Sweet Little Lies (Heartbreaker Bay, #1) - Jill Shalvis Page 0,50

up. “You wanted to do this, Sean. You wanted in. And now you’re telling me what, things are too hard, you’re too busy having fun that you can’t get your head out of your ass and grow up?”

Sean’s eyes narrowed. “Guess so.”

Finn stared at him waiting for regret, for an apology, for any-fucking-thing, but nothing came. Just Sean’s hooded gaze, body braced for a fight, all sullen ’tude. Finn shook his head. “Fine. You win.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I need some air,” Finn said and walked out the door to the courtyard.

It was late morning and unusually warm. Summer was in full swing, which in San Francisco usually meant a sweatshirt sixty-five-ish and fingers crossed for a hope to get into the seventies.

But now, in direct opposition to his mood, it was sunny and warm, and it didn’t suit him in the least.

He had no idea where he’d intended to go, only knowing he was going somewhere, needing to vent the ugly inside him, the ugly his dad had bequeathed him.

The gym maybe. He’d go punch the shit out of a bag at the gym.

But to do that, he’d have to walk past Pru standing there watching him, a look on her face that told him she’d heard everything.

Chapter 17

#ThereAren’tEnoughCookiesForThis

Pru stared into Finn’s face, wishing like hell she could go back and vanish before he caught sight of her, or barring that, at least do something to ease the pain and anger in his eyes.

“Did you get all of that or do you need me to repeat some of it?” he asked.

“I didn’t mean to get any of it,” she said. “It was an accidental eavesdrop.”

He blew out a sigh, shook his head, and stared over her head at the fountain.

Regret slashed through her. She’d been caught eavesdropping many times, all of them accidental. Once when she’d been young, she’d caught her parents going at it on the dining room table with gusto. It’d been ten o’clock at night and she’d been fast asleep only to wake up thirsty. Not wanting to disturb her parents, she’d made her own way to the kitchen.

At first glance she’d smiled because she’d thought that her dad was tickling her mom. Her mom had loved it when he’d done that, and they’d touched often.

But she’d never seen naked tickling before . . .

Later when Pru had been a teenager, she’d come home from school to find her parents at the table with their neighbor, Mr. Snyder, who was also their accountant, talking about something called bankruptcy. Her mom had been crying, her dad looking shell-shocked.

And then there’d been the night her grandpa had shown up where she’d been spending the night at a friend’s. Weird, since she’d called her mom and dad for a ride, not her grandpa. She’d wanted to go home because her friends had decided to sneak in some boys and she hadn’t felt comfortable with the attention she’d been getting from one of them. He’d been in her math class, and was always leaning over her shoulder pretending to stare at her work when he was really just staring at her breasts.

The other reason it’d been weird for her grandpa to show up was because she hadn’t seen him in years. Not since he and her dad had been estranged for reasons she’d never known. And her dad and her grandpa being estranged meant that Pru was estranged by default.

So why was he at her friend’s house?

The night had gone on to become a real-life nightmare, the kind you never woke up from because she’d listened to her grandpa explain to her friend’s mom that he’d come to tell his granddaughter that her parents were dead, that her father had been past the legal drinking limit. He’d crossed the center median in the road and had hit another car head on, clipping a second along with the people on the sidewalk.

Pru did her best not to think about that moment, but it crept in at the most unexpected times. Like when she was in the mall and passed by a department store in front of the perfume aisle and caught a whiff of the scent her mom had always worn. Or when sometimes late at night if there was a storm and she got unnerved, she’d wish for her dad to come into her room like he always had, sit on the bed and pull her into his arms and sing silly made-up songs at the top of his