Dirty Rowdy Thing

  I know I’ve been looking for him all day, but it’s in this moment outside, staring at his giant beast of a truck and just charmed to death that he would wash it before driving to this meeting—that I realize I’m smitten. Really smitten. I knew I liked him, and that I liked sex with him, but I’ve never felt this way about a guy before: longing, fear, hope, and the tingly thrill of desire.

  “What are you wearing?”

  I turn to see Finn standing at the entrance to the bar, his mouth tilted in a smirk. His forehead is wrinkled, communicating mild concern, but even so, his inspection gives me goose bumps all down my arms. Lola and Oliver slip past him, walking inside.

  I follow the path of his eyes and look down at my chest. I’m wearing a navy silk tank top, covered in small, colorful hand-embroidered birds and faded skinny jeans. I spent about an hour getting ready for tonight, though only under the pain of torture would he get me to admit that. “Excuse me, sir, this is a gorgeous shirt.”

  “It’s covered in birds.”

  “You’re going to lecture me about fashion? You wear the same dirty baseball cap every day and own two T-shirts,” I say as I follow him inside and toward our booth at the back.

  “At least they aren’t covered in birds.” He reaches the table and hands me a glass of water before grabbing his own beer. He’s already been here and he came to our booth? My inner girly girl squeals in delight. “Besides, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not wearing a T-shirt today.”

  No, he is most definitely not. In my mind, I’m dirty dancing and perving all over this man, but outwardly I’m doing a calm inspection. He’s wearing pressed black dress pants and a white button-up shirt with a small gray diamond print.

  “You approve?” he asks quietly, teasing but also not.

  “Can we focus on the more interesting topic of conversation, please?” I ask. “Such as why you are dressed like this?”

  He looks over my shoulder to where Oliver and Not-Joe stand only about five feet away. “Not tonight.”

  “But did it go well?”

  He tilts his beer to his lips, giving me a warning look.

  “Nothing?” I hiss-whisper. “You’re not going to say anything?”

  “No.”

  I wish a dramatic-huff-and-stomp-away would work on Finn, but I know it wouldn’t. And I still like the way he’s staring at me. Although . . . now he’s not inspecting my shirt, he’s staring at my hairline.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Your hair looks . . . really red tonight.”

  “I put some temporary color powder in it,” I admit, turning into the light so he can see better. “Do you like it?”

  “I think you got some on your forehead.”

  I deflate, dunking my thumb in my glass of water and wiping at the spot he’s pointing to. “Holy Moses, Finn Roberts, how you managed to date this Melody person for more than a week is beyond me.” I ignore his raised eyebrows at this, and continue: “You’re supposed to tell me I look pretty, and act like you’re touching my beautiful face when really you’re subtly wiping away my makeup mistakes.”

  “I’m not supposed to do anything.” He gives me a dark grin. Leaning back against the side of our booth, he says, “I’m just a friend who likes to point out when you’re ridiculous. Makeup for your hair, Harlow? Really?”

  “Sometimes a girl feels like she needs a little extra something, okay?”

  His expression straightens, and he blinks away, looking out over the small dance floor. “Not you. You look best first thing in the morning.” I suck in a breath. I know exactly what morning he means; it’s the only one we woke up to, together. In my bed, curled around each other. I can still feel how warm he was.

  “Well, then I’m surprised you didn’t make a comment about pillow creases on my face and morning breath.”

  “You did have pillow creases on your face, and your hair was a mess.” His voice drops lower when he says, “But you looked perfect.”

  I’m too stunned to speak, continually swallowing around the lump in my throat. My heart feels like it’s grown ten times its normal size.

  He coughs and I know I’ve been quiet too long when he changes the subject. “Who told you about Melody?”

  I sip my water, finally managing, “Oliver, but it was completely against his will. I brandished a musket.”

  Finn nods, taking another drink of his beer. Kyle turns the music up but even still, it feels like we’re in our own little bubble, standing a few feet away from where our friends sit together in the booth.

  “I only know her name and that she was quiet,” I admit. “Will you tell me about her?”

  “Why do you want to know this?”

  “Probably for the same reason you asked if Toby Amsler went down on me.”

  He blinks over to me. “What do you want to know?”

  “Does she still live near you?”

  He nods. “We went to the same high school, started seeing each other a few months after we graduated. Her folks own the local bakery.”

  “Were you guys in love?”

  He shrugs. “I was such a different person then. Right after we got together I left school to start fishing with my family.” Seeming to consider the question more, he adds, “I loved her, sure.”

  “Still?”

  “Nah. She’s a sweet girl, though.”

  I know the question will burst out of me whether or not I really want to appear this interested in the topic. “A sweet girl who still gets to sleep—”

  “No,” he interrupts quietly. He looks back to me, his eyes making the slow circuit of my face. “Melody and I broke up five years ago; she’s married with a kid now.” At my expression, he murmurs, “There’s no one back home, Harlow. I promise.”

  I swallow again, nodding.

  “And if you remember,” he says, voice stronger now, “you were with another man one night before you were with me.”

  Shit.

  “Do you know how crazy that makes me feel?” he asks.

  Honestly, I can’t even imagine. He broke up with Melody five years ago and I still sort of want to scratch her face off. This situation is ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous.

  “I know there’s nothing between us, we’re just friends,” he says. “But it’s not because the sex wasn’t something really good, Harlow. Before you, in Vegas, it had been two years. I’ve been with four women other than you, and never in anything but a committed relationship, so this is weird for me. I’ll tell you anything, okay? Since I know how it is to feel desperate to know every detail, I’ll tell you. But ask me, don’t ask my friends. I’d rather we find things out from each other, okay?”

  What is this mad flurry of emotions? I’m relieved and guilty, swooning and overcome with the need to kiss his perfect mouth.

  With a shrug, I tell him, “I just didn’t want you to know that I wanted to know.”

  He laughs, tilting his beer to his lips and saying, “Sociopath,” before taking a long drink.

  “How many did you tie up?”

  He swallows, and turns his eyes to me. I can tell with this question his pulse has exploded in his neck. I can see it throb with the rhythm. His voice comes out more hoarse than usual when he admits, “All of them.”

  My blood turns to mercury, swirling and toxic. “All of them?”

  “Yeah, Harlow. I . . . like it.” He ducks his head, touching the back of his neck as he looks at me through his eyelashes. “But I’m pretty sure most of them only did it because they wanted to be with me, not because it was their thing, too.”

  “Did any of them like it?”

  He nods. “My first, maybe?”

  “What was her name?” I can’t help it. The questions are just falling out of my mouth before I have time to think better of them.

  He steps a little bit farther away from the table, and I follow. “Emily.”

  “But you aren’t sure she liked it?” It’s so weird to be here, at Fred’s and surrounded by our friends who are sitting in
the booth only a few feet away and still having the most intimate conversation we’ve ever had.

  “Honestly,” he says quietly, “I don’t know. I mean, she was into it, sure, but I would love to know how she remembers that night now, looking back. She moved away after graduation, but we were together a little over a year before that. I just . . .” He blinks away. “The only place we could have any privacy was on my dad’s little rowboat, down at the dock. The third time, we’d stolen beers from her dad. I just played around with her, and the rope, and it was . . .” He stops talking, finally just saying, “Yeah.”

  I nod, sipping my water. I think I know what he’s telling me—that seeing his girlfriend like that did something good for him, and shaped what he likes now. But I don’t really need to hear him talking about it anymore.

  “That morning I saw you at Starbucks,” he says.

  I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. “Yeah? What about it?”

  He shrugs, giving me a do-I-need-to-drag-it-from-you look. “I know you hooked up, but you didn’t look like you were particularly relaxed.”

  “Ah, right. The mother woke us up,” I tell him. “In person. Second-worst lay of my life the night before.”

  He barks out a delighted laugh. “Who was the first?”

  “My first. I realize now he was tiny, but it still hurt. I swear I look back on it now and see my virginity being taken by a baby carrot.”

  “What are you talking about over here?” Lola asks, appearing out of nowhere and sidling up to me.

  Finn is barely recovered from his laughing fit. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “Baby carrot,” I tell her with a knowing grin.

  Lola nods, smiling at him. “Awesome, right? Poor Jesse Sandoval.”

  “Our girl is a poet,” Finn agrees.

  Our girl. It eases somewhat the tiny twinge I still feel when I remember Finn told me about the television show because he didn’t want to share it with more permanent members of his life.

  Oliver steps out of the booth and joins our little circle. “So we’re standing tonight? Usually Harlow likes to sit and throw things at me across the table.”

  I laugh because it’s true. “You just have these creepy Crocodile Dundee reflexes.”

  “I’m a ninja.” Oliver pushes his thick-rimmed glasses up his nose in a nerdy gesture that makes us all laugh. “And you know how much I love your limited Australian cultural knowledge.”

  “I try.”

  Behind him, Not-Joe is still sitting in the booth, high as a kite and dancing in his seat as he stares at a group of coeds out on the floor.

  “Oliver, you and Not-Joe should go boogie down with those girls over there.”

  “Why not Finn?” Oliver asks with a knowing grin. “He’s also single.”

  I shake my head. “He is, but look, he’s all dressed up. It’d be like A Night at the Roxbury and everyone would be embarrassed for him.” Not only will Finn refuse to dance, but if he’s going to be out there, the cavewoman inside tells me he’s going to be there for me and no one else. At least until he leaves.

  Suddenly, I feel panic rise in my throat. Is Finn leaving tomorrow? He’s had his meeting with the L.A. crowd; does that mean he’ll go home?

  Laughing, Oliver looks over at the dance floor, but not before taking a peek at Lola’s reaction. “Those Sheilas are tiny.”

  “ ‘Tiny’ like young?” I ask, leaning to get a better look. The girls are definitely in their twenties. “Or short?”

  “Very short.”

  “But look at you,” Lola says, frowning. “You’re over six three. Statistically speaking that means you’re going to end up with someone under five three.”

  “That hurts me in my logic,” Oliver says, smiling down at her.

  “If you’re not going to dance, then get me a beer,” I tell him.

  “I would but I’m paralyzed from my toes down.”

  I shove him playfully. “Take Lola, too. She needs another drink.”

  Lola protests that she doesn’t, but follows him anyway, and I watch them as they go. She’s tall, but he still looms over her, and seems to tilt in her direction as he walks, as if they’re magnets. I wonder if Oliver realizes what it means that Lola has seamlessly made him one of Her People. It’s a pretty exclusive club, including me, Mia, Lola’s dad, my parents, and now Oliver.

  “He’ll never try it,” Finn says beside me, and when I look at him I realize he means Oliver will never try to make something happen with Lola. “He’s convinced she isn’t interested.”

  “I’m not sure she is,” I agree, “but it’s mostly because Lola is clueless about guys, and all she thinks about is work.”

  He hums in response.

  Turning to him fully, I say, “Okay, they’re all the way over at the bar for a few minutes, Not-Joe is stoned out of his gourd and probably can’t even hear the music in here. Can you relax? Tell me: How did it go?”

  Finn swipes a hand down his face and exhales a long breath, glancing to make sure they really are out of earshot. “I liked them. I mean, there were a couple of idiots in the room who asked things about our love lives, and what kind of women we date”—he ignores the way I do a little victory moonwalk, and continues—“but the two guys who would be producing this show are pretty sharp. They’ve clearly done their homework on the industry, and . . .” He sighs. “I liked them. I liked their ideas. It didn’t sound horrible.”

  “So why do you look so miserable?” My heart aches a little. I realize while I’m watching him struggle with this that I sincerely just want Finn to be happy.

  When have I cared so much about his happiness versus my own orgasms? Lola isn’t the only one who has seamlessly pulled one of these guys into her inner circle. Finn is officially one of My People.

  “Because it’s easier to feel strongly against it,” he says. “This morning, I was convinced this was just a going-through-the-motions meeting. Now I see how this could work much more easily than the alternative. The alternative being we lose our family business and have nothing.”

  Not to put too dramatic a spin on it, but I’m really starting to think I know what drowning feels like. Mom has finished her first day of chemo—a treatment where the goal is to kill the cancer just slightly faster than killing the host—and all I have is a few texts from my dad saying she feels good. Finn is struggling with what is arguably the hardest decision of his life. I’ve just acknowledged that he’s My Person, and now I’m powerless all over again to help either of them through this.

  It sucks because I know that what would make us both feel better right now is some naked wrestling in my bed. But the more I realize I have genuine feelings for him, the more I know I couldn’t just take him home tonight. Finn would be the first person I would have sex with who I might also love. Ugh.

  He shrugs, sliding his hands into his pockets. “And that’s pretty much it.”

  I’m feeling a little light-headed and have to force myself to breathe, to focus on the conversation at hand. I can lose my shit later. “When are you heading home?” I ask, going for casual, yet concerned.

  He shrugs. “Couple of days.”

  A sharp spike drives into my chest. “Boo.”

  He smiles down at me, gaze hovering on my mouth. “Are you admitting that you’re going to miss me, Ginger Snap?”

  I give him the finger and don’t answer.

  Chapter TEN

  Finn

  HARLOW SHOWS UP bright and early the next morning, balancing a tray with three Styrofoam cups on one flattened palm, a white paper bag clutched in her other fist.

  “Good morning, Sunshine!” she chirps, pushing past me into the living room. “I brought breakfast.”

  “It’s seven in the morning, Snap,” I mumble after her, reaching up to scratch my jaw. I haven’t shaved in two days, I’m not wearing a shirt . . . she’s lucky I’m even wearing pants. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re going to brainstorm.” She walks into
the kitchen and turns to whisper-hiss, “Is Oliver still home?”

  The old house is still chilly. The floorboards are cold beneath my bare feet as I lag behind her.

  “He’s in the shower.”

  At least, I think he is. At home I’m up before sunrise, down at the docks. But this beach life has spoiled me and indulges my natural night owl tendencies. I don’t think I’ve slept until seven in nearly twenty years. But I’m waiting until Oliver leaves to call my brothers and fill them in on my meeting with the producers.

  Any thought of my brothers at all is wiped from my head when I turn the corner and get an eyeful of Harlow bent over the dishwasher, her perfect ass wrapped in a pair of skintight yoga pants.

  Oblivious to my ogling, she straightens, and begins opening cupboard doors. “Plates?”

  I cross the room and stop just behind her, reaching over her head to retrieve a stack of yellow plates from the shelf. Harlow freezes, fingers gripping the edge of the countertop before she seems to relax, and leans back against my chest.

  “Here you go,” I tell her, bending to say the words against her hair.

  She smells so good and her ass is pressed against my dick, I have to step away before she can feel that I’m already half hard, worked up like a seventeen-year-old boy. Pushing back, I take a seat at the small island and weave my bare feet around the legs of the bar stool.

  It takes a moment for her to collect herself, too, and I grin as she clumsily sets down the plates and opens the paper sack.

  “You look a little breathless there, Snap.”

  She looks up, shoots daggers.

  “So what is it we’re brainstorming?” I ask, rolling an orange along the counter. My stomach growls on instinct when I see her reach inside the bag and pull out some of the biggest, gooiest, most frosting-coated cinnamon rolls I’ve ever seen.

  “Your situation,” she stage-whispers, and slaps my hand away when I try to sneak a fingertip of icing.

  “My situation . . . ?”

  “Dreamboats on the Pacific? Try to keep up, Finneus.”

  I roll my eyes. “You know that’s not what it’s called.”