Seduce Me (Austin Singles 1)

He chuckled and shook his head. “Dude, why don’t you just kick everyone out of here and get on with it already. The way you’re looking at Charlie is getting sort of creepy.”

Nash slapped my back. “He’s right. Let me clear everyone out of here and y’all can spend the rest of the night together.”

“That sounds great, but can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked Nash.

He pulled his brows in tight but then smiled and looked over at Blake. “Sure. If that’s how you want to spend your honeymoon, but I think Charlie will have something to say about that.”

I motioned for him to follow me into the office that was just down the hall from Charlie’s bedroom. Even though Charlie rarely worked from home, her office here at the condo was almost as set up as the one at CMI.

Shutting the door, I rubbed the back of my neck and figured out the best way to say this to my best friend.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. God, yes. I wanted to thank you for everything you did today. I mean, I called you and you dropped everything to help me out and I’ll never forget that. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Nash smiled. His dark hair looked like he had run his hands through it a million times. The scruff on his face was overgrown, another indication of how busy my best friend’s life was. Yet he always made time for me, and that was something I would never forget.

“It’s a good thing I’m my own boss. Well, I guess Dad’s really the boss.”

I gave him a grin.

“You doing okay? What, with Lily here and everything?”

“Yeah.”

His voice sounded like he meant it, but his dark brown eyes said something else.

“I know it’s hard. I remember those first few times I had to be around Charlie. It felt like my heart was being ripped out.”

Nash glanced down at the floor and let out a gruff laugh. “Yeah. It feels something like that. I want her to be happy, Tucker. I really do. She talked to me earlier tonight. You know when I told you I thought I would be able to forgive her?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“She started talking all this nonsense about how she was only with Mark because of the sex and that she still loved me and asked if I thought we had a chance.”

My eyes widened in shock. Shit. My sister was messed up more than I thought.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“The truth. That I didn’t think I would ever be able to trust her, and that I clearly wasn’t giving her the things she wanted or needed. I also reminded her she was carrying another man’s baby, and then she started coming on to me.”

“Fuck.” My hands scrubbed down my face. I didn’t really want to hear these kinds of things about my baby sister, but I knew Nash needed someone to talk to. Blake wouldn’t give two shits, and Jim was caught up in his own bubble of happiness with Terri.

“Dude, I’m sorry. It’s got to be the hormones or something that’s making her that way.”

Nash let out a fake laugh. “Yeah. Must be. Anyway, I told her no, things would never work out between us now and that we needed to focus on just being friends like we’d agreed to.”

Clutching his shoulder, I gave it a squeeze. “I know that was hard, but you’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah. I know, but it will be a cold day in hell when I let someone else in.”

With a sympathetic smile, I added, “Famous last words, dude. Famous last words.”

Thirty minutes later and Nash had Charlie’s place cleared out of everyone but him and my mother.

“Thank you so much, Patty, for all this food.”

Giving Charlie a bear hug and whispering something into her ear, my mother proudly declared it was all her pleasure.