Harlow’s mom is sick sick. Not just with the flu, or a lingering cold.

“Jesus Christ,” I groan, pressing my hands to my face.

“Breast cancer,” Oliver says quietly. “I think . . . stage . . . advanced? She had surgery a couple of weeks ago, and is between rounds of chemo.”

“Stage three?” I guess.

He nods. “That sounds right. From what I hear she’s doing all right, for now.”

I can’t do anything but stare down at my plate, a familiar ache pulsing fresh in my chest. I’m not sure who I’m madder at: Harlow for keeping this from me, for telling everyone but me, or at everyone else for keeping her secret. I told her everything and she couldn’t even tell me this? The one thing I would have understood. The only thing I could have offered her.

I drop my fork and the sound rings through the restaurant, louder than the shitty rock song playing on the TV overhead, louder than the other customers. What little I’ve eaten sits heavy, leaden in my stomach, and I’m not sure if I want to throw it up or get the fuck out of here.

“Finn,” Oliver says, reaching out to grip my arm. “Look, I don’t know why she didn’t tell you, okay? But it wasn’t my secret to tell. I swear to God.”

“I know.”

“She had to have had her reasons,” Ansel says quietly.

“Yeah, thanks. That’s super comforting.”

“Think about this before you do anything crazy, okay? I fucked up so bad with Mia . . . just, hear her out.”

I stand, pulling out my wallet and tossing a twenty to the table.

“Where are you going?” Oliver says.

I shake my head. I can feel my pulse pounding inside my ribs, hear the rush of blood in my head. My heart hurts for her, but I’m frustrated and confused about why she didn’t just tell me. My face feels hot and I’m not sure if I want to find Harlow and ask what the fuck is going on . . . or if I just want to hit the road and drive.

“I’ve got some calls to make,” I say instead. “I haven’t been the best captain or brother lately and I need to catch up. They’re doing some repairs and I need to check in on a few things. I’ll talk to you guys later.”

Chapter THIRTEEN

Harlow

ONLY ONE HOUR into my five hour shift at NBC and I get a call from Salvatore, telling me he’s agreed to my proposal. He loved my idea, and also? He is going to find a place for me on the staff of his new production company.

“No way in hell you should still be shuffling papers at that place,” he’d said. “You’ve got places to be, kiddo.” And for the first time, I agreed.

I’m ready.

I can barely concentrate on the giant stacks of folders I need to file, what copies I’m making or whose coffee I’m pouring. Finally, I think we might have a solution that works for everyone: It could save Finn’s family business . . . and it could allow me to be closer to him far more often.

The first thing I do Monday afternoon when I get out of work is text Finn: You at Oliver’s?

I see him begin to type, and then stop. And then I’m in the elevator, and leaving the building, and walking to my car, staring at my phone and nearly walking into a telephone pole and getting hit by a bicycle because I’m not watching where I’m going.

I’m already almost home by the time his text appears: Yep.

OK, headed there, I reply, laughing over how long it took him to write one word.

It also takes him forever to answer the door, even though his truck is parked out front. And when he does, he looks . . . bad.

Sour, even.

“Hey,” I say, stepping close and stretching to kiss him. I can tell he’s just showered, but he didn’t shave. He’s scratchy and smells like soap and coffee. But he doesn’t bend to me, and instead offers the stubbly angle of his jaw.

“Hey.” He steps back, avoiding eye contact, and letting me walk past him into the house.

“You’re awfully . . . surly,” I mumble, sitting down on Oliver’s couch. Unease bubbles in my belly, and I study his expression, mentally rifling through everything I’ve said or done in the past twenty-four hours that might make him act this way. “Did I do something?”

He hums, shrugging, and then asks, “So what’s up?”

I pause for a beat; he didn’t answer my question at all. But the good news I have pushes forward in my thoughts. Whatever his foul mood may be, I have the power to cheer him up. “I came over because I wanted to tell you something. Something really good, actually.”

“Something good?” he says, looking at my face. His expression turns from dark into hopeful. “Is it good news about your mom?”

I freeze, not sure I heard him right. “What did you just say?”

“Your mom,” he repeats. “Is it good news about her?”

“How . . . ?” I pause, closing my eyes as my heart drops in my chest. I haven’t told Finn yet, which means he heard it from someone else. “No. I . . . how did . . . ?” I trip around, trying to find my footing. Who told him and what does he know? My stomach sinks. Now I understand his mood. “Finn, I was going to tell you about that, but that isn’t what—”

His face is tight again, jaw clenched. “You realize your mother has the same thing that killed my mom? I thought maybe you would want to confide in me since, of anyone in your life right now, I understand what you’re probably feeling. Also, you know, because you love me.”

I pull back, anger rising like steam in my chest. “You’re giving me shit for not sharing this immediately?”

He closes his eyes, pressing his fingers to his forehead. “I’ve been all over the map about this today, Snap. I get why you wouldn’t want to talk to me about that at first, I do. But then later . . .” He shakes his head. “I felt like my shit was falling apart and it really helped me to have you there. You, specifically. It’s part of what helped me let myself see this thing between us as more than just physical. But apparently you didn’t need the same thing from me.”

I start to interrupt, but he holds up his hand to stop me. “And even after it was clear it was more—even before we said it concretely that it was more between us, we knew it was—you didn’t tell me about all of this. I know what your family is to you, Harlow. I know how close you are. I get why you were such a desperate mess early on and probably didn’t want to think about it when we were together. I get that. What I don’t get is why last night, or all of the other times it was just you and me understanding each other perfectly, you couldn’t just . . .” He trails off, running his hand down his face and lowering himself into a chair across from me.

“I just haven’t really been talking—”

“Don’t say that,” he interrupts, angry now. “Everyone else knew. Ansel, Oliver, Lola, Mia. They all fucking knew. I’m the one in your bed, I’m the one you’re looking at like I’m someone, and I’m the only person who doesn’t know what’s eating you up inside so bad that you came looking for me in the first place.”

I want to get up and go over to him, but his body language is so unfamiliar: shoulders hunched, elbows on his knees, cap pulled so low over his brow I can’t even see his eyes. It’s like seeing the Finn from weeks ago. When he was just some stranger I’d married. “Finn, I’m sorry. I didn’t keep it from you because of you. I just . . .”

He shakes his head, sighing. Finally, after what feels like forever he says, “I . . . understand what you’re feeling—how hard it is to go through this. How protective you feel of your family. And . . . I don’t know, thinking it over, I realize I might have done the same thing if this was all happening to me now. All this, it just surprised me, that’s all.”

“I’m sure.”

“I mean,” he starts, looking up at me, his expression anxious. “Are you okay?”

“Yes and no.”

Silence fills the room for a long, painful minute. I don’t know what else to say. It seems like it would be a good time to finally talk about what is going on with my mom, to update him on everything, but the mood is all wrong. I don’t want to force him to be tender with me right now, and I certainly don’t feel like talking about it if he’s going to continue to be distant and silent.

I slip from the couch and crawl across the floor, letting an unsure smile appear on my lips.

“Hey,” I say, putting my hands on his knees.

He watches me for a moment, swallowing thickly.

“Hey, baby,” he whispers finally, spreading his legs to make room for me. I slide my hands up his thighs, his stomach, his chest, pulling myself up his body until I can press a little kiss to his frowning mouth.

“I don’t like that this is a thing between us,” I tell him and follow it with another kiss. “I was planning on talking to you about it soon, probably even today, but last night I just wanted it to be us.”

He nods. “I know.”

Slowly, under my tiny, sucking kisses he starts to unwind, and I feel his hands move up my sides and down my back.

“It’s just a thing for me, okay? What you’re going through with your mom was a big thing in my life. Easily the biggest. If we’re doing this . . .”

After I realize he’s just going to leave the sentence like that, I say, “I promise I’ll talk to you. I need someone to talk to.”

“Okay.”

Our kisses are short and soft; Finn gives me only the tiniest tip of his tongue to wet my lips against his. His hand slides back around to my front and down between my legs, cupping me over my denim cutoffs.

I wince a little, shying away from his firm grip.

“You hurt?” he asks, pulling back to look at me.

“Just a little sore. You rode me like a rodeo horse.”

Laughing into another series of soft, brief kisses he whispers, “Want me to kiss it and make it better?”

The vision of Finn’s head between my legs and memories of his warm suction and growling vibrations, of the things he did to me last night, make me hungry for different kisses, deeper ones that give me his tongue and his sounds.

His other hand comes up to grip the back of my head and he gives me exactly what I want: the deep, demanding kisses of a man about to throw me down and satisfy me.

His cock presses into my stomach and it’s a presence I can’t ignore. Kissing down his neck I push his shirt up with my hands, nibbling and sucking on his warm chest, stomach, hip bones. He lifts up once I have his fly unbuttoned, helping me pull his jeans down his thighs.

I love the honesty between us, how he watches, eyes steady and lids growing heavy when I draw my tongue up his length from base to tip, sucking away the sweetness.

“Fuck that’s good,” he whispers.

Playing, I lick around the base and up his entire length, making him wet all over so I can take him in my mouth as deep as I can, sucking up and down as he stares, eyes dark and lips parted.

Sliding back up, I release him with a smile. “I like how serious you look when I’m giving you head.”

“It’s something I take pretty fucking seriously.” His thumb comes up to rub across my lips.

I lick his thumb, lick the head of his cock, taking both between my lips, playing with them with my tongue. Beneath my flattened palm, his stomach muscles spasm and tense.

“Let’s go to the bed,” he says, voice tight. “I wanna lick you while you do this.”

I pull back and stand, and when he gets up, he pulls his jeans back up over his hips and bends to me. “Come here.”

His kiss is so sweet, so searching it literally makes my legs wobbly. The band of his arms around my waist and back, the curl of his huge body over mine . . . I feel like I’m climbing him, clawing my way up so I can wrap all around him.

“Was that our first fight?” he asks against my lips, smiling.

“I guess,” I say. “Not too bad.”

“Hey,” he says, pulling back to look at me. “Tell me your good news before we get naked and forget the world.”

Oh, right.

I swallow, taking a deep breath. I don’t know why I’m so nervous—this is a good thing—but this is a big deal for both of us and I want it so much I can taste it. “I think I have a way to save your business.”

A short laugh escapes his lips, and he steps a little farther back before asking, “Oh yeah? Hit me.”

God, this is hard to do when his slight edge has returned. Pushing forward, I say, “I had an idea at Salvatore’s the other night, but didn’t want to mention it to you until I got a sense from him whether it would work.”

Finn’s eyes narrow.

“See, Salvatore’s new production company—along with my dad—is starting filming on this really huge movie in April. Much of it takes place out on the water, on a large boat.”

He continues to stare at me, no reaction at all. My stomach twists.

“I thought maybe he could fix your boats as payment for using them as a set in the spring. And I accepted a job with him, at the production company, so I could be up there with you a lot.”

He nods slowly, studying me. “I’m not sure I’m following what you’re telling me.”

“I’m saying I’ve connected you with Salvatore, and he wants to pay to use your boats for a movie that would film for a few months. But the best thing is they would need weird hours, like middle of the night, so I thought you could still fish during the morning and—”

“You offered my family’s boats to a film crew without talking to me?”