I cluck my tongue at him, licking my fingers. “Careful, Not-Joe. Your boner is showing.”

“Oh!” Not-Joe says, turning to Lola. “Speaking of boners. I’m excited for your book to be out and selling like crazy, and then at Comic Con it will be unreal. You’ll be in your chick author getup, strutting around. Wearing a sexy mask, and spand—”

“Are you high?” Lola asks.

I realize it’s rhetorical so it cracks me up when Not-Joe answers, “Well . . . yeah.”

“I’m not going to deep-throat a corn dog and then go make out with a bunch of chesty girls in Catwoman costumes just to show I can hang with the comic guys.”

Oliver chose this moment to arrive and looks a little stunned, eyes wide behind his thick frames. He stares at her, gaze softening with what clearly appears to be admiration. His speechless reaction makes me do a slight double take. Is quiet, sweet Oliver beginning to fancy Lola? I meet Mia’s wide eyes and can tell she’s wondering the exact same thing. Swear to God, if my head weren’t so fucked-up right now, I’d be all over getting these two together.

“But would you let a comic book guy make out with you if he wore a Catwoman costume and deep-throated a corn dog?” Ansel asks, tilting his head to Oliver. “Theoretically speaking.”

“Reckon the fanboys will be gobsmacked regardless,” Oliver deflects, collecting himself. “Corn dog deep-throating or not.”

Mia scrunches her nose, shaking her head at Oliver. She almost never understands his thick Aussie accent, which is ironic considering she’s married to someone who speaks English as a second language.

“Happy fanboys no matter what,” Lola translates in shorthand.

I remember the first night we hung out with Oliver—after Mia and Ansel disappeared down the hall and it was just me and Lola, way drunker than the two strangers in front of us. After closer inspection, we realized Oliver had a black Sharpie flower drawn on his cheek.

“I’m curious about the flower,” Lola said when he’d settled onto the seat next to her. He wore his usual thick-rimmed glasses, black straight jeans, dark T-shirt. I was almost positive it wasn’t a face tattoo . . . almost.

“Loss a bit,” he said cryptically, and then returned to silence. It took several beats for me to recognize that he’d said, “Lost a bet.”

“Details,” Lola said.

And Finn supplied them happily. Apparently they’d just done an abbreviated version of the biking trip across the States that brought them together six years earlier. “The deal was, whoever went through the most tire tubes had to get a Sharpie face tattoo. Oliver here can’t help but treat a road bike like a mountain bike. I’m surprised his tire rims don’t look like tacos.”

Oliver shrugged, and it was clear to me he couldn’t care less that he had a flower drawn on his face. He was definitely not there to impress anyone.

“Do people call you Ollie?” Lola asked.

Oliver looked at her, completely dumbfounded by the possibility of this nickname. She may as well have asked him if people call him Garth, or Andrew, or Timothy.

“No,” he said flatly, and the only thing charming about him was the way his accent seemed to run through every vowel with one syllable. Lola’s eyebrow twitched in her single tell—mildly annoyed—and she lifted her flashing LED drink cup to her lips.

Lola wears mostly black, including her glossy dark hair, and has a tiny diamond pierced into her lip, but, even still, she’s never been able to pull off the full physical manifestation of the angry Riot Grrrl. With her perfect porcelain skin and the longest eyelashes in the world, she’s simply too delicate. But once she decides you’re an asshole, it no longer matters to her what you think. She gives good glare.

“The flower suits you,” she said, tilting her head to study him. “And you have pretty hands, kind of soft. Maybe we should call you Olive.”

He grunted out a dry laugh.

“And a really beautiful mouth,” I added. “Gentle. Like a woman’s.”

“Aw fuck off.” He was laughing outright by then.

Somehow we all went from tipsy strangers to hammered best friends to spouses that night. But Lola and Oliver were the only couple that didn’t consummate anything, and, even at the time, Lola was pretty convinced Oliver wasn’t interested at all.

Now I’m pretty sure she was wrong.

“Where’s Finn?” Oliver asks, sliding into the booth, then saying, “Hey, Joe,” to Not-Joe.

“Driving Miss Harlow,” I say.

He stares at me, confused.

“Getting Harlow a drink,” Lola translates again.

Oliver nods once, satisfied, glancing over at the bar and then back to me. “Be nice to my boy,” he says, giving me a wink, but his tone tells me he’s serious.

“Because he’s delicate? Please,” I scoff. “I’m just using him for his enormous penis and surprising skills with rope. Don’t worry about his finespun man feelings.”

Oliver groans, covering his face. “More than I needed to know,” he says, at the exact same moment Lola shouts, “Overshare alert!”

“That’ll teach you to lecture me,” I tell them with a grin. “How’s the store?”

“Good. Really busy. I reckon it’ll be right if it keeps up like this, yeah?”

I see Mia lean to Ansel, who laughs as he repeats more slowly what Oliver has just said.

“Do I need to speak slowly, Mee-ahh?” Oliver drawls in his exaggerated version of an American accent.

“Yes!” she yells.

“How’s the front reading nook?” I ask. “Bringing in lots of newbies?”

“I think so?” he says, stealing Mia’s untouched beer. “I need to get a feel for who my regulars will be.”

“How long until you bang someone up there after hours?” I ask, leaning my chin on my hands.

He laughs, shaking his head. “That front window is pretty enormous. Reckon never.”

“Some girls are into that.”

He shrugs, grinning down at the coaster he’s playing with, not glancing at Lola even once. I will break this boy if it kills me.

“Maybe Oliver’s first go-round there will be in the stockroom,” Ansel joins in and oh, he is my favorite.

Mia leans into Ansel’s side, and he bends to say something near her ear. Her happiness is the best distraction from my own worries. Maybe the alcohol helps, too. I’m so happy for her that her guy’s here for more than just the usual day and a half. He seems to come visit every couple of weeks, but it’s a mix of giddiness when he arrives and the constant dread of another goodbye when he leaves.

“You guys look so good together,” I say, leaning halfway across the curved bench to kiss Mia’s cheek.

“Imagine what we look like when we’re having sex!” Ansel yells across the table. “It’s unreal!”

I ball up my cocktail napkin and hurl it at him. “Too far.”

“It’s my superpower.”

“What’s mine?” I ask.

Ansel cups his hands around his mouth, calling out over the music, “Doing shots?”

He nods to the shot that Finn apparently snuck in front of me. Despite our wild night at Lola and London’s, and my spectacular drunkenness in Vegas, I rarely drink more than a couple of cocktails. But I guess Ansel is right: When I do it, I really commit. I toss back the drink in front of me, tasting sweet and sour and then the burn of vodka as it warms a path to my stomach.

Letting out a roar, I stand, announcing, “I’m drunk and I’m going to dance.” Pointing to Finn, I say, “You. Follow.”

He shakes his head.

“Oh, come on,” I groan, running my hands up his chest. God he feels good—so sturdy and hard, his pectorals tensing under my touch—and now I’m on fire for him.

Thursday night at Fred’s is Ladies Night, and they play music for dancing because we ladies like to dance. Also? I like Drunk Me. Drunk Me doesn’t have any problems, and Sober Harlow might be too proud to turn on the coy, begging female act. But put a little liquor in her? Showtime.

“Please?” I whisper, stretching to kiss his neck. “Pretty please, with Harlow naked on top?”

“Is she always like this?” Finn asks my girlfriends without taking his eyes off me. He’s watching my mouth, looking at me like he might throw me over his shoulder and carry me the five miles to Oliver’s house.

“With almost every damn guy she meets,” Lola lies. “It’s exhausting tracking her down in seedy Tijuana motel rooms.”

Finn’s brows draw together. I scratch my nails down his chest the way I think he likes, and I can feel him shiver once beneath my hands. He blinks away, to the dance floor. “Then I’m sure there’s another guy out there who’ll dance with you.”

I study him for a beat, hoping my disappointment doesn’t show too plainly on my face. “I’m sure there is.”

I lift my chin to Mia and she pulls Ansel out of the booth with her. The three of us head to the mostly empty dance floor, where—despite Finn’s prediction—there’s only a half dozen other people: an older couple slow-sex-dancing to a fast song and a small group of girls whose IDs I would seriously like to check.

I love everything about this bar—the worn velvet seats, the cheesy chandeliers, the strong pours—but I especially love the music. When we get out there, the DJ, who happens to be Fred’s newly minted twenty-one-year-old grandson, Kyle, cranks the bass-heavy song, nodding at me.

I don’t need someone to dance with, I just need to move. I raise my hands in the air, bouncing to the beat and closing my eyes. I fucking love this song, love the pulsing bass and the obscenely sexual lyrics. Ansel and Mia try to dance with me as a group, but maybe they can tell that I don’t care if I’m alone or surrounded, because they turn into each other and move in this perfect pair of rolling hips, weaving arms, and smiles.

God, they look so good together. Of course Mia is an amazing dancer because she was born for it, but Ansel moves like someone who has control over every single cell in his body. I’m so happy and so miserable. I’m not a miserable person. My life has been easy, wild, filled with adventure after adventure. Why do I feel like my chest is slowly filling with cold water?

Warm hands slide around my hips and to my stomach, pulling me back against a broad, solid body. “Hey,” Finn growls quietly.

Like he’s pulled a plug, the cold feeling drains from beneath my ribs and I’m surrounded with nothing but Finn’s unreal heat. He presses into me, barely swaying to the music. Turning in his arms, I dance against him, let him hold on to me. I feel the most basic need to fuck. To couple. To have him inside.

“You’re driving me crazy, dancing out here.” He bends, ghosting his lips across my ear. “Goddamn you look good.”

I stretch to reach his ear with my lips, hearing my voice crack on the first word: “Come home with me.”

LUCKILY FINN IS sober and can drive my car. I direct him back to my place, but otherwise we just stare out the windshield, not really speaking. I’m glad we’re not speaking. It would distract me from the feel of his hand on my thigh, the heel of his hand pressed firmly near my hip, his fingertips touching what feels like the softest, most intimate inner part of my leg. It’s as if he’s thrown his anchor overboard, grounding me here.

“You okay, Ginger Snap?”

I like that he calls me that, like he’s branded some part of me all his own.

I nod, managing a “Fine, just . . .”

“Just suffering your quarter-life crisis?” he says, smiling over at me. It’s not a mocking smile, and I put my attitude away. Apparently I look as desperate for more distraction as I feel.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t mean to sound like . . .” He pulls his hand away from me just long enough to wipe his face, leaving on my skin a cold shadow in the shape of each of his fingers. But then it’s back, and I can breathe again. “I don’t mean to sound condescending. I just remember feeling so pissed-off when I was in my early twenties, like why wasn’t everything already figured out.”

I nod, worrying my voice would come out strangled with emotion if I tried to speak.

“It’s around that time when Dad and Colt made me go on the bike trip.”

“Are you glad you went?”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything, and I guide him to turn right, down Eads Avenue. We pull into a spot in front of my building, and he reaches to turn the ignition off.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at me and handing me my keys. “I’m glad. But life is always complicated. It just looks different from older angles.”

He follows me to the elevator in the lobby of my building, raising his eyebrows but not saying anything. His hands are shoved deep in the pocket of his jeans, his worn cap pulled low over his eyes. “How drunk are you?”

I shrug. “Pretty drunk.”

I can tell he doesn’t like this answer, but again, he stays quiet and follows me into the elevator, watching me push the button for the fourth floor.

“This means nothing, coming back to my place,” I say. “Could just as easily have been at Oliver’s again. This was closer.”

He ignores this. “You don’t have a roommate, right?”

“Right.”

“You like what we did the other day?”

“Which?” I ask, leaning against the wall of the elevator as it slowly climbs. I swear I can feel his body heat from three feet away. “With the rope or without?”