Page 11 of Three Bossy Boyfriends
I pull my attention back to the moment and look at Christopher. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay with Finley staying on the case?”
“Can you assure me that she will not further curse me?” I ask, giving her a look.
Christopher looks at me, then again at Finley, and back at me. It’s clear he thinks we’re both a little nuts.
“Finley?” Christopher asks. “Can you promise not to curse Tucker again?” His tone is what I imagine a dad would use on two arguing teenagers.
“Tucker brought it on himself,” she says with a shrug. “It’s really up to him. If he behaves, there will be no reason to curse him.”
Christopher pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can you just promise, please?”
She smiles at me from across the table. It’s a scary smile.
And I’m reminded that she bit someone in the summer after senior year.
The guy was in her face and wouldn’t leave her alone, even after she told him to back the fuck off, twice. But still, she bit him.
“I promise,” she finally says.
“Any chance you could remove the curse I’ve got?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No chance at all.”
Christopher sighs heavily. “Can we talk about the case now?”
I don’t know why, and I know my friends are going to tell me that I’m crazy later, but I don’t want Finley removed from the case. I think it could be very interesting to work with her in this capacity. I want to see more of this version of Finley. It’s been ten years. I can’t say I haven’t wondered about her. And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t find her a little interesting in high school. Scary, but interesting.
Has she completely outgrown all of that? Her sisters are perky and friendly and outgoing and sunshiny.
Did Finley just get all of the grumpy, sassy genes while the triplets were in utero? Or was it all an act? Who is the real Finley Anderson?
I kind of want to find out.
And it’s very possible that this is also the curse at work.
Maybe having Finley Anderson assigned to my lawsuit and me not kicking her off of it is the biggest Finley of all.
CHAPTER 4
Evan
I askedthe wrong sister out.
At least I did according to Christopher.
But as I sit across from Finley Anderson at a local restaurant, Raw, in her hometown of Honeysuckle Harbor, I’m feeling a number of things and not one of them is regret.
“So,” Finley says, after having ordered herself a martini from the server and nothing else. “Why are we really here, Evan?”
That catches me off guard. I have to admit I’ve gotten used to living in the South since I moved down here for law school. People tend to ease around touchy subjects, not just come straight out and ask like Finley. She’s spent her entire first day at the law firm refusing to conform—from walking around barefoot, to trying to recuse herself from working with a new client, Tucker Hastings, to posting a sign over the printer that says, “This could have been an email. Save the trees.”
Which is exactly why Christopher told me the minute she walked out of the conference room that I’d asked the wrong sister out.
It was a misunderstanding. He’d meant that I should ask either Frannie or Fiona Anderson out. That they were the oneshe’d been describing to me as sweet and socially adept and one of whom would make a great fake girlfriend to escort around town and make Charles happy. And make me partner in the process.
But I heard “Anderson daughter” and I thought that he meant Finley. Because, well, that was the Anderson daughter standing in front of me. It was an honest mistake.
