AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then spell it out for me, big bro. Because if you’ve got something to say, then just say it.”
“Okay, fine.” Chase’s silver gaze narrowed. “Did something happen between you and Beth?”
Finn had to keep a tight hold on his expression to not give himself away. “What? What are you talking about?”
“You think I haven’t seen the way you look at her?” His brother’s gaze was far too knowing. “And the way she looks at you?”
A muscle jumped in Finn’s jaw. So much for assuming he and Beth had been secretive about it.
It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter that his brother knew, because really, it had just been a one-off thing and it wasn’t going to happen again. And anyway, being secretive about it only made it more of a big deal and it definitely wasn’t a big deal. So it was the first time he’d had sex with a woman in five years. So what? Chase didn’t know that and Finn wasn’t in a hurry for him to find out either. Maybe, to keep it casual, he’d tell his brother. Chase could be like a dog with a bone about some things, especially when it concerned Finn’s well-being.
He was such a big brother sometimes.
The only issue was it rebounding on Beth, and Finn didn’t want that. Not that Chase was a gossip. He’d keep it on the down low.
“Why do you want to know?” Finn asked at last.
“Because my little brother’s well-being is important to me,” Chase said flatly. “And you’ve been a bastard on wheels for so long, I’ve forgotten what the old Finn Kelly is actually like. That was until last week.”
The old Finn Kelly. As if he’d been a different person before Sheri had died. And, well, to be fair, he had been. Grief was a journey and that journey changed you. Irrecoverably.
Finn raised a brow. “So naturally you assumed I’d gotten laid?”
“It is a great mood enhancer, you can’t deny that.”
He wished he could. But Chase was right. Since that encounter with Beth, which had been nothing but pure unadulterated pleasure, his mood had been…well. It had been fantastic, something he should have done years ago.
But that was before you’d met Beth.
Yeah, and he didn’t want to start thinking things like that. He didn’t want to start thinking that Beth made it different or special or any of that kind of crap. He’d slept with her because he wanted her, because they had a fair amount of physical chemistry, but that was it.
It had nothing to do with her smile or the sunshine he’d sensed inside her, that he’d gotten to hold for a brief little while…too brief…
Chase coughed ostentatiously. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Finn scowled. “I didn’t say anything.”
“No, but the look on your face did. That’s a ‘I’m just remembering the great sex I had’ face if ever I saw one.”
It was too late to deny it, so all Finn said was “Yeah and it’s not going to happen again, so don’t get too excited.”
Chase studied him a moment, then looked back down at his grill. “And why not?”
“Do I really need to explain why?”
“Twice doesn’t make it a relationship. Even three times doesn’t.”
But Finn was getting tired of this conversation. “I have my reasons and I don’t need to explain myself to you. Also, just so you know, she felt the same way.”
“Right.”
Finn narrowed his gaze at his brother because that was the most carefully neutral sounding “right” he’d ever heard. “We discussed it. She was fine with it.”
Chase didn’t say anything for a long moment, the pause punctuated by the sounds of the meat sizzling on the grill. “It’s been my experience that when women say they’re fine with it,” he said finally, “they almost never are.”
That Finn had also had that experience wasn’t helpful. Sheri had been a great one for acting as if everything was fine, ignoring her inexplicable tiredness and the pain she’d get in her shoulder. Working too hard, she’d said. Probably just slept weirdly, she’d said.
And she’d kept on saying those things right up until the day she’d told him that it wasn’t nothing after all. That she had cancer.
