“Yes, I think you do,” she persisted.
“Okay,” I said, annoyed and exasperated in equal measures. “I don’t like getting too attached.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her tuck her hair behind her ears. “It’s like you’ve subconsciously decided love leads to pain.”
I shrugged. Who knew what was going on in a person’s subconscious? It was possible. Hell, anything was possible. “I thought you were studying accounting, not psychology.”
She ignored the barb. “Except your four-year friendship with me.”
“Yeah, except with you,” I admitted. “Which is why I was reluctant for so long to make it more. You’re…” How did I put into words the panic that engulfed me when I thought too much about us together? “Let’s say you’re dangerous to me.”
“Dangerous?” she repeated, her head cocked to the side.
I shifted in my seat. Rolled my shoulders. She deserved to hear this, but, man, I hated having to talk about this stuff.
I steeled myself and looked down at my hands on the wheel as I spoke. “I kept other people I date at arm’s length, but you, you’re already under my guard. If we ruin our friendship by this dating…experiment, then it’s going to be…hard to take.”
“We won’t ruin it.” Her voice was gentle but determined.
“Yeah,” I said, not sure how much I believed it.
She leaned toward me, only a couple of inches, but enough to make me turn and look at her before she spoke. “You know, Finn, you can’t live your whole life this way, never forming an attachment.”
I rubbed my thumb over my forehead where I could feel a frown forming. I didn’t like to look too far into the future. Since my parents died, it had been all about getting Billie and Amelia to adulthood. Just survive that first, then work the rest out.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Prove it to me,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts, which momentarily distracted me from her words.
I dragged my gaze back to her face. “What do you mean, prove it to you?”
“You know how much Billie and Amelia would love to have a dog. Especially Amelia. She lost her parents as well, and now she’s left boarding school and is home again—she’s been unsettled.” She paused, fidgeting with her seat belt. “You know she really wants you and me to be together?”
“What?” I knew she liked Scarlett, but still, it seemed pretty random for her to have hopes about my dating life.
Scarlett bit her lip, as if not entirely sure she should be saying what she was. “She’s mentioned it a couple of times now. Before we were together.”
“Why would she want that?” I put a lot of time into thinking about what my sisters wanted and needed, trying to ensure they didn’t miss out on things just because they had a guardian who didn’t know what he was doing. Not once had it occurred to me this would be on the list.
“I think it’s like a child of divorced parents wishing their parents would get back together.” She said the words casually, but I could see in her eyes she’d given it a lot of thought. “Children and teenagers like stability. Amelia wants a family unit.”
The one thing I couldn’t give back to her. She’d had a family unit, and life had ripped it away. But I’d make damn sure she had everything else she needed. “She’ll be okay.”
“Yep, I think she will. But she’ll be even better if you let her have a dog.” She leaned the side of her face against the headrest, gaze still on me. “It would just be that one extra support for her.”
I scrubbed my hands through my hair. She was right. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. In fact, I hadn’t thought about it much at all before—and if I had, I’d probably been thinking that I was saving Amelia from the heartache of losing someone again, too. But I couldn’t wrap her in cotton wool for the rest of her life.
“Having Harvey would do more good for her than the bad that will come from eventually losing him, won’t it?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Already deciding to keep the damn dog.
“I think so.” She reached over and grabbed my hand, giving it a squeeze. When she tried to withdraw, I gripped her tighter.
“Thank you,” I said without meeting her gaze. “I have no idea what I’m doing with my sisters half the time. Mostly I’m making it up as I go along and hoping for the best.”
Scarlett unbuckled her seat belt and shifted so she could give me a hug in the room we had. “You’re doing great. Really.”
I tipped up her chin, searching her eyes to see if she honestly meant that or was saying it to make me feel better, but as soon as our gazes met, all thought fled. Scarlett filled my mind. Need for her filled my body. She had me on all levels. Inch by inch, I leaned down, closing the distance, and she stretched up, meeting me halfway.
When our lips met, tongues sliding against each other, the kiss wasn’t hungry or demanding. This one was softer, slower, yet it seemed deeper somehow, deep enough to touch my soul. I released the buckle on my seat belt, giving myself more movement, and pulled her into my lap. She came willingly and wound her arms around my neck, holding me in place, which was totally unnecessary since I was going nowhere.
She wiggled in my lap, creating friction over the hard-on I always seemed to have around her lately, and I groaned. I never wanted to let her go. Kissing Scarlett was my touchstone—the world made sense when we did this. It was only afterward, when I started thinking too much about how we were playing with fire, that I panicked. But for now, there in the pizza place parking lot, I pushed that thought away, blocked out the world, and kissed her.
Finn
We finally made it out of the car and, despite being in a lust-fog, ordered the pizzas and delivered them back to my birthday party. The group had moved inside, and Billie had made a playlist of songs she thought I’d like, which was now assaulting my eardrums as everyone ate.
I’d announced Harvey could stay, and Amelia set straight to work teaching him tricks, garnering rounds of applause from Scarlett’s parents each time Harvey picked up something new, which seemed to be every couple of minutes. Smart dog, that one.
And with all the action and commotion and music, part of me was still back in the car at the pizza place, kissing Scarlett. Wanting Scarlett. It was as if I was in a Scarlett-induced haze. Not much else registered.
Even when I was looking somewhere else, I could feel her across the room. Feel her looking at me. And I kept drifting over close to her without meaning to. Through the haze, I did notice Jane watching us. Seemed we weren’t being as stealthy as we’d intended. And it wasn’t just the fact I might have betrayed our secret that didn’t quite sit comfortably. They’d always been happy we were friends, but how would they react if they knew I was having sex with their daughter?
Scarlett’s parents moved to the corner of the room and put their heads together. It looked like they were cooking up a plan, and knowing them, they probably were. The last time they’d done that, I’d ended up with a dog.
Then Jane appeared at my side. “We have another birthday present for you,” she whispered.
“Seriously, I don’t need anything else.”
“I think you’ll like this one.” She winked. Then she called out, “Billie, Amelia, how would you feel about a stargazing trip? We know this great spot not too far away.”
They were taking my sisters out for my birthday? Was this about giving me a break, or did the fact they’d left Scarlett out of the invitation too mean they were scheming…?
Billie and Amelia looked at each other and nodded. “That sounds fun,” Amelia said. “But shouldn’t Finn get to come since it’s his birthday?”
All eyes turned to me. Whatever the invitation had actually been about, I was desperate for some alone time with Scarlett so we could finish what we’d started in the car.
I dug my hands into my pockets. “Even on my birthday, I need to prepare for class on Monday. You wouldn’t want the students to miss out on getting enough homework just because it was my birthday over the weekend, would you?”