I see through the smoke and mirrors. I haven’t forgotten how easily he flirted with Maria.

I raise an unimpressed brow.

He taps my nose again. “You’re hard to please, Fin. But that’s okay. I like a challenge—ow, let go. That’s not for you.”

Mrs Norris has a paw in his sleeve; another flower sticks on her claw and she tries to shake it off, toppling the books.

I scoop her up and detach it, laughing.

My gaze flits to Ethan; he ducks his head and takes a hard shot at the 8 ball.

I watch him with Cress.

“Push yourself a little closer,” she whispers. “Closer.”

Ethan arranges his chair close to the harp and Cress lifts his arm, measuring his reach to the end strings.

“Now tilt the harp against your shoulder. Should balance easily. Feet flat on the floor.”

“Does this look right?”

Her eyes sparkle as she takes him in. “You look perfect.” She moves behind him, close, and reaches for the strings to pluck out a scale. “Relax,” she murmurs in his ear. “Pluck a string. Feel how it vibrates through your skin and wriggles deep.”

Ford slings himself on the couch beside me and peers at the laptop on my knees. “Aaaaaaaaaa . . . This Sven character’s really screaming.”

I lift my fingers from the keys and clap the laptop shut.

He waggles his brows. “Is he being thoroughly fucked?”

“Thoroughly haunted.”

“I drove past your new place this morning,” Ford says to Ethan.

It’s a day later. We’re at one end of the dining table. Poker. I barely know the rules, and Ford has seated me next to him to teach me how to play.

Cress, adjacent to me on my left, gazes across at Ethan, her eyes glittering.

“You’ve seen my place?” Ethan says, puzzled.

“Finley and I were driving into town and I spotted you walking through a gate.”

Ethan glances at me and I look at the cards. “You’re sure?”

“Pretty brick cottage. Small. Kiwi wind gauge, legs spinning wildly.”

“Sounds right.”

“So much potential!”

“You got all that, just driving by?”

“I might’ve convinced Finley to stop there on our way back from the market. We thought you might be home, but no one answered our knock.”

“I might’ve gone to the market too.”

“Finley didn’t say, but I could tell he was super curious how you lived. I hauled him around the house to peer through your windows.”

Heat blooms up my neck. I had been curious. I’d also been against the suggestion.

“Oh? And?” Ethan said huskily. “What did you think?”

I know he’s talking to me, but Ford answers. “I like it. Two bedrooms all to yourself. Bit barren at the moment. Or are you expecting a flatmate?”

“I’m on my own right now.”

With the lights on at night? Wishing we could share beds?

I lift my eyes slowly and our gazes meet. Gravity races through me in the space of a second; I’m glad I’m sitting down. We look away.

“You know, if you have an extra room,” Cress says. “Maybe I can rent it for the semester?”

Ethan’s quiet. I’m frozen.

“There’s no bed in the second room.”

She frowns at him, then shakes her head, laughing. “I sprung that on you. Forget about it. Or . . . think on it the rest of summer.”

Ford bumps my arm, tosses coins into the middle, and raises the stakes. “Maybe you and I should think about flatting together?”

I scoff and glance furtively at Ethan. “We’d kill each other in the first month.”

He looks relieved.

Ford laughs easily, like it’s just a matter of time. “Think about it.”

Cress raises again, grinning as her coins clatter atop the others. “If I lose this, it won’t be from not putting in my all.”

Her words scuttle down my spine.

When we can begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.

K. Mansfield, Journal

Bennet arrives the next day, even more gorgeous than I remember him.

He’s bright blond with dazzling blue eyes and a never-ceasing smile. He’s smart, too. And easy to talk to—catching up is a breeze, the hours fly by. The following day as well. I could hang out with him for weeks and never be bored. Longer, maybe.

And yet.

I don’t feel even a glimmer of sexual spark.

Not that I thought he’d arrive and we’d somehow find a way to pick up where we left off—

Actually, that’s exactly what I’d hoped. Someone to dull the pangs of missing Ethan. Someone who isn’t . . . Ford.

We’re in the river, concealed behind an outcrop that I want to climb and jump from. There’s a narrow ledge on this side, deep water everywhere else. Ford and I are standing on it, water lapping at our chests. He whispers in my ear, his hand caressing the back of my wet neck. “Your boyfriend doesn’t seem to touch you much.”

My brows jump to my hairline. “For someone who believes I have a boyfriend, you touch me too much.”

Tags: Anyta Sunday Love Austen M-M Romance
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