AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I play anyway. Finn spends more than half our time trying to correct my form, and honestly, with the sparks that fly along my arm as he continuously readjusts it, I just let him.
Maybe I don’t need any more drinks.
“There!” I shout, arms lifting over my head in triumph as I finally hit a bulls-eye. “Ha!”
“Yes, thanks to my determined coaching you are still in last place.” He laughs. “But I think you'll still be a formidable opponent.”
“Oh, yeah?”
He nods. “Definitely. Next time, you’ll probably be kicking my ass.”
Next time. Something thrills inside of me at the thought before I firmly remind myself that according to Lucy, there won’t be a next time. Finn doesn’t do next times, and I shouldn’t expect any.
“With my newfound skills.” I toss the dart and boom. Another bull’s eye. Fuck I’m good at this. “I’ll be running a dart hustle in my spare time. Working all day, playing darts all night.”
“Is that right?” His voice is soft, and he’s standing closer than I remember. His hand rests on my lower back as he guides me back to our bar stools, and when he moves it back to his side I still feel warm. “Do you want another drink?”
I shake my head.
He smiles as he motions for the tab. “Then do you want to get out of here?”
Finn’s staring at my mouth, and the heat I thought I’d glimpsed in his eyes earlier is back in full force. It’s overwhelming, being at the center of his attention. I feel like I’m in the eye of a hurricane, waiting for the waves of the storm to hit. The energy between us is frenetic, chemical.
And I can’t afford any of it.
“We can go back to my place,” he says. “I have darts there, too.”
I almost laugh. Darts, right. I bet he also has a wide selection of board games we can chastely play all night. “Do you have Pok-a-Chock too?”
“Pok-a-Tok,” he corrects, still smiling. “And no. I’ll have to get on it. I hear girls go crazy for it.”
“What if I said I can’t go anywhere without a proper Pok-a-Tok court?”
“Then I’d commission one tonight,” he says lightly. He pays the bill without looking at the price and stuffs a hundred dollars in the tip jar, keeping his eyes on me the entire time as he rises to his feet. “Are you coming?”
He’s confident that I am – I can tell by the smug set of his jaw and the gleam of anticipation in his eyes. Hell, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. I have just enough drinks in me to make me think that it might be a good idea. He’s good at darts, good at trivia… what else is he good at?
Instead, I pat his arm.
“You’re going to have to do a little better than this if you want me to think we’re going anywhere.”
His jaw goes slack.
My heels click as I walk away, and for a moment as I step out into the Chicago night, I can’t help the surge of exhilaration that thrills through my blood. He doesn’t look like anyone’s ever told him no before, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good to take him and his ego down a peg.
But that thought hits me like a bucket of cold water – I just tookmy bossdown a peg. The guy in charge of my continued employment. They guy I’m going to have to see every single working day, and it’s not like I’ve got a plethora of job offers lined up.
Holy hell is work going to be awkward tomorrow. What was I thinking?
4
FINN
Icheck my watch, instinctively. It’s been a solid forty minutes since the last time I bothered Emma. Between that and bringing her a cup of coffee, I figure I’m probably good for a fresh session.
Besides, there’s nothing to do around here. Or rather, there’s far, far too much to do, but all of it has to be done by other people. And as much as I love sitting around in my office being nervous and refreshing my email every five seconds, annoying Emma is much more fun.
When I walk in, she’s flipping through a file. I’m impressed; she’s already getting much better at looking busy.
