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I found myself grimacing. “No. No way. Definitely not.”

“Definitely not?” Holt spluttered. “Larkin, you spend eighty percent of your time at work talking about how you want to fuck all the wrestlers.”

My shoulders hunched up as I guiltily mumbled, “No, I don’t.”

He snorted. “Yes, you do. Or at least you did until recently. So what’s changed?” He suddenly stiffened, straightening from the bar, his eyes growing hard as he stared at me. “Did one of them do something to make you uncomfortable?”

“What? No.” I shook my head emphatically, wanting to shrink under that scary look. “No, definitely not. They’re all really nice.”

“Are you sure?” he asked sharply. “Did one of them say something you didn’t like, or…?”

“No,” I repeated firmly, then scrubbed an anxious hand over my face. “It’s not… about the wrestlers. Well, except it kind of is.”

“Okay…” Holt sounded confused and still concerned.

“It’s…” I squirmed, spinning my glass on the bar top, then blurted, “I asked Seb if he would be my fuckletics instructor because I’m a virgin and I wanted to be good when I had sex with the wrestlers and we messed around in your spare room at the pool party and Kit heard us and told me so I said we were dating and then I told Seb and he seemed kind of weird about it and I’m worried I’ve fucked up and made everything weird now and I don’t want to—I don’t know what I—I’m just kind of freaking out that he’s going to call it off now and I don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m so… sad about it.

“But I am,” I added, gazing up at Holt as if he had all the answers while he stared at me, frozen in shock. To my mortification, my chin wobbled again as my vision blurred. “I’m really sad and I don’t know why.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Holt Actually Gives Good Advice, Surprisingly

Larkin

There was a long, long moment of silence after I finally stopped talking. Breathing fast, I scrubbed roughly at my eyes and cleared my throat, sniffing hard to stop my nose from running.

“Jesus Christ, Lark.” Holt downed the rest of his drink, then turned and grabbed a bottle of dark rum off the shelf.

I couldn’t think of anything to say after blurting all that out, so I just picked up my glass and had a tiny sip.

“Which bedroom?”

I flushed. “The one with the, um, big lawn flamingo.”

Holt sighed heavily. “Okay. What the fuck is a fuckletics instructor?”

I couldn’t even smile. “I just called it that to… I just… I was so nervous about all of it, and I wanted to get it out of the way, and Seb’s so nice and he was so… cool about it.” I found myself getting choked up again, so I gulped down more of my drink.

“So Seb agreed to this?” Holt asked slowly.

Panic suddenly gripped me, making me stare at him with wide eyes. “Please don’t fire him. Or me,” I added uncertainly.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m obviously not going to fire either of you. But why do you think he agreed to it, Lark?”

My shoulders rose in a jerky shrug. “Because he’s really nice. He’s just… the best.”

After a pause, Holt huffed and poured himself some rum. “Can’t believe Taylor was right.”

“What?” My head jerked up to stare at him.

“Taylor is convinced there’s something going on between you two.” An affectionate smile twisted his mouth.

“What? No.” I laughed too loudly. “There’s not something going on between us.”

Holt gave me a flat look. “You just told me he’s your ‘fuckletics instructor.’”

I flushed. “Yeah, but that’s just… that. He only agreed to help me because we’re friends. It’s not like he’s actually interested in me in that way.”