Chapter 8

Twice, Sean had started to get up to go after Molly, and twice, Brody’s meaty hand had shoved him back down on the bench. This was the worst-case scenario. Molly thinking he was avoiding her because he was upset about what had happened the night before, when really the reason he couldn’t look at her for more than five seconds was because apparently in the last few hours, the doors had blown off the vault where he stored all his most forbidden Molly fantasies, and every time his eyes landed on her—his best fucking friend—he started mentally peeling off her clothes to get down to those polka-dot panties stretched across her perfect ass. And then he was putting her back across his lap, and this time, his hands were coasting over the backs of her bare thighs, stealing inside those panties so he could cup—

“See, I told you,” Emily gloated, the smile she was giving her husband smug and superior and enough to yank Sean’s attention back to the table and his friends who were still trying to make heads or tails of the bomb Molly had just dropped on them.

“Told him what?” he asked, feeling shitty on every count.

Emily shrugged, waving toward him. “This business with you and Molly. I told him there was something going on there. But typical guy”—she looked from Sean to Jase to Brody—“sorry, but you guys can be seriously dense when it comes to this business. Anyway, he said I was off the mark. Didn’t know what I was talking about.” She tossed her strawberry-blond waves off her shoulder and leaned forward on folded arms. “I’ll accept your apology now.”

Jase gave Sean a narrow-eyed look. “Wood?”

This was bullshit. He needed to talk to Molly. Explain what a low-down shit he was and make sure she understood that no matter what, she was still his girl. She’d always be his girl. He just had to put the perv who saw her as more back in the attic. Pushing to his feet again, he made it about halfway before Brody had him back down.

Firing the guy a hot look, Sean stopped and pulled his chin back. “You’re texting?”

Brody shot him a grin and set his phone down on the table. “Yeah. Just letting Max know your dirty dog bone touched his sister.”

Fucker. This wasn’t the time to joke around.

Brody’s phone sounded with a text. And then a second one, and Sean’s stare widened, shifting to Brody, who looked way too pleased with himself.

A second later, Sean’s phone pinged and then almost immediately started to ring.

Jase was stifling a laugh, and Emily tapped a finger on the table. “You should probably answer that.”

Scowling at Brody, Sean dug out his phone from his pocket and stepped away from the bench. This time, he didn’t get any resistance from Brody.

“Hey, Max, how’s the honeymoon?” he asked as Emily chimed in from behind to say hi to Sarah.

“What in the fuck is your dick doing anywhere near my little sister?” came the slow, threatening growl of one of Sean’s oldest friends. A guy Sean thought of as a brother but who, from the sound of it, was contemplating putting his fist through Sean’s face. Because…he hadn’t said Molly. Not his sister either.

No, Max had gone straight to his little sister.

Who was a twenty-seven-year-old woman, last Sean had checked.

He sighed, not in the mood for one Max’s overprotective tantrums. Not when Molly was legitimately upset and he was flipping out with the need to make things right.

“It was an accident. Don’t worry about it.”

“Accident?” The guy’s voice went up an entire octave. “You call—”

“Look, have a good last couple days. Molly and I are fine, but I gotta go.”

He disconnected the call, and this time when Brody moved to block him, Sean put his own hand on the bigger guy’s shoulder, pushing him firmly back into his seat. “I got this.”

Taking the stairs two at a time, Sean wanted to kick his own ass for letting Molly walk away. He should have followed her immediately.

He hit the patio and scanned the crowd, nodding at the friends he recognized while he kept moving. And then he heard it, that laugh that had a way of filling his chest even when he felt completely empty. Following the sound, he stopped at the open door and found her behind the bar, head down, slicing limes beside Ben. Ben who kept cutting looks Molly’s way, teasing her about her slicing technique and making her laugh again.

She was having fun and, hell, he didn’t want to ruin it. So he hung back a minute, trying to figure out what he was going to say.

And then Ben stopped what he was doing and leaned a hip into the counter where they were working so he could look at her. No big deal. Sean liked looking at her too. She was beautiful, and when she smiled, it felt like the first sunny day after a month of rain.

That’s how it had been for him since the first time he’d seen it. Of course, that first smile hadn’t come until she’d been living with them for months. Months of trying to get a laugh out of the kid with the saddest, most guarded eyes he’d ever seen. And then one day, he’d made some stupid joke, and it had happened. The sun came out, warm and sweet and so damn bright, it cracked something open inside him.

One smile, and he’d been hooked. One smile, and that had been it for him. He’d been a goner.

Not like this. Not back then. But the way she’d looked at him from then on made him feel like he was something. It didn’t have anything to do with his last name, who his father was, or what everyone knew was ahead for him. The way Molly had looked at him was about the guy he was at the core…and that was some addictive shit.

He loved her. And as she grew up, that protective, quasi-brotherly love had grown into a friendship like no other he had. Not even with her brother.

Ben grabbed a sprig of mint and tucked it behind Molly’s ear.

She stopped slicing the second Ben reached for her, and then she was looking at the guy, gingerly touching the little green leaves peeking out from behind that silky bit of hot-pink hair. Sean closed his eyes, trying to quell the possessive beast clawing at his chest. He had no right. No business. No fucking reason for his fists to be balling up at his sides and his gut to be telling him it was time to take Ben apart once and for all. The guy had been sniffing around Molly for the better part of a decade and—and what? Sean’s breath left his lungs in a rush as it hit him.

So what if Ben had been after Molly? The guy was kind of a dog, but no worse than Sean.

Ben might get around, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be serious about Molly.

Sean swallowed hard and pushed his feet to move. When he reached the front, he texted Brody that he was taking off. He wasn’t in any mood for a party.

A stiff drink though? He could definitely go for one of those. Walking another block, he saw a bar on the corner. One he’d never been to or heard of. Perfect.

It looked like a neighborhood place, filled with a midtwenties crowd in casual summer clothes. Comfortable. He ordered a whiskey and looked down the bar to flash a grin at the girls who’d been watching him since he walked in.

He needed to stop thinking about the way Ben had touched Molly’s hair or how she’d been giving him her smile. He needed to stop thinking about her at all.

The blond with the wild curls, bold red mouth, and tight Captain America T-shirt cocked her head to the side and asked if he wanted to join them for a drink. She had a hint of edge to her. Maybe this was just what he needed.

* * *

Coming home had been stupid. Molly sat forward on the couch, letting her eyes roam the empty apartment.

It had taken her a while to lick her wounds and scrape her pride back together before returning to her friends, fully expecting the hard-core razzing she totally deserved. But when she got back, Brody let her know that Sean had taken off. So she’d come home to find him. Only he wasn’t there.

Turning her phone over in her hands, she swiped it to life and, for the tenth time, let it go dark without sending the text asking where he was.

She’d never been hesitant to contact him before. She’d text him if it was slow at Belfast just to ask what he was doing. Once she’d gotten a response back that he was in a meeting with the guys from the Rome, Paris, and Vienna Wyse locations. With a follow-up question asking what she was doing. She’d laughed, figuring he didn’t need to know that she was marrying the ketchups. But then she’d gotten his next text with a series of question marks, and when she’d replied, he’d texted back within five minutes, calling her a hopeless romantic.

He’d been in an international sales and marketing meeting, and somehow, he’d still made sure she knew he always had time for her. And yet tonight, she couldn’t bring herself to send the simple text asking where he was. Because she was afraid of the answer.

Tossing the phone on the couch, she pushed to her feet with a huff and walked back to the kitchen. All the freezer had to offer was an old takeout box encased in freezer burn. The fridge wasn’t much better. Maybe she’d go shop. Stock up. Sitting around waiting for a guy who might or might not be coming home was making her feel pathetic. Especially since she wasn’t sure he was going to want to talk to her when he did get home.

Checking her phone again, she thought about texting to see if there was anything he wanted her to pick up. It wasn’t even nine. Totally reasonable.

Gah, she was being ridiculous. She circled the apartment looking for the canvas tote she used for shopping. Shoes, wallet, keys—

The apartment door swung open, and suddenly, there was Sean—her heart sank—with a smudge of fire-engine-red lipstick below his ear.

So now she knew where he’d been.

“You’re here,” he said, looking confused and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Guilty maybe.

Which he shouldn’t.

Just like she shouldn’t be feeling hurt to know he’d found a woman for a little off-hours recreation. This was Sean. That was his thing, and she’d grown out of it bothering her years ago. Mostly.

She set her bag down by the door. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving. I came home to find you, but”—she stepped into his space to brush her thumb across his jaw, showing him the smudge of lipstick—“I guess you made other plans.”

His eyes narrowed on her thumb and then went wide. “Shit, that’s not what—” His hand closed around her wrist, warm and strong, and then he was tugging her down the hall to the bathroom with him. “That’s not what I was doing.”

Molly watched, stunned, as he turned on the water and pumped a squirt of soap into his hand.

“I went for a drink, just trying to get my head together and chill out. I feel like I keep fucking everything up and… Shit, Moll, I just wanted to stop. I wanted to get out of the way and let you have some fun, even if it meant you were with…” He shook his head and drew her hand down to the tap and began washing the red off her skin. “Okay, so I thought for a minute about taking her up on her offer when she made it. But then, hell.” Sean released her hand and turned his attention to the now-faint streak of red by his ear. Soaping the spot and rinsing it, he met her eyes in the mirror. “I guess I just didn’t want to. I didn’t want her.”

She shouldn’t ask. She didn’t need to know. But with Sean’s deep-brown eyes locked with hers, she couldn’t stop the question from whispering past her lips. “Why not?”

He held her reflected stare before turning to face her and taking a slow breath. “Because I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”

She shook her head. He didn’t mean the words the way they sounded.

“I know it’s not what you want to hear, Moll. And I’m sorry. But that’s what was going on at the party and before. I couldn’t look at you without seeing…” He blew out a harsh breath. “Without seeing something that’s not mine to imagine. I didn’t want you to know what was going through my head, so I was trying to dodge you until I could get it out.”

That wasn’t possible. She couldn’t be hearing him right. Her head bowed as she fought for the breath coming too thin through her lungs. Because it sounded like Sean was telling her something she’d given up on hearing years ago. Like maybe, finally, he wanted—

“Molly, it’s killing me that you think this is your fault or that you’d done something wrong.” Ducking down, Sean caught her chin with the crook of his finger to bring her face up to his. Searching her eyes, he looked like he was about to say something more when his expression shifted. He straightened, pulling back as a furrow marred his brow.

“That look,” he muttered, his voice low. “Jesus, Molly, you aren’t supposed to be looking at me like that.”

Her racing heart stalled as the floor dropped out from beneath her. She hadn’t meant to let him see, hadn’t been thinking anything other than that Sean wasn’t mad at her. That maybe there was actually a chance for them. But the way Sean was looking at her didn’t make her feel like that at all.

Running his big hand down his face, he swore into his palm, understanding filling his eyes. “I thought you were doing it on purpose. I thought it was part of some game, but that’s not what this is, is it?”

Oh God. Anxiety knotted her stomach. She needed to answer him.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, her throat going tight as tears inexplicably pushed at her eyes.

“No, I know,” he assured her, as if he completely understood the grievous nature of what had happened. “Me either. You know what you mean to me. What our friendship means to me. I would never willingly risk it.”

It was supposed to make her feel better, but all she felt was an impending sense of dread. Because where did they go from here?

“Obviously, we can’t change our living arrangements until this is resolved.”

Huh? “We can’t?” she asked, not sure if her ears were playing tricks on her and she was just hearing what she wanted to hear.

His eyes met hers, steady and clear. “No. I mean, not unless you feel like you still want me to go. I mean, if you do, Molly, I’ll go. Tonight. It’s just that I don’t want to put any more distance between us until things are back to normal. Christ, Moll, I need us to get back to normal.”

She was nodding fast, reaching for him as he pulled her into a hug. “I love you, Sean.”

Burying his nose in her hair, he answered, “You too. We’ll get through this, Moll.”

Snug in the hold of Sean’s strong arms, no secrets or lies between them for the first time in a week, she believed him.

His hold tightened. “I think we’ll be okay so long as I don’t get another look at those sex kitten yellow-and-green polka-dot panties.”

Molly froze, then pulled back with a snort to look into his face. “You’re serious.”

Her panties were cotton briefs. Probably the least sexy thing she could imagine.

“As a heart attack, Moll. Those panties”—he bit his lip, closing his eyes as he shook his head—“with that little loopy edging. Fuck.”

Was he talking about that little elastic scalloping around the top and legs? Crossing her arms, she asked, “Just how close a look at my panties did you get?”

“Believe me, not nearly as close as I wanted,” he said, giving her one of those sorry, not sorry looks as he wrapped an arm around her back and led her out of the bathroom and into the kitchen.

“So the panties were the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.” It was weird, but the part of her that had always wished there was something about her that could attract Sean preened just a little.

“Pretty much.” He walked to the fridge and pulled out a couple of beers. “What about you?”

Curling into her corner of the couch, she bit her lip as the realization hit her. This had been the one thing in her life, the only thing she hadn’t been able to talk to Sean about…and now she could. He walked back and dropped down beside her, legs splayed in that comfortable, at-home way, and she grinned, cocking her head at him. “Shirtless, post-workout Sean is burn-the-house-down hot.”

His brows shot high, and he took a long swallow of his beer. “I always figured post-workout Sean was pretty gross. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve had you running from him several times over the years.”

She grinned into her beer, remembering the way Sean used to chase her around for a hug after getting back from a game of hoops when he’d been in school. “No, don’t get me wrong, the cold, damp T-shirt is nothing I want to be pressed up against. But lose the shirt, and it’s just all that warm skin and hard muscle, flushed red and beaded up with sweat.” She smacked her lips for emphasis. “They could make a Tumblr GIF out of you, for real.”

“Shut up,” he said, laughing.

“No. It’s that hot. Especially when your hair is going every which way. That’s like the cherry on top of the Sean-candy sundae. The messy hair might even be more potent than the shirtless part.”

“Messy, huh?” He looked like he couldn’t quite believe her, but then this wasn’t something she’d ever shared with him before.

“Messy Sean is my favorite Sean.” She turned to him. “Not just because he looks so good on you, but because I like you best when you’re all relaxed instead of watching your words to maintain an appropriate public image for Wyse. I like the Sean I get behind closed doors. The one who sits like a guy and says everything he thinks and makes me laugh at all his inappropriate jokes.”

Throwing his arm over the back of the couch, he turned to face her, his eyes serious. “I’m not that Sean very often anymore.”

She shrugged. “You are to me. Even when you’re all suited up and on your best, most bland behavior, when you’re looking at me, that’s the guy I see.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite.” Stretching out the arm behind the couch, he caught a bit of her hair between his fingers and met her eyes again. “All the time, Moll.”

“Sean, you’re kind of giving me that swollen-heart feeling,” she warned quietly.

Their eyes held a moment longer, and then he blew out a short breath. “Yeah, and I’m getting a semi.” He shifted back into the cushions, not so much putting more distance between them as adjusting it with his posture. Removing the deep-eye staring and potential for an escalating situation. “Time for some negative reinforcement.” Rolling his head against the cushion to look at her, he asked, “You ready for this?”

She laughed, enjoying the return to a state of full disclosure with her best friend. “I don’t know, what are we talking about?”

Grabbing the remote, Sean scrolled through the offerings. “Brace yourself, Moll. This is going to be rough.”

A close-up of what looked like a half-finished sweater lit up the screen as a woman’s gentle lilting voice ran like nails down a blackboard, immediately drawing every muscle in Molly’s back tight. “No,” she snapped, reaching for the remote and failing when one of Sean’s hands planted against her forehead and the other held the remote out of reach.

“Sorry, Moll.” He laughed, fighting her off. “It’s for the greater good. Drastic times, drastic measures and all that.”

Squirming, she stuffed her bare foot into his armpit and wiggled her toes. “You sound like a girl,” she taunted at his shocked squeak. “I will not watch this knitting show. I work three jobs, Sean. My downtime is precious.”

“All the better,” he countered, dropping the remote behind the couch to catch her foot. “Every time we get a case of the wayward thoughts, we turn this shit on as punishment. Pretty soon, we’ll be safely back in the land of Platonica.”

Molly shuddered and withdrew her foot as Sean eased off her forehead. “God, I hate you.”

Clinking his beer to hers, he eased back into the cushions, a smug smile stretching his lips. “See? It’s working already.”

“Your boner’s gone?” she asked, forcing herself to watch the camera pan across the yarn. They were going to need more beer, she thought, taking a long swallow.

“Not even close,” Sean replied casually, causing beer to snort out her nose. He shook his head. “Damn, not even now.”