Page 120 of Better Luck Next Time

“What?” Adalia asked in confusion. “How’d you know I was going to see Finn?”

“Please…” Disgust washed over Maisie’s face. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to show you that you’re throwing away the best thing that has probably ever happened to you without being that obnoxious friend who is always in your business. If I’d known the foster dog story would be the tipping point, I would have told you two weeks ago.” She shrugged. “In hindsight, knowing how much you love Tyrion, I should have guessed.”

Adalia stared at her in shock for a full two seconds. “Are you in cahoots with Dottie?”

“Is itpossibleto be in cahoots with Dottie?” Maisie asked. “She’s a one-woman show, and we all just orbit around her.”

“Why are you still here?” Blue said, giving her a soft shove. “Go! At least one of us should get the man of her dreams.”

Adalia ran out the door, ignoring the dirty looks the customers and restaurant staff shot in her direction. She’d wasted enough time. It was time to go get Finn back.

Chapter Forty

It took some of the wind out of Finn’s sails to realize Adalia wasn’t home. Somehow that hadn’t figured into his plans. He’d driven to her house with purpose, but Bessie wasn’t in the driveway. He’d gotten out anyway to check, since for all he knew Bessie might have finally given up the ghost and broken down.

Psyching himself up, he got out of the car and rang the bell, the Alan takedown file tucked under his arm. He waited a few antsy seconds. Rang it again. He heard Tyrion howl inside, as if picking up the pitch of the bell, but no one responded. It was then he heard a raised voice in the back yard. A man’s voice. It was almost certainly Jack—hiscar was in the drive—but he felt a tingle of worry. Especially when Tyrion’s off-pitch howl rose up again from behind the door.

What if Tyrion was carrying on not because of the bell but because someone was back there bothering Adalia?

Looking around for something to use as a weapon, he spotted a rain stick by the front door. He set down the file and grabbed it, something he immediately regretted when he started moving around the house with it, because it made a rushing noise that was sure to draw attention to him.

Still, it was better than nothing.

He rounded the edge of the yard carefully, catching sight of Jack from behind. He was standing by the bench, his posture rigid.

“I want to talk to my sisterright now,” he said. There was no mistaking the hostility in his voice, and Finn’s heart started pounding double time in his chest. Something had happened to either Georgie or Adalia. He had to find out what and offer to help.

He ran toward Jack, the forgotten rain stick rushing in his hand, and to his shock, Jack whipped around, dropping the phone, and punched him directly in the face. He staggered back and landed directly on his butt, his hand flying up to his eye as the pain set in.

“Oh shit,” Jack said, shaking out his hand. “It’s you. I’m sorry. I saw someone out of the corner of my eye, running at me with a stick, and…”

But Finn was already climbing to his feet. “I heard you on the phone. Adalia, Georgie, are they okay?”

Jack’s expression turned bleak. “They’re fine,” he said. “Give me a second, and I’ll explain.”

He picked up the phone and wandered off, talking in a hushed voice. Finn was tempted to follow him, to see if he and Jack had similar definitions of the word fine, but Jack was already hanging up and pacing back over.

“What happened?” Finn asked, carefully palpating his injured eye.

“Let’s go inside and get you a bag of peas or something.”

“What happened?” he insisted.

Jack swore under his breath. “I wasn’t talking about either of them,” he insisted.

It took a moment for the meaning to penetrate the fog of pain in Finn’s head.

Oh.

“There’s another secret sibling?”

“She’s not their sister,” Jack said harshly. “She’s mine.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But yeah, I need to tell them about her. I know that. I…didn’t want to at first.”

He tried to remember what he’d heard Jack say in that conversation he’d overheard a few weeks ago. All he could remember was Jack saying he didn’t trust her. Presumably he’d been talking to his sister, so who didn’t he trust? Adalia? A surge of protectiveness rose in him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

“She’s only seventeen. She lives at home with our mother.”

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