Page 67 of Secrets in Love
Our night ended with Scarlett losing her shit over something to do with their plans for my aunt’s house and storming into the restroom in tears. Emerging a few minutes later with her head held high and toilet paper stuck to her shoe, she marched straight past the table and out the door with Finn running after her, apologizing before he, too, disappeared into the night.
“Well, fuck me,” I said, slamming down the last of my cocktail and collapsing face-first onto the table. “That didnotgo to plan.”
Nate
Our table pretended nothing had happened for at least forty minutes after the dramatic exit. It was awkward to begin with, but my under-the-table flirting with Evie and Teddy’s natural extroversion broke that shit down quickly. He was funny, cheeky, and couldn’tnotflirt to save himself, but the guy clearly loved Finn and was borderline obsessed with Scarlett and her son, Ben, who he had helped raise. No detail was overlooked in the animated retellings of his and Scarlett’s meeting at college, their shot-gun co-dependent living arrangements, and their ultimate dual migration from England to the States.
Asher was much harder to read. While far from a closed book, he was much more reserved with his feelings, opinions, and past than his boyfriend, which, for balance, was probably a good thing.
With the passing of time and the consumption of alcohol, the uncomfortableness magically melted away, and conversation flowed. Evie, who was more than a little tipsy, began to relax and show her truly funny and glorious nature. If I was not mistaken, she also engaged me in hardcore eye sex whenever our gazes met. Those baby blues seductively roamed every visible inch of me, even as Asher and I were given the lowdown on Finnlett, Finn and Scarlett’s couple name that Teddy had apparently just come up with and promised he would likely forget by morning. “Okay, so let me get this straight.” I took a swig of my beer, took a deep breath, and went for it. “Scarlett and Finn are sleeping together and working on Jocelyn’s house together, in a workplace where not only is their relationship a secret, but their kids are too? And now Scarlett thinks Finn told Jocie to give her the job so she would sleep with him and had some old creep fired for hitting on her, but he didn’t?”
Teddy’s eyes and lips shifted to the right as he processed the glut of words. “Hmm, yes, well, he did but didn’t.”
“Right. Clear as mud. Thanks for rectifying that, Teddy.”
“Look, I know Finn,” Evie said, emphatically crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s a dick and a moron, but he’s a moron with morals. He doesn’t have a sleazy bone in his body. If he recommended Scarlett to Jocelyn, it was only because he thought she could do better than him. He has worked his ass off on that design for months. He wouldn’t hand it over for no reason.”
“I dunno,” Teddy sighed. “I’ve watched that boy flitter and float around Scarlett with a dumb grin and a hard-on for weeks. The pressure building up in his balls must have been agonizing, and I’m pretty sure he was thinking about a different kind of bone. A blow job may have sounded like an excellent reason to ignore his moral compass…which, of course, was pointing south…unlike his cock.” The sheer amount of cock analogies earned him a high five from me and a roll of the eyes from both Asher and Evie.
“Can you two stop thinking about your dicks for five minutes?” She sighed.
“No,” chorused all the men at the table and one waiter who happened by.
“Omg, it’s like sitting with a bunch of apes.” Evie’s look of disgust was quickly replaced with something much more fun and promising as I ran my finger over her knee and squeezed her thigh. She liked it. I could feel her thighs tighten and could see her lip tremble. Her own moral compass was waning.
“Okay, so forget Finn and his either moral or sleazy boner. What’s the reason they both hid the kids?” I asked, still caressing her warm, soft skin.
Teddy took a sip of his margarita, watching us suspiciously as he replied, “Scar’s a little traumatized from years of pre- and misconceptions about the age she became a parent. It’s understandable. She was only eighteen when she had Ben, and she has been tutted and stared at for years, especially when Ben was a baby.”
Evie nodded in agreement. “Finn’s the same. They both want to establish themselves without that judgment hanging over their heads. It is totally unnecessary, but I think they’re so young and just want a fair go.”
“I hope they can sort it out. As hilarious as laughing while they make fools of themselves in front of each other has been, I do love seeing them together. Their chemistry is hot as fuck. Speaking of chemistry, what’s the deal here?” Teddy jabbed his finger aggressively at Evie and me.
“There is no deal,” Evie answered way too quickly to be believable, and the jolt of shock her body made finally dislodged my hand from her leg. “It’s a super un-deal-like situation. Nate is Iris’s uncle, Finn’s bestie, and one of my best friends too. We grew up together. All of us did—not just me and Nate, obviously. That’s it. Nothing else to report.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and nervously sipped from her rosé. Gossiping with the boys about Finn and Scarlett had delightfully consumed her for the last hour, but the speculation turning to us was clearly far less entertaining. For me, it was much more.
Teddy and Asher looked at each other, then back to us. “I call bullshit,” Asher said. “I have watched you two all night, and there have been as many heart eyes and blush-cheeked gazes between you two as there was between the other two.”
Teddy agreed. “C’mon, mate,” he sang in the worst Australian accent I’d heard to date, “tell us what’s going on. I promise we won’t tell Captain Koala. Your tawdry affair will be guarded with our lives.”
“You know what, Evie? I’d like to hear this too. What is going on between us?” I returned to my seat and smirked. It was unfair of me to put her on the spot. She’d made it clear how she felt, but I couldn’t help it. I knew she was lying to herself. She needed a push in the right direction from someone other than me, and Teddy Digby was the perfect man for the job.
Betrayal besieged her face, and she sprung to her feet, knocking her chair over in the process, then tripping over it in her haste to escape. The loud crash as it hit the floor drew every set of eyes in the bar. “Oh! Look at the time. We better go, Nate.” She grabbed me by the neck of my shirt, almost choking me as she yanked me to my feet. “We have to be up early tomorrow.”
“Do we? What for, Eves?”
“We have that thing, you know…the thing with Iris.”
“Nope. Haven’t got a clue.” I returned her chair to its upright position and tapped the seat. “Sit down, Gidge. Let’s talk more about us.”
Through gritted teeth, Evie called me an idiot and tried again, “You know, the thing…at the place?”
“Oh, yes. The Iris thing at the place. Now I remember.” Over howls of protest and demands of truth, I leaned across the table and shook the boys’ hands as firmly as I could while being dragged by the collar and reprimanded by my little firecracker. I enjoyed it way too much.
Evie was so enraged by my outrageous disobedience and Teddy and Asher’s speculation that her verbal whipping of me continued the whole way home. The fact that I loved her yelling at me was made evident by my irrepressible smirk, which further fueled her fire. It was a vicious, sexy cycle. The more she yelled, the tighter the clenching of my hand on her thigh became, and the pinkie finger stroking-slash-fucking she began once we were in the back of the Uber was potentially orgasmic.
The touching and tongue-lashing turned to a whisper as we entered the house—or the mansion…the place was massive. Three living areas and a huge open-plan kitchen and formal dining room opened out to a sprawling deck, garden, and garage. Decor and furniture wise, it was all Hamptons style, all Jocelyn, but to the trained eye, there were little hints of Evie, Finn, and Byron scattered throughout. Glass vases filled with shells and sand, ornamental surfboards, coral, and hurricane lamps sat on white credenzas and shelves. Finn’s stunning photography, line drawings, and paintings of the coastline, their beautiful family, and their farmhouse lined the wainscot and duck-egg blue walls.
The bedrooms we were heading to were more luxurious than the small hotel room I’d spent the last few days in. They were comparable to expensive suites, containing a private bathroom, enough space for a desk and sitting area, and a king-size bed.
