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I choked on my mouthful and felt it burn up behind my nose. “Excuse me?”
“It’s ok, Mackenzie, you don’t have to pretend with me,” she said with a reassuring, and kinda gropey, squeeze of my bicep.
“One: my name isn’t Mackenzie. And two: I’m not hung up on Chase.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look, there really is no point denying it. I’m trained to spot sexual tension at twenty paces.”
What the actual fuck was she talking about?
“I spend my whole day observing people,” she continued. “You think I wouldn’t notice that my new friend is hung up on my other new friend?” We were friends now? She took another sip of her beer and watched me squirm with a delighted glint in her eye.
I was starting to regret coming here. I should have stayed home with my pie crusts.
“Harley, where’s my beer?” A towering ginger asked. I should have taken her moment of distraction to escape. I was too slow.
“Oh! Sorry I got distracted. Mack, this is my brother Murphy. Murphy, this is Mack—he’s one of the owners of Rudi Blue, that bar I was telling you about.”
I shook the guy’s hand and asked, “How’s it being related to this one?”
“Pretty much how you’d expect,” he said with a shrug and ruffled Harley’s curls. The pair of them could not look more different. She was all dark hair and smokey eyes and he’d be more suited to the rolling hills of Ireland, or maybe Scotland.
“Get off me you oaf,” she said in a smiling growl. “And don’t even try and pretend that you don’t love me. Hunter, I need one for Murphy, too!”
Hunter returned with a beer for Murphy and a second for me. Despite holding a conversation with her brother, I could still feel Harley’s attention on me. It was unsettling. Almost as much as the fact that she had somehow guessed at my feelings for Chase. I shot her a sidelong look. Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she was just trying to weasel out some information. It didn’t actually matter either way. I was not about to confide in Harley when the chances of that information being on the cover of the New York Times the following day seemed like they were pretty much a given. She wasn’t subtle, nor did she look like she could keep any information to herself. So, no, this was not a conversation I was going to be having with her.
“So, what are you doing about it?” She asked a half hour later, her amused yet assessing gaze on me. I’d been naive enough to think she’d drop the subject. More likely she was lulling me into a false sense of security.
“What’s who doing about what?” Hunter asked, making himself comfortable on the other side of the bar. A couple of extra bartenders had arrived, leaving him free to join what I had to assume was going to be an invasive conversation, centered squarely on me. Fucking great.
Harley grinned and made herself more comfortable on her stool. “Mack here is in love with his business partner.”
“In love?” I barked. What the hell happened tohung up on?
Hunter’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, not surprising seeing as he knew exactly who that business partner was. Thank you Harley. “Is that right?”
“I said what I said.” Her arched eyebrow dared me to argue.
“She’s usually right,” Hunter said and I wanted to slap him like a soap star.
Harley nodded, smug satisfaction rolling off her in waves. “I was right about Peter and Cameron, and Jemma and Nash.”
“I don't know who Peter and Cameron are, but Jemma and Nash didn’t exactly end well.”
She shrugged, unconcerned. “They’ll work it out.”
“How can you be so sure? He’s gone back to L.A.”
“I’m aware of that, thank you, Mackenzie.”
“Still not my name.”
As if I hadn’t spoken, she continued, “They’ll work it out because that’s the only way. I know these things. Don’t argue.”
“Honestly, man, it’s easier to just go with it,” Hunter confirmed and Murphy nodded behind his sister.
“How do you two know each other?” I asked in a last ditch effort to change the direction of this conversation. Harley smiled, well aware of what I was trying to do but happy to humor me for the moment, probably because she’d be roasting me again soon enough.
“Hunter and I have been friends forever and ever, not unlike you and your lady love.”
