“No. Not on this one.”
She shook her head. “That’s insane. So no being Finn for two years? No real friends. An imaginary girlfriend.” She smoothed her hands over her skirt and then stilled. “Wait. So does that mean when you kissed me…?”
He cleared his throat. “Now you know why it might have gone a little too far too fast.”
Her lips parted. “I… Oh. Wow.”
Internally, he cringed. Yes, Olivia. I’ve been celibate for over two years and am in a meaningful relationship with my own hand, so sorry I fell on you like a rabid dog. And please ignore that just the scent of your shampoo filling this car has potential to make me a little hard even though I spent the morning acting like an animal and scaring you. “It’s been an intense two years.”
“So that’s why your boss is worried about you.”
He ran a hand over his jaw, weariness bearing down on him. His boss was worried about the usual things—the transition back to normal life—sure. But he was more worried because Finn had taken what everyone else saw as too high a risk, worried that Finn had some sort of death wish. But he couldn’t tell Liv that. “Right. Some people have trouble transitioning back to the civilian world after being undercover. You get used to…not following the rules. Taking what you want. Treating other people like they’re there to serve you. Solving issues with your fists or a weapon.”
“Like today.”
He nodded. “Like today. If you hadn’t been there, I’m not entirely sure I would’ve been able to stop myself from hurting the guy worse. That’s why I need to get to the lake house and be alone.”
She sniffed.
There was so much in that one little derisive sound that he had to look her way. “What?”
Her expression went deadpan. “You realize that is a completely ridiculous plan, right?”
He frowned.
“Come on, Finn.” She pursed those red-glossed lips like she could barely tolerate his foolishness. “That is such a man plan.”
“A man plan.”
“Yes. You don’t know how to be among the living anymore so you’re going to…go live alone in a cave. Right. Good thinking. That will pop your how-to-be-human skills right back into place.”
He made a frustrated sound and pulled into the lot of the hotel to park so he could face her, make her understand. “You saw what happened today. I’m not fit to be around other people right now. I beat a guy down for taking a picture. And I was…aggressive with you last night.”
“Aggressive?” Her mouth flattened, and she put a finger to her chest. “I kissed you. I was the aggressor. You were just…complicit in the aggressiveness. And you’re lucky I haven’t gone two years’ celibate, because had I been in your shoes, I would’ve convinced you to go up to my room and used you eight ways to Sunday and back again by now. You’d be limping.”
His libido gave a hard kick and knocked the logical thoughts out of his head for a moment. “I—”
“You need to be around people.”
That snapped his attention back to where it needed to be—mostly. “No.”
“You promised your boss you’d be around friends. You made me promise your boss that I’d make sure you did that. You made me lie to the FBI. That’s got to be a federal offense or something.”
“Made is a strong word.”
“Finn.”
He groaned. “What would you have me do? You want to babysit me, Livvy? Come stay at my lake house and make sure I don’t turn into a deviant?”
She stared at him, her gaze way too sharp, and then tipped her chin up in challenge. “Is that an invitation? Because you know you shouldn’t test me. I could babysit the hell out of you, Finn Dorsey. I know who you used to be. You don’t get to become a bad guy. I will make you do slumber-party things like play charades or watch crappy nineties movies or incessant reruns of Friends. You won’t be able to fight your old goofy side. It will emerge like a freaking butterfly and smother scary Finn.”
He blinked and stared, and then he couldn’t help it—he laughed. “A freaking butterfly?”
She smiled triumphantly. “A goofy freaking butterfly.”
He let out a long breath, some of the tension from the morning draining out of him. “You’re weird.”
“So are you.”
He rubbed the spot between his eyes. “Why are you trying to help, Liv? You should be running in the other direction.”
A hand touched his shoulder. “The same reason you busted down my door last night and then took care of me when I was panicking. That’s what friends do.” She sighed and let her hand fall away. “Last night, I was mortified that y’all saw me like that. But having Kincaid and Rebecca there…you there, it ended up making it better. I didn’t have to hide or lie about it because all of you get it. I think I’d forgotten what it felt like not to be alone in that.”
She paused like she was figuring out her own feelings about it.
“I don’t know,” she continued. “I have friends. I’m sure you do, too. But maybe there’s something to be said for being around people who knew you before you were a grown-up, before everything changed. You don’t need a babysitter, but maybe you could use an old friend who knows the original color of the paint beneath all those layers life has slapped on you. Maybe I could, too.”
He lifted his head at that and found her gaze stripped down and honest. Vulnerable. Despite what she’d seen today, she wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe afraid for him, but nothing beyond that. There was trust in her eyes—something he hadn’t seen from anyone in a long damn time. No one trusted anyone in the world he’d just left. Everyone had an angle. And even his coworkers and boss were wary of him right now. So seeing Liv so open and earnest made warmth curl up the back of his neck and spread through his chest. Warmth and something else he chose to ignore. Something very, very specific to this woman.
Specific and dangerous.
He should walk away. Stick to his original plan and leave her out of it. Tell her he didn’t need her help or want her company. But the words wouldn’t come out.
He swallowed past the thickness in his throat, and a different kind of honesty came out instead. “I read your letter. You dropped it on the deck last night.”
Her expression went slack. “What?”
“I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. You had an original paint color, too. You wanted to be a photographer and artist more than anything.” He glanced down at her business wear. “You weren’t going to be a nine-to-fiver.”
Her spine stiffened, and her gaze turned guarded. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He took a breath, felt the Don’t do it anxiety well up in him, and pushed past it. “If you’re serious about this—us being in each other’s lives again—I may have an option to benefit us both.”
Her brows lifted.
“The place I have by the lake has a pool house that could work as a studio, and it has an efficiency apartment above it. If you wanted somewhere to spend a few weekends and work on your photography, you could stay there while you did it. I know it’d be a commute for you, but it might help to get out of the city and have a change of scenery. Plus, you’re right. I don’t need a babysitter but…I could use some crappy nineties movies. And maybe you could get something out of it, too.”
Her lips parted, closed, parted again. “You’re asking me to stay weekends at your lake house with you?”
“It wouldn’t be like that.” Though his mind wanted to go there. It wanted to go there and stay there and roll around in that sexy, sweaty thought for a while. “You’d have your own space.”
She stared at him like she couldn’t quite figure him out.
Join the club. He had no idea where this was coming from. He’d planned a few months of solitude, and now he was inviting a regular weekend guest. No, not a guest. Olivia Arias. But when she’d talked
about movies and making him laugh and just hanging out, it had leached into his blood like morphine. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had those kinds of simple pleasures with someone. It sounded almost as tempting as sex.
Almost.
And ultimately, he needed to get back on the job. That was his life. He had a mission that he hadn’t completed yet. One that had fueled him to join the FBI in the first place. He wouldn’t rest until he’d taken down whoever was responsible for the guns getting into the hands of the Long Acre shooters. He had to prove to his boss that he was ready for that kind of assignment again, or Billings would plant him at some desk to push papers around. So if Billings wanted to see him acting like a normal human again, what better way to do that than to tell his boss he was spending weekends with an old friend?
Liv glanced toward the hotel, maybe looking for an escape route.
“No pressure,” he added. “Just an idea.”
Liv ran her hands over the front of her skirt again, smoothing it, keeping her gaze on her lap. She was going to say no. She was coming up with a way to let him down nicely. He didn’t blame her.
“I don’t have a lot of space at my current place to deal with my camera equipment.” She peeked over at him. “And being outside and seeing new things always helped spark my creativity.”
Finn sat up straighter in the seat, trying to look unaffected. “Okay. So…”
She rolled her lips inward, gears obviously turning. “This sounds a little crazy.”
“I’m aware.” Painfully aware. He’d just invited his high school girlfriend to stay across the driveway from him. Beautiful, sexy Liv. Liv, who’d kissed him like she was ready to get naked last night. Liv, who he wasn’t allowed to touch.
Liv, who he wouldn’t hurt just because he was hard up and fucked up and wanted her in his bed more than he wanted air.
It wasn’t crazy. It was goddamned masochistic. She needed to say no.
Her lips curved into a tentative smile. “So…I guess maybe it’s time I take a few weekends off.”
“Great.”
Fuuuuuuck.
chapter
NINE
Liv walked into the Broken Yolk, her body on autopilot and her brain on blender mode after her talk with Finn. What the hell did I just do? Clearly, it had been an insane decision based on lack of coffee and low blood sugar from not eating. She couldn’t possibly have just agreed to stay at Finn’s on the weekends. That was some other Olivia in some alternate universe who was living a different life from her—one where she didn’t have responsibilities or a crazy, busy job or a shred of common sense.
One where she wasn’t ridiculously attracted to the man she’d be staying near.
She groaned inwardly and tried not to show her distress as she found her friends at a booth in the back. A spread of food that could feed twice as many of them filled the table. Stacks of pancakes, a waffle the size of a dinner platter, and enough eggs and bacon to kill a man. “Wow, y’all aren’t messing around.”
Taryn looked up. She’d wrangled her natural black curls into a cute style with a colorful headscarf today, and she’d clearly gotten more sleep than Liv because her brown eyes were bright behind her dark-rimmed glasses. She beamed at Liv. “Hey, you made it.” She scooted over and patted the spot beside her. “Sit. Kincaid is doing research for her food blog. We have graciously volunteered as tributes.”
Liv slid into the booth, tamping down the nervous, electric feeling running through her. She could freak out later. Alone. Like a proper introvert. She forced a smile. “I’m so hungry I could eat the napkins.”
“No need to resort to that. Plenty of tastier carbs to chow down on.” Taryn slid a plate of pancakes her way.
Liv didn’t hesitate. Food. She could focus on food. She grabbed the syrup and doused her plate. “So what did I miss?”
No one jumped in with an answer, and when she took her first bite, she realized everyone had stopped eating and was looking at her expectantly.
“What?” she mumbled, mouth full.
“Um, well,” Kincaid said, giving her a pointed look. “How about starting with… Is Finn in jail? Do we need to rustle up bail money? Why did he attack someone in the first place? Pick anywhere to start, sugar, but start talking.”
Liv swallowed her bite and sighed. “Sorry. No, he’s not in jail. No bail money needed because the guy dropped the charges. And what happened is that the desk guy is an asshole who was snapping pictures of us to give to his journalist girlfriend.”
Rebecca set her fork down with a clink, her cheeks flushing the color of her red hair. “Are you kidding me?”
“Disgusting,” Taryn said with a grimace. “Some people have no home training.”
But Rebecca wasn’t done. She looked ready to take her own swing at the guy or drag his ass into court. “If he gives anyone those pictures, we can file a complaint. The hotel assured us privacy, and he’s an employee.”
“I don’t think it will come to that.” Liv grabbed the coffee carafe and poured herself a cup. “I threatened the guy, deleted the photos, and laid on a guilt trip that only a sociopath could ignore. By the time I left, he was stumbling over his tongue to apologize.”
Kincaid nodded her approval, her lips pursed. “Good for you. And good for Finn for punching that little twerp. What in God’s name is wrong with people? I’d say kids these days, but then I’d feel old and I am not.”
Taryn frowned. “So Finn’s okay? Why didn’t he come to breakfast?”
“He’s okay. He dropped me off at the hotel.” He’d waited for her to get inside her car before he’d taken off—like he wasn’t sure she’d be safe without an escort. But living among criminals for two years would probably make anyone a little paranoid. “He’s had a rough morning and had some things to take care of, so he’s heading out to Wilder to the lake house he’s renting.”
“Oh.” Rebecca didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. “That’s too bad.”
“Yeah.” Liv shifted on the booth seat, desperate for the other women to stop grilling her. She didn’t want to blurt out, Holy shit, I just agreed to stay with my high school ex-boyfriend for a few weekends to make sure he doesn’t lose it again. Someone slap me with a pancake and knock some sense into me. “So blog research? I didn’t know you blogged.”
Kincaid shrugged like it was nothing worthy of discussion—which was weird because with Kincaid, almost everything was worth discussion.
Taryn swiped at her mouth with a napkin, losing all her coral-colored lipstick, and gave Liv a conspiratorial look. “Kincaid blogs about the best local eats in the Hill Country and then re-creates the dishes for the home cook. This will be her next post.”
“That’s cool,” Liv said. “I do a lot of web-design work for bloggers.”
“It is cool, but she’s secretive about it. I found the website by accident,” Taryn said.
“Yes.” Rebecca dropped another pat of butter on her pancakes. “And we can all hate her because she eats her way through Texas and can probably still fit into that dance team outfit from high school.”
“Oh, I so cannot.” Kincaid said, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve tried.”
Liv almost spilled the cream she was pouring into her coffee. “Wait. You tried to wear the blue glitter leotard?”
“I cannot be blamed,” Kincaid said, raising a finger. “There was spiked eggnog and a dare involved at an after-hours Christmas party. What was I supposed to do?”
“Um, say no?” Rebecca suggested.
Kincaid gave her a look like she’d spoken a foreign language. “You don’t say no to a dare, especially when it was issued by some know-it-all coworker who thought he’d make me look ditzy. I promise, I came out on the better end of the deal. I made him agree that if I tried it on, he had to as well.” A wicked grin emerged. “Leotards aren’t meant to wrangle all that boy busin
ess, so things…escaped. The rest of the guys called him Glitter Balls for about a year afterward.”
Liv laughed. “Nice. Remind me to never play Truth or Dare with you.”
Kincaid did a mock half-bow. “Wise decision.”
Liv didn’t doubt it. Kincaid had developed a reputation in high school as a firecracker—pretty to look at but someone who could burn you if you got on her bad side. One of the football players had dated her, gotten caught cheating, and ended up with his brand-new convertible filled with Kibbles and Bits and Dawg written on the window in greasepaint.
Liv had secretly wished to be Kincaid’s BFF that day. A woman who could pull off a master prank on a master prick scored an A for Awesome in Liv’s book. But she and Kincaid had only been friendly, not close. Plus, Kincaid had intimidated the hell out of her. Still did sometimes.
“So is the blog like a job? I thought you were doing real estate,” Liv asked.
Kincaid waved a piece of bacon like it was a pointing stick. “Nah, it’s just a thing to do in between the day job. Food blogs are crazy competitive. You have to be able to cook, have a unique angle, be a writer and a world-class photographer. Promote your pants off. Preferably have a hot husband and cute kids to smile in pictures around the table so you look super wholesome. I can’t take a good picture to save my life. I’d have to hire the cute husband and kids. And wholesome is a ship I never wanted to sail on. So I just dabble.”
“We can’t get you the husband or make you Betty Crocker, but maybe Liv can give you a few tips on the photography if you want to do more than dabble,” Taryn suggested between bites.
“Or I could take some pictures for you.” Liv’s words were out before she could stop them.
“Ooh,” Kincaid said, perking up. “Really? I would love that. I can never get the lighting right. The deep-fried mac and cheese that I made last week looked like something a dog leaves on your lawn.” She took a bite of her bacon. “But do you have the time? You said you work insane hours.”
“I do.” Liv frowned. “But I’m thinking of firing up the camera again on weekends, maybe taking on a few projects.”