Page 21 of Better Luck Next Time

Before he could sit down, Maisie got up and wrapped him in a hug.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, letting him go and sitting back down. “I was bummed to miss the whole Buchanan reopening.”

“Yeah,” he said, taking a seat, “I was surprised not to see you there.”

She shrugged, but before she could say anything else, a waitress came by.

He nodded to the enormous margarita sitting in front of Maisie. “One of those, please?”

“Any food?”

He shook his head. “No, I think I’ll wait until the rest of our group gets here.” Turning to Maisie, he added, “I’m sure River won’t mind if you don’t want to wait, Maisie. He knows how hangry you get.”

Maisie was always pale—it was the Irish in her, she’d say—but she lost what little color she had.

“You invited River?” she hissed.

The waitress lifted her eyebrow and stepped away, wisely assuming she didn’t want to get in the middle of…whatever this was.

“Um, yeah,” he said. “This is our Taco Tuesday place.”

“So what,” she fumed back. “It’s Wednesday, and the three of us haven’t hung out in months. It’s no longer a thing.” Her gaze shot to the door.

“It’s okay,” he said, feeling like he’d messed up again, although he didn’t understand why. Maisie and River had been best friends since they were teenagers—something Finn had felt the weight of sometimes, since River was the closest friendhehad ever had. So what the hell was going on? “He’s not going to be here until seven. Sorry. I thought I’d mentioned it.” Or maybe he’d just assumed she wouldn’t care.

“Well, you didn’t, or otherwise I wouldn’t have come.”

She flagged down the waitress, and the look on her face must have scared the poor woman half to death, because she was there in an instant.

“I’d like my food to go, please,” Maisie said. “And the check.”

The waitress hurried off.

“What happened?” Finn asked.

Maisie looked away, but not before he saw the hurt in her eyes. Oh crap. Were those tears? He’d never, ever seen her cry before.

Finn was dense sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid.

“Oh,” he said. “I never… I didn’t know how you felt.”

“Yeah, well, neither does he,” she said bitterly. “No need for both of us to be miserable about it. He’s been so busy in Loved-Up Land he’s barely noticed.” She shook her head, as if chastening herself. “Which is the way it should be. I’m glad he’s happy—really I am—and I don’t want to ruin it. Every time he texts, I text back. I tell him I’m busy, which is true. I was out of town for half the summer getting some dogs rehabbed at the Moon Barn and visiting my sisters. Beatrice and Dustin have been holding down the fort. Thecrumblingfort. But River and I haven’t seen each other in months.”

“Shit,” he said, feeling like the worst kind of scum. The waitress showed up with his margarita, and he took a big gulp. “Well, I guess this isn’t the greatest time to tell you, but I’m putting together a charity art show, which I’m hoping to launch at Buchanan Brewery…” He shrugged a little as he said it. “I want to donate the proceeds to the shelter.” And, because he could imagine Adalia telling him he was trying to act like Saint Finn, he added, “Dottie’s idea.”

Maisie brightened a little, but it was like she was on a dimmer. “Well, I want to hear howthatcame about sometime. That’s so generous of you, Finn. We could really use the help. What would we need to do?”

“Well…” He paused, uncertain of what he should say, but he admitted, “I still need to talk to River about it to see if they’re open to hosting it there. We might want you to come in for the event, talk a little bit about what you do. Maybe bring some of the dogs.”

She nodded. “I’ll send someone.”

“Maisie,” he said slowly, worrying how she would react. “Are you going to talk to him about it?”

“What’s the point? I just need to get over it. Fully over it. And then we can pretend nothing happened.”

“But he won’t be pretending if he doesn’t know. He just…won’t know.”

The waitress returned, hurrying over to the table with Maisie’s takeout bag and the check.

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