Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 142801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
“It only seems kinky the first time, darling.”
“Hey, enough of that,” Fin playfully complains. “No PDAs. You’ll make a single guy jealous.”
“We can’t seem to help ourselves.” Oliver grins. Two–one to him.
“Well, try harder,” Fin says flatly, lifting my hand from Oliver. He says nothing about the ring. “You look stunning this evening.” His eyes move over me appreciatively, encouraging me to do a little twirl. I giggle because it’s silly but all in good fun. Fin is a flatterer, and I get the sense he knows how to treat (if not keep) a girl.
“Thank you, Fin. You can pay me all the compliments you like.”
“You never say that to me,” Oliver puts in, aggrieved.
“Maybe I’m just treating you mean.”
“It’s keeping him more than keen,” Fin says with a chuckle. “If you ever get sick of this one . . .” He throws a thumb in Oliver’s direction.
“It won’t be you she comes looking for,” my so-called beloved retorts.
“No, ’cause it’ll be me.” Matt arrives by my side and bestows on me a one-armed hug, I guess because his other hand is occupied with a plate brimming with food. “How are you, Eve? Want a little nibble?” He offers me his plate.
“For fuck’s sakes!” Oliver complains.
“Food, man,” Matt protests.
“I’m good,” I answer with a soft laugh.
“Looking good, too, I see.”
“Will you two stop ogling my date?”
“Ah, shut your face. How is it,” Matt continues, “that out of the three of us, you’re the one with the date?”
“I’m sure neither of you will be going home alone,” Oliver mutters.
“A scurrilous accusation!” Matt complains like an old maid.
“One that lands like an arrow,” Oliver bites.
“Don’t begrudge us poor bachelors our little pleasures.”
“My pleasure isn’t little,” Fin puts in. And if I wasn’t laughing before, I am now.
“Honestly, have you seen the state of him?” Matt jerks his head toward a smiling Fin. “Fat chance of him finding love, dressed in a green suit. A green suit!” He gives a slow, sorrowful shake of his head.
“It’s black, not green.” Fin sounds wounded. “Who the fuck would wear a green suit?”
“You, clearly,” Oliver drawls.
“I suppose he does have enough cheek for two arses,” Matt says, which I take to mean Fin doesn’t give a stuff for anyone’s opinion, because he sure as heck doesn’t look like a chipmunk. “God love him, he shouldn’t be allowed to go clothes shopping himself.” With a pitying glance, he adds, “He’s also color blind.”
“Defective,” Oliver adds.
“I wasn’t alone. My tailor was there.”
“No.” Oliver’s gaze flicks over him critically. “That thing is off the rack.”
Fin swears, and I laugh again, and so begins our evening.
For all the fancy setting, once the opening speeches are over, the night is quite informal. Guests mill around table settings, chatting and laughing before moving on.
The food is buffet style, but quite upscale. There’s a lobster and oyster bar set on mounds of glittering ice, and another offering smoked salmon, beluga caviar, and a whole host of other things, none of which I find myself hungry for. I’m too nervous to eat.
What am I supposed to say? Hey, I hear you’ve a house for sale. Wanna sell it to me and my hunk over here? I promise I won’t install feature walls or shabby chic the whole damn place.
“Get off!” Matt slaps Fin’s hand away, shielding his plate with his body as Fin chomps on a piece of chicken. Or, according to the server, poussin in jerk seasoning served on a bed of fried plantain. “Watch him,” he warns. “He’s light fingered. He’d steal the eyes out of your head.”
Fin begins to laugh, coughing a little as he swallows the piece of pilfered chicken.
“Serves you right. Choke, you bastard. I’ll write your eulogy. Phineas choked the chicken often enough,” Matt begins in sonorous tones, “but in the end, the chicken got its own back. And that is how he met his sad end.”
“I will be castrated by paper cuts before you read my eulogy,” Fin retorts.
“Sounds like a painful way to go, but you do you,” Matt retorts.
“When my time comes, I plan on being in my own bed with a bellyful of whisky and a maiden’s mouth around my”—he halts briefly, his gaze sliding my way—“nether regions as I disappear into the darkness from whence I came.”
“He came, and he went.” Matt presses his hand to his chest and gives a sorrowful shake of his head.
“You guys are too funny,” I say, chuckling again.
“Yes. They’re hilarious.” An unamused Oliver offers me his hand, and like a good little fake girlfriend, I stand.
“See you guys around.”
“Are you off to have a look at the posh frocks?” Fin asks.
I look to Oliver. Are we?
“Would you like to?”
“Who doesn’t love fashion?”
“Him,” Matt pipes up, nodding toward Fin and his green suit.
“I’d love to look.” If Oliver had mentioned the exhibition much earlier, things might’ve gone much easier for him. “If you don’t mind.”