Page 48 of Better Luck Next Time

“Of course,” she said. He shot a quick glance at her and saw a wicked glint in her hazel eyes. They gleamed like gold. “Would you really miss it? What if they only get crazier as we go along? If we stop now, we’ll never know.”

“There are two left,” he said, hesitant. “Let’s decide on number three after we see the next one.”

“And potentially miss out on the most insane experience of our lives? Never.”

He found himself laughing, a near constant with her. He’d never laughed this much with any of his exes. Then again, he hadn’t really been friends with any of them. Probably the egg salad therapist would have had something to say about that, about how he was repeating his parents’ pattern or something. Except hopefully this whole mess—the articles and his professional slump and his dip into depression—had broken him out of that.

Or maybe Adalia’s the one who’s helping you do that.

He shook the thought off and reminded himself of the wholejust friendsthing.

“You do have a point,” he said. “We ought to give our biographers something interesting to work with.”

“Youwouldassume someone’s going to write a book about you some day.” But she said it with quiet amusement. There was no accusation or heat behind it, and he found he didn’t mind at all.

“I like that you get me,” he said with a grin. “Luckily, the next two artists have studios in the same building, so we won’t have too far to travel.”

“On the minus side,” she said, “it will be harder to run away. So, who’s up next? Please tell me it’s a performance artist. How awesome would it be if someone wants to sit in a box in the brewery for a month? Do you think my brother would go for it?”

“There’s one way to find out. Unfortunately, our next up, Ms. Enid Combs, is a textiles artist.”

“So knitting and weaving?”

She sounded genuinely excited about it, and he had to laugh. “I guess so, although I couldn’t tell you what’s so artistic about a sweater.”

“My mother used to knit us sweaters for Christmas every year, I’ll have you know,” she said. “And I wore mine with pride. Lee, not so much.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Apparently, he thought the guys at school might beat him up for wearing something with a reindeer’s face on it.”

Finn grinned. “He might have had a point.”

“He kept them, though,” Adalia said, her voice softer, sweeter. “He kept them all. He showed them to me the last time we got together. They were all there in a box, every last one.”

The love in her voice, the bittersweet melancholy, the sorrow of being on the outs with a brother she clearly loved…it moved him.Shemoved him.

“She must have been an incredible person,” he said, and meant it. “I don’t know what it’s like to be loved like that.”

He hadn’t intended to say that. He hadn’t meant to rip himself open for her. God, he was acting so pathetic lately, so soft, and for some reason it all seemed to come out in front of Adalia.

But her only reaction was to look at him and say, “Shewasincredible. And I’m sure that’s not true. Family isn’t always the people you’re born with.”

She was right, and besides, it wasn’t like his parents didn’t love him. He knew they did. But his father’s way of loving was to push people into a mold he found pleasing, and his mother’s love always came from a distance. They might think they wanted him in Charlotte, but he suspected he wouldn’t see them any more often if he ever succumbed to their pressure and moved.

“Yeah,” he said. “Lee doesn’t sound so bad either. Maybe you should reach out to him. Tell him what happened.”

From his peripheral vision, he could see her narrowed eyes.

“How did you know Ihadn’ttold him?”

Oops, River was the one who’d said that. “River may have mentioned it,” he admitted, not wanting to lie. “It’s just…I didn’t tell River about the Bev Corp sale when I should have, and it changed things between us. Our friendship still isn’t the same. Maybe it’s worth letting him in. Lee, I mean, obviously, not River.”

She was silent for a long moment, and he was starting to wonder just how badly he’d blown it when she said, “It’s not the same situation. If I tell Lee, it’s basically the same thing as telling my father. They work together. He’s basically in the man’s pocket.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, because he really did have a big mouth.

“You have a lot of opinions about people you’ve never met,” she said sharply, the message obvious.Stand down, idiot, or a bunch of eccentric artists will be the least you have to worry about. The Valkyrie in the car will burn you alive.“I’m not some project, Finn. I’m not something for you to fix.”

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