19. Oliver

19

OLIVER

This is weird.

It shouldn’t be, and yet it is.

I take a drink of my IPA, set the glass down, and try to focus on whatever Logan is going on about—something vitally important, judging by the sound of his voice.

“So it lets you take down the enemy faster,” he says, staring intently at us. “Make sense?”

“Right,” I say, but I’ve missed how we’re taking down the enemy or even why we want to. I don’t even remember who that is exactly.

At this moment, my libido is my most obvious foe, taking over a larger portion of my brain than it normally controls, say, 99 percent instead of the usual 95 percent.

Thank fuck our mates are here with us at Gin Joint on Wednesday night, because I need the buffer with Logan.

Which is another thing that’s unusual—I’ve never needed a buffer with Logan when it comes to his sister because we’re all friends.

But this is the first time I’ve seen him since I kissed Summer. Since I had my hands all over her. Buffers are absolutely necessary because I’m thinking about his sister naked.

“So, that’s the plan, guys. Can you do it?” Logan asks, looking at me, then at Jason, then at Fitz, who rolls his eyes as he downs the rest of his drink.

“Dude. I knocked out Blake MacAvoy from Ottawa the other night. Yes, I think I can take out this fucker from Lehman.”

Yes! Paintball. Sneak attack strategies. That’s what we’re talking about. I can focus on that, not on how insanely strange it is to be sitting across from Logan after thinking about the huge boner his sister gave me last night.

But there is no brain space for boners now.

None.

Zero.

Not even if I think about her lips.

Her smell.

The way she curved her body against mine.

Nope.

I’m not getting aroused again.

Especially while I’m sitting here with my mates. Three great big, hairy male mates. There are no better boner killers than that.

Maybe I should just stare at them to erase the image of Logan’s sister melting in my arms by the carousel, sighing against my lips as that guy snapped our pic, and emitting that sexy little gasp when I kissed her for the hashtag.

When I touched her face, her cheek, her jaw.

And when I kissed her a second time last night.

I definitely need to focus on something the opposite of enticing, and these fellas will do.

Logan with his dark hair, who looks nothing like his twin sister.

Jason and his familial relationship to me.

Fitz and his beard and his ink, the familiar face of one of the NHL’s top D-men. Who’s our paintball ace.

Done. Summer is no longer in my head. Ejected.

“Perfect. You’re our secret weapon,” Logan says.

“It’s good to have a ringer on our team, isn’t it?” Jason gestures to Fitz, who winks.

“I got your backs, boys.”

“If we didn’t have Fitz,” Logan says, always planning for contingencies, “I’d invite my sister because she is the most competitive bastard I know?—”

Dammit to fucking hell. Why did he mention Summer? Why not show me a picture of her in that dress again and just kneecap me now? Though, admittedly, I wouldn’t look away.

“Wait. More than me?” Fitz asks, mortally offended. His million-dollar-a-year job depends on him being ruthlessly competitive.

Logan arches a brow, considering Fitz’s question. “Maybe not more than you. But close. Only, she won’t play paintball with us. She says it’s”—he stops to sketch air quotes—“‘Neanderthal.’”

“Smart woman,” Jason remarks, then gestures to the bar where his wife is mixing drinks. “And speaking of smart women, I’m going to see my bride and nab a refill.”

I raise my empty glass. “Same here. On the refill, that is.”

We head to the bar, where a couple of hipster guys are checking out Fitz. The taller of the pair says, “This is my chance. I should go talk to him. I’ve had a crush on him forever. But do you think he’s involved with one of those guys?”

“Probably, because who wouldn’t want him? It could be your shot though. You have to take it, Gavin. Do it,” the other one urges.

Jason shoots me a smirk and quietly says, “Should I tell them the good news that he’s not with one of us? Or do you want to pretend you’re engaged to Fitz as well as Summer?”

I lean back, catching the eye of the taller of the guys at the bar. “Sorry, mate. Fitz is with this guy,” I say, clapping my cousin on the back.

Jason mutters under his breath, “Fucking hell. You beat me to it. Also, what if Fitz was into him?”

“Fitz is a big boy. He can make his own moves.”

“You’re a terrible wingman.”

“That may be true.”

After we refill our drinks, Jason says he’s going to spend time with his bride, so I return to the boner-killers, settling into my chair and turning to Fitz. “By the way, those guys at the bar are devising a strategy to come talk to you.”

This gets his attention. He raises a curious brow. “Are they hot?”

I give him a Seriously? look. “How am I supposed to answer that?”

“Do you have eyes?”

“I do.”

“Can you not tell if a dude is good-looking?”

“Are we talking about George Clooney?” Logan asks. “Because I can tell, empirically, that George Clooney is good-looking. Beyond that, no one.”

Fitz huffs. “So you’re saying you can tell if someone is good-looking only if they’re the gender you want to sleep with? Unless it’s George Clooney? That’s the line you draw?”

“It’s called the Clooney Line,” I supply. “He’s the only guy a straight guy can tell is empirically good-looking.”

Fitz smiles, wagging an I’ve caught you finger at Logan. “You want to sleep with Clooney—admit it.”

Logan laughs, nearly spitting out his beer. “No. I don’t.”

Then to me, Fitz says, “But if you had to sleep with a dude, it’d be Clooney.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to sleep with Clooney.”

“If not Clooney, who would it be?”

I shoot him a look like he’s nuts. “Are you barking mad? I’m not going to answer that. Can you say which movie starlet you’d shag?”

He shudders. “Fair point. But I’d do Clooney for sure. I don’t mind the gray hair.”

“How open-minded of you,” I say.

“But for the record, I can tell if a woman is pretty, unlike you dickheads.” Fitz gestures to Logan. “His twin sister. Very pretty.”

And here we go again. Back to Summer. Back to picturing her blonde hair, her brown eyes, her glossy pink lips.

I. Can’t. Win.

“Thanks. She takes after me,” Logan says, then swings his gaze to me. “Speaking of my sister, dude, what the hell? Why are you two engaged?”

I shake my head. “We’re not a real thing. Also, use your library voices, arseholes. It’s a bloody fake engagement. I don’t need the whole bar knowing.”

“Whatever. It’s funny,” Logan says, swiping his screen, then swiveling it around to show us Twitter, of all things. “So, now you’re America’s Best Boyfriend. You turned that shit around in two days. Well done, my man. Well done.”

I take a small bow. “Thank you.”

Fitz taps on the picture of Summer and me. “So, tell us more about this kiss, Ollie.”

My skin goes hot. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end, and every detail of kissing Summer flashes before me, image after delicious image. The moment should be no different than any other moment in my life, but it keeps flipping before my eyes.

Taunting me.

Teasing me.

I drag a hand through my hair. I should not be this affected by one little fucking kiss.

One kiss.

Hell, there wasn’t even any tongue. There were no fingers in hair, no bodies aligned together, grinding and pressing . . .

Well, maybe there was a little tongue.

And maybe that little bit of tongue is what’s unleashed this dragon of lust in me.

A dragon that did not return to its lair last night.

Nope, the wine-tasting handsy action only intensified the fire.

“Excuse me,” I say, pushing back in the chair and walking away from the table, heading straight for the men’s room.

Men’s rooms are reliable erection banishers too, especially if they are shitholes.

This one is mostly tidy. I’d give it a seven on a scale of one to not-a-shithole, so that’s a small miracle, but it still helps with deflation.

Because it’s still a toilet.

I set my hands on the counter, stare in the mirror, and do something I haven’t done in ages. I listen for my sister’s advice. I try so damn hard to conjure what Phoebe would say. Ever the older sister, she loved to tell me what to do. Sometimes it’d be a scathing wardrobe indictment, like That blue shirt looks wretched with those jeans. Please go change before all the girls never date you again , and other times it’d be a backhanded compliment, like Just ask the debate teacher if you can level up, since clearly you’ve never met an issue you won’t argue .

If she were here, I’d ask her how to put a kiss or two with Summer behind me.

But when I try to guess at what she’d say, I come up empty, so I’m left to answer myself. “One kiss with your best mate. Get over it, you twat.”

A toilet flushes, and I groan. Grand, just grand. Someone’s in here. I turn on the tap to wash my hands and don’t look at the guy who comes out of the stall and heads to the sink next to mine.

After a moment he asks, “But was it a good kiss?”

It’s the guy who was crushing on Fitz. I grumble my answer into the water. “Yes.”

“Then maybe you don’t want to get over it,” he says, turns off the water, dries his hands, and walks out.

I flip him the bird as the door closes. “Thanks for that profound unsolicited advice.”

Then I stare at my reflection.

This time I don’t say a word out loud. But in my head, I repeat my new mantra.

Don’t touch her again.

Don’t touch her again.

Don’t touch her again.

I’m sure Phoebe would agree that’s the right approach.

When I return to the table, I slap my palm on it. “Let’s review paintball strategy. We need to crush the opposition.”

That reroutes the conversation with the two most competitive friends I have, and for the next thirty minutes, I am laser-focused on paintball strategy and only paintball strategy.

Logan is determined to win the league, even more so because his ex-wife’s lover works at Lehman, an investment bank his firm worked with.

“So that’s the plan of attack for this weekend,” Logan says, then turns to Fitz. “We will see you after you destroy Montreal Friday night.”

“Annihilation is indeed the game plan,” Fitz says. “I have extra tix. Want ’em?”

Logan shakes his head. “I’m with Amelia that night.”

“Dude, she loves hockey.”

“Afternoon games. I can’t take her to a night one,” he says. “Past her bedtime.”

Fitz tips his chin at me. “Why don’t you take Summer? It’ll help with your public image, lover boy.”

“Good plan,” Logan seconds. “Sell it to the jury, man.”

And the funny thing is, in some other bar, some other guy is cursing himself for crushing on his best friend’s little sister because his friend would hate it.

But that’s not the case here.

Logan isn’t the issue. Hell, he’s given the idea of us his approval already.

The issue is I know exactly how it feels to lose the people you care for, the people who make your world go round.

I know, too, how it feels when your life falls to pieces.

I became a lawyer in the first place because of the battles my parents fought with insurance companies over my sister’s treatments. Because of the marathon phone calls they endured trying to get coverage, to get treatment, to get meds.

I saw what it did to them. How it nearly broke them. How they nearly withered. How we all nearly fell apart.

And how much I needed Logan and his sister at that time. They both became my family. Hell, their parents did too. It’s why I’ve never crossed a line before with Summer.

Because what if it all went to hell?

That could happen.

I don’t want to lose someone I love.

And I’m pretty sure I love Logan and Summer—as friends—and I want them in my life always.

Best way to keep Summer in it? Lock her in the friend zone.

I send her a quick text to see if she wants to go to the game, and she replies immediately with a yes. Perfect. The hockey game will be the ideal opportunity to refocus on our friendship.

“Sure, Summer and I will take the tickets,” I say.

I leave later with the perfect trick to rid my mind of dirty thoughts of my good friend, until Friday morning when I see her march into the pool area at the gym as I’m finishing my swim.

Out of the corner of my goggles, I notice her sundress, how it’s swishing around her legs, showing them off, accentuating her curves and muscles.

And now I won’t be able to get out of the pool.

Time to turn up the friendship charm.