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“Let’s make it a night to remember.” He leans forward to kiss the middle of my forehead. “How the hell are you already twenty-one, Ava? Where did all those years go?”
Into my memory.
Being back in Manhattan has triggered a host of memories. This city was always good to me. I’ve missed it, and I’m glad to be back.
“So, dinner with the fam was…” Kerry, a friend since third grade, perks one of her blonde eyebrows. “Good, bad, or ugly?”
I let out a squeak of a giggle thanks to the three glasses of red wine I enjoyed during dinner. “No one at that table was ugly. The company was good, and the food was too. The only bad part was that I couldn’t sneak out at ten like I thought I could.”
“Amen to the not ugly part.” Kerry raises her martini glass in the air. “Your brothers are smoking hot. I mean volcano level hot.”
I scrunch my nose. “Eww.”
“You can’t see it because you’re related to them.” She clicks her tongue. “Give me five minutes alone with either of them, and they’d be asking me to marry them.”
“Sean is engaged,” I tell her. “Declan is too busy working to…”
“Fuck?” She lets out a laugh. “No man is ever too busy for a good fuck, Ava.”
I cover both ears with my hands. “Stop talking.”
She tugs on my right hand. “Fine. I’m sort of kind of seeing someone right now, anyways. I invited him tonight, but he had to work.”
I glance around the interior of the bar we’re in.
I was late getting to Dunfoy’s but was still touched that a few friends had gathered to greet me when I walked in.
We exchanged hugs and stories about how we’d spent the last few years of our lives. Then we toasted my birthday, and the two guys in attendance decided to head toward a pool table. Three of the women I graduated high school with are currently chatting up a man seated at the end of the bar.
That has left me alone with Kerry and the delicious apple martini I’m sipping on.
“What about you?” Kerry nudges my elbow. “Boyfriend? Lover? Friend who likes to fuck? What’s waiting for you back in London?”
“All of the above,” I joke, even though I’ve only ever had one boyfriend, and that relationship ended before I left for London years ago.
I’ve had lovers and a friend who liked to fuck since then, but when I return home to my flat, no one will be anxiously waiting to carry me to bed.
Kerry’s gaze wanders over my shoulder toward the entrance of the bar. “I hope you’re kidding about the boyfriend, Ava because I’m a firm believer in birthday treats, and if it were my special day, I’d take the guy that just walked in home with me to celebrate.”
I bow my head. “I’m staying with Declan for another couple of days, so I can’t take anyone home with me.”
“Oh my god.” Her voice comes out of her in a breathless rush. “He’s headed this way. Normally I’d fight you for him but considering I have an almost-boyfriend and it’s your birthday, sex in a suit is all yours.”
I take another drink from my glass. “Sex in a suit?”
As she slides off the bar stool, Kerry plants a kiss on my cheek. “You can thank me later. End the night with a bang, Ava. You deserve it.”
She’s right. I deserve it, but I can’t drag a man to bed in my brother’s guestroom because Decky would toss him out. Going home with a stranger is out of the question, so my birthday treat will consist of another martini and some harmless flirting.
It’s not the ideal way to mark a milestone, but it’ll have to do.
CHAPTER SIX
Ava
As soon as the man Kerry dubbed “sex in a suit” steps into my peripheral vision, I bow my head.
Out of all of the bars on this island, why the hell did Harrison Keene have to walk into this one?
Normally, I wouldn’t care about seeing one of Sean’s friends, but I told a small lie to my brothers to avoid hanging out with them after dinner.
They wanted to take a literal stroll down memory lane to a bowling alley to show off their skills on the lanes there.
On my eleventh birthday, my mom decided to throw me a surprise party at a bowling alley. It was fun even though my brothers quickly became the main attraction.
Sean and Declan didn’t join in on the fun. They bulldozed it by getting into a friendly competition over who was the best bowler.
Curse words were flying, a playful punch thrown by Sean may have landed too hard on Declan’s jaw, and that’s when all hell broke loose in the form of a food fight involving two dozen hot dogs, French fries, and squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard.
