildest imagination. He’d never really taken the time to notice it. But he was noticing now that his heart had been ripped out of his chest by a gorgeous dynamo of a woman with eyes that sucked him in and held him, a sweet yet mischievous smile that had taken him places he’d never been . . . then there was how he’d felt in her arms.

Like Superman.

And he’d dumped her. Roughly. Cruelly. And her crime? Nothing more than trying to make sure he was okay after a tragedy that hadn’t even been her fault. Not in the slightest.

Hating himself for that, he stopped right in the middle of the place. He wasn’t in the mood for this. He needed to think, needed to figure out what the hell to do to alleviate this pain in his chest and the certainty that he’d walked away from the best thing that had ever happened to him.

But everyone was at the bar, waving at him. Bracing himself for the inquisition, he headed that way.

“Rumor is that you’ve been a dumbass,” Archer said.

Finn stared at him. “How the hell did you know—”

“The girls and I stopped by Pru’s place,” Willa said.

“Is she okay?”

“She looks and sounds like her heart’s been ripped out.” Willa met his gaze. “She’d clearly been crying.”

Shit.

Elle squeezed his hand. “Whatever you did, it’s not completely your fault. You’re a penis-carrying human being, after all. You’re hard-wired to be a dumbass.”

“Sit.” Spence kicked out a barstool for him and poured him a beer from the pitcher in front of them.

Finn took a second look at him. “You’re wearing glasses.”

Haley grinned proudly. “Do you like them? I picked them out for him.”

“No, you didn’t,” Spence said. “I did.”

Haley patted him like he was a puppy. “You were impatient as always and grabbed the first pair off the display you could. It took you less than two seconds. I waited until you’d left and put them back and picked you out a better pair that would better suit your face.”

Spence pulled his glasses off and stared at them. “I liked the other pair better.”

“Yeah?” Haley asked. “What color were they?” Spence paused. “Glasses color.”

Haley rolled her eyes. “Just like a man,” she said to Will and Elle, who nodded.

Archer shook his head at Spence. “This is why you’re single.”

“You’re single too,” Spence said.

“Because I want to be.”

Spence closed his eyes. “We were going to rag on Finn, not me. Let’s stick with the plan.”

“Right,” Archer said and looked at Finn. “Tell us all how you messed up so we can point and laugh.”

“And then fix,” Willa said, giving the others a dirty look as she patted the empty seat. “Come on now, don’t be shy. Tell us everything.”

“Yes,” Ella said. “I want to hear it all, because that girl? She’s not just yours, Finn. She’s ours now too.”

“She’s not mine,” Finn said.

Everyone gaped at him.

Elle narrowed her gaze. “Does this have anything to do with that wish she made for you on that damn fountain? You know about that, right?”

Finn blinked. “She wished for me?”

“Have you ever heard of being gentle?” Archer asked Elle. “Even once?”

Elle sighed. “Okay, so he didn’t know. Sue me.” She shot Archer a dirty look. “And like you know the first thing about being gentle.”

“Didn’t know what exactly?” Finn demanded, refusing to let them go off on some tangent. “Someone needs to start making sense or I swear to God—”

“She made a wish for you to find true love,” Willa said. “I was never clear on why she wished for you and not for herself. Probably because that’s who she is, down to the bone.”

Spence sucked in a breath. “I’ve been by that fountain a million times. It never once occurred to me to make a wish for someone else. That’s . . .”

“Selfless,” Willa said. “Utterly selfless. And, by the way, it’s also something that none of us would’ve thought to do. So it’s not just Spence here who’s an insensitive ass.”

“Thanks, Willa,” Spence said dryly.

She turned expectantly to Finn. “So? What happened?”

A terrible knot in his chest twisting, Finn snatched Spence’s beer and knocked back the rest of the glass, not that it helped.

“Sure, help yourself,” Spence muttered.

Everyone was looking at Finn, waiting.

He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s . . . private. What happened between us stays between us.”

“Hey, this isn’t Vegas,” Spence said, and earned himself a slap upside the back of his head by Elle.

“Do you love her?” Willa demanded of Finn.

At the question, that knot in his chest tightened painfully. “That’s not the problem. She . . . kept something from me.”

“That sucks,” Archer said, as Finn knew, understanding all too well the power of secrets and how they could destroy lives.

“No,” Elle said, glaring at Archer. “No, you don’t get to blindly side against her. She maybe had her reasons. Good ones,” she said very seriously.

Something they knew that Elle understood all too well. She had secrets too, secrets they kept for her.

Archer met Elle’s gaze and something passed between them. The fight might have ratcheted up a notch but Willa, always the peacemaker, spoke up. “Do you love her?” she repeated to Finn firmly.

Finn’s mind scrolled through the images he had. Pru coming into the pub drenched and still smiling. Pru dragging him away from work to a softball game. Comforting him after a fight with Sean. Clutching a photo of her dead parents and still finding a smile over their memory. She’d brought a sense of balance to his life that had been sorely missing. It didn’t matter whether she was standing behind the controls of a huge boat in charge of hundreds of people’s safety or diving into a wave to save her dog, she never failed to make him feel . . . alive.

Just a single one of her smiles could make his whole day. The sound of her laugh did the same. And then there was the feel of her beneath him, her body locked around his when he was buried so deep that he couldn’t imagine being intimate with anyone else ever again . . .

“Yes,” he said quietly, not having to speak loud because the entire group had gone silent waiting on his answer. “I love her.”

“Have you told her?” Willa asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” Yeah, genius, why not? “And exactly how many people have you told that to?” he asked.

“Good one, going on the defensive,” Elle said, not looking impressed.

Willa agreed with an eyeroll. “I mean I get that when you’re playing sports or bragging to the guys and you need a six-foot-long dick,” she said. “But this is Pru we’re talking about.”

“Six-foot-long dick?” Spence asked, grinning.

Willa waved him off and spoke straight to Finn. “Whatever she kept to herself, you did the same, Finn. You always do, even with us. You held back. You think she didn’t feel that? Pru keeps it real and she’s tough as nails, but she lost her family,” she said, unknowingly touching on the very subject of the breakup. “She lost them when she was only eighteen and it left her alone in the world. And as you, more than anyone else knows all too damn well, it changes a person, Finn. It makes it hard to put yourself out there. But that’s exactly what she does every single day without complaint, she puts herself out there.”

I love you . . . Pru had whispered those words to him when he’d been drifting off to sleep that last night, and he’d told himself it was a dream. But he knew the truth. He’d always known.

She had more courage than he’d ever had.

“So presumably there was a fight,” Elle said. “And then what? She walked?”

“And you let her?” Willa asked in disbelief. “Oh, Finn.”

“You can fix it,” Haley said softly. “You just go to her and tell her you were wrong.”

Archer, eyes on Finn, put his hand on Haley’s, stopping her. “I have a feeling we’ve got things backwards,” he said.

“Ohhhh,” Willa said, staring at Finn. “You walked.”

Finn nodded. He’d walked. And she’d let him go without a fight.

Not that he’d given her any choice with the I don’t want to see you again thing . . . Fuck. Willa was right. He’d been wielding around a six-foot dick, which made him the six-foot dick.

Willa looked greatly disappointed. “I don’t understand.”

Finn shook his head. “I know. But I’m not going to tell you more.” He might have turned his back on Pru, but he wouldn’t have these guys doing the same. She deserved their friendship. She deserved a lot more than that, but he was still so angry and . . . shit. Hurt. He pushed away from the table. “I’ve gotta go.”

He hoped to be alone but Sean followed him back to his office. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked. “What is it she did that was so bad?”

Finn shook his head.

“Just tell me,” Sean pushed. “So I can tell you that you’re being an idiot and then you can go make it right.”

Finn stared at him. “What makes you believe that this can be made right?”

Sean lifted a shoulder. “Because you taught me that love and family is where you make it, with who you make it. And even in this short amount of time, Pru’s become both your love and your family.”

That this was true felt like a knife slicing through him. “Sean, her parents were the ones in the car that killed dad. Her dad was the drunk driver.”

Sean stared at him. “Are you shitting me?”

“I couldn’t have made that up if I’d tried.”

Sean sank to the couch. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Listen, this stays right here in this room, yeah?”

Sean lifted his gaze and pierced Finn. “You’re protecting her.”

“I just don’t want to hurt her,” he said. At least not more than he already had . . .

“No, you’re protecting her.” Sean stood again. “The way I bet she was trying to protect you when she didn’t tell you who she was.”

Finn shook his head. “What are you saying?”

“That you’re the dumbass, not her.” Sean shook his head. “Look, I’ve got to get back out there. One of us has to have their head in the game, and trust me, no one’s more surprised that it’s me.” He stopped at the door and turned back. “Listen, I get that you’re too close to see this clearly, but take it from someone who lost as much as you did in that accident . . . we didn’t lose shit compared to what Pru lost. She doesn’t deserve this, not from you. Not from anyone.”

And then he let himself out and Finn was alone. He went to his desk and pushed some paper around for half an hour, but it was useless. He was useless. He’d just decided to bail when Archer walked right in. “Ever hear of knocking?”

Archer paced the length of the office and then came to him, hands on hips.

“What?” Finn asked.

“I’m going to tell you something,” Archer said. “And I don’t want you to take a swing at me for it. I’m feeling pissed off and wouldn’t mind a fight, but I don’t want it with you.”

Shit. “What did you do?” Finn asked wearily.

Archer grimaced. “Something I once promised you I wouldn’t.”

Finn stared at his oldest and most trusted friend in the world and then turned to his desk and poured them both some whiskey.

Archer lifted his glass, touched it to Finn’s, and then they both tossed back.

Archer blew out a breath, set the glass down and met Finn’s gaze. “I looked into her.”

Archer had programs that rivaled entire government computer systems. When he said he’d looked into someone, he meant he looked into them. Inside and out. Upside down and right-side up. When Archer looked into someone, he could find out how old they were when they got their first cavity, what their high school P.E. teacher had said about them, what their parents had earned in a cash-under-the-table job four decades prior.

Archer didn’t take this power lightly. He had a high moral code of conduct that didn’t always line up with the rest of the world, but he’d never—at least not to Finn’s knowledge—looked into his friends’ pasts or breached their privacy.

He had, however, looked into Willa’s last boyfriend, but that had been for a good reason.

“When?” Finn asked.

Archer gave him a surprised look. “Shouldn’t the question be what? As in what did I find out?”

“You know who she is.”

“Yes,” Archer said. “Do you?”

“Why the fuck do you think I’m standing here by myself?” Finn asked.

Archer looked away for a beat and then brought his gaze back. “There’s stuff you might not know.”

“Like?”

“Like the fact that she’s spent her life since the accident trying to right that wrong to everyone who was affected. That she, anonymously through an attorney, gave every penny she was awarded in life insurance to the victims of that accident, including you and Sean. She not only kept zero for herself, she sold the house she was raised in and used that money to help as well. She kept nothing, instead dedicated the following years to making sure everyone else was taken care of, whatever it took. She helped them find jobs, stay in college, find a place to live, everything and anything that was needed.”

Finn nodded.

“You know?” Archer asked in disbelief. “So what happened between you two? She came clean and . . .”

“I got mad that she lied to me.”

“You mean omitted, right? Because not telling you something isn’t lying.”

Finn swore roughly but whether that was because he was pissed or because Archer was right, he wasn’t sure. “It was more than that. She had plenty of opportunities to tell me. If not when we first met, then certainly after we—”

Archer let that hang there a moment. “I’m thinking she had her reasons,” he said quietly. “And it wasn’t all that long. What, three weeks? Maybe she was working her way up to it.”

Finn shook his head.

“Look, I’m not excusing what she did,” Archer said. “She should’ve told you. We both know that. But we also both know that it’s never that easy. She had a lot working against her, Finn. She’s alone, for one. And she’s got the biggest guilt complex going that I’ve ever seen.”

Finn swore again and shoved his fingers in his hair. “She shouldn’t feel guilty. The accident wasn’t her fault.”

“No,” Archer said. “It wasn’t. So I’m going to hope like hell you didn’t let her think it was, no matter how badly she stepped on your ego.”