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His gaze moves over the bar, the tables, and the exits before settling on me, as if the rest of the room has served its purpose and can be dismissed.
I glare at Eilish, waiting for the grin that tells me this is one of her terrible jokes. It doesn’t come. My best friend listened while I told her I couldn’t be around him, heard every reason I could give her, and invited him anyway.
“What the hell have you done?”
Eilish curls both hands around her glass. “I asked him to join us.”
“Why would you do this to me?” I hiss at her through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry.” She offers me her sweetest smile and sets her hand on mine. “If avoiding him means avoiding me too, then I need to find out if there’s any way through this.”
“I gathered that from the Harrington currently walking toward our table.”
“We’re going to sort this out like adults.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Yes, we are.”
I lean in, holding her gaze as I lower my voice. “I was about to tell you something important.”
Her hand squeezes mine, but she doesn’t call him off. “Then tell me after.”
I slide my hand out from under hers. “After I kill him?”
“After we figure out how I’m supposed to marry him without losing you.”
Fionn heads in our direction and my pulse thrums faster.
He hasn’t even reached the table, and I’ve already considered three exits, two weapons, and one throat punch.
Fionn stops at our table, one hand tucked in the front pocket of his hoodie and the other loose at his side. Up close, there’s a faint flush beneath his skin as if he’s been in the cold too long.
His gaze moves to Eilish for half a second before he looks right at me.
It is not a glance. It is a hand at the back of my neck without touching me, a quiet pressure that drags the memory of the garden to the surface and leaves me aching for him.
“I hear you’re letting your friend down,” he says. “Never took you for a quitter.”
I smile because anger would please him too much. “You don’t know me well enough to call me anything.”
“I know enough.”
Eilish closes her eyes. “We’re only thirty seconds in.”
“He started it,” I say.
Fionn folds his arms across his chest. “Would you like me to finish it?”
“Please sit with us, Fionn,” Eilish says. “I appreciate you coming out tonight.”
“As soon as you said she’d be here, I finished up early.”
“See…” She eyes me. “That was a normal thing to say.”
“He was being sarcastic,” I reply.
Fionn lowers himself into a seat, making sure he sits directly opposite me. He stretches one leg beneath the table, so his shin touches mine and stays there.
