Page 3 of A Hard Fit

“I’m not your friend.” It was quiet but firm. “And yes, there is a problem.”

“Look.” Finn shuffled a step closer, glare cranked up a notch. “Your attention is not wanted here. Move on.”

“Wha’s your problem? I’s just talking.”

Finn waved an arm, indicating the direction in which the man should begin moving.

The man sneered, expression sliding from annoyed into surly. “What’re you gonna do, Red? You gonna kick my ass?”

Finn chuckled, scratching his nose and flexing his biceps.

The man’s eyes bulged, perhaps now noticing Finn’s broad shoulders and thick chest.

“I don’t want to,” Finn replied evenly, “but if you don’t fuck off on your own in about five seconds, I will make you.”

The man grunted and stumbled away, jostling Finn and a few others as he passed. He couldn’t resist yelling “fucking prick” over his shoulder once he was a safe distance through the crowd.

Finn barely heard it because he was drowning in the deep, dark-brown eyes that were locked onto his.

“Thanks,” the person in black said, lips quirking into a shy smile.

Finn’s heart fluttered. “No problem.” His fingers twitched with the bizarre urge to push those black strands off their forehead.What the fuck?

A head flick tossed them back without Finn’s help. “That was really nice of you.”

Finn’s face burned. It had to be a brighter red than his hair by now. “Happy to help.”

The face watching him was impossibly beautiful and serene. “I’m Rory.”

Finn tried not to trip over his tongue. “Hi, Rory. I’m—”

“Finn?” The voice came from behind him.

He whirled. “Oh.” His mind scrambled to put a name to the face. “Tiana?”

“That’s right.”

She was cute and smiling and all Finn wanted to do was turn around and get back to Rory.

“I grabbed us a table, if that’s okay?” Tiana pointed toward the back of the bar, smile faltering for a moment at the extended pause from Finn.

“Of course, yeah, I just—” He turned to say goodbye—or something—to Rory, but the manager had come over to apologize for the disturbance, and Rory was facing away from Finn, talking to her over the counter. “Sounds great.” Finn smiled at Tiana and followed her to their table. He couldn’t see the bar from his seat, but he didn’t stop thinking about Rory the rest of the night.

* * * *

The next morning, Finn flopped onto the extra chair in Luka’s office, his favorite place to be at work. Luka had a way of making the sharp edges of the world a little softer, and the world had been especially sharp lately.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked Luka without any preamble.

“Oof.” Luka stopped typing and spun in his chair to face Finn. “Does that mean your date went really bad or really good?”

Finn rubbed his beard. “She grilled me for twenty minutes on why I’m still single, so I pretended I had a work emergency and left.” With no sign of Rory on his way out.

Luka cringed. “Shit. Sorry, man.”

“So.” Finn straightened the pleat on his pants. “Do you?”

Luka stretched out a long leg as his mouth curled in an apologetic smile. “Yeah. I think so. It was love at first sight for my parents. They’ve been together for almost forty years.”

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