Sophie shook her head and reached for her phone, checked the time. It was almost nine and there were no messages from this mystery man of hers.
“No,” she said quickly, mouth tilting down. “Well, maybe a little.”
I raised a brow at her.
“He’s hot. I’d want to watch.”
Her frown immediately tipped into a smile and I shook my head at her, taking a drink of wine.
When Sophie moved to Los Angeles, we’d known the earlier rules of our relationship would change, but we’d been so caught up in settling down and preparing for the wedding, I didn’t think either of us had understood how that could play out in reality. We’d spent years in love and with partners on the side. Now there was one bed between us and no side to be had.
A sharp knock on the door snapped me out of that unwarranted downward spiral, and I glanced at Sophie, then past her toward the front door.
“You get it,” she said.
“He doesn’t know me.”
“He’ll need to,” she said.
“Not if it’s just a you thing,” I muttered, standing up from the table because I’d never been good at telling Sophie no. She was going into this with hopes and expectations attached, an intended goal. It was yet to be seen how the whole thing would play out, though.
“Even if it’s a me thing, I won’t be with him if he doesn’t like you.”
That was another rule we’d talked about. Just shy of kitchen table polyamory, but neither of us wanted to be involved with other people who disliked each other. Sophie wouldn’t be with a person I didn’t like, and I wouldn’t be with someone who didn’t have her stamp of approval.
“Alright.”
Sophie stood up and trailed behind me toward the front door. She leaned against the wall, still in sight but definitely in the background.
“I love you,” I told her.
“I love you.”
Her nerves finally betrayed her, and I watched her worry her plump lower lip with her teeth. She wanted this to work, and because I loved her, I wanted it to work too.
I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door, and the man on my porch was the absolute last person I’d ever expected to see again.
“Finn.”
His name left my mouth on an exhale.
He had his hand raised to knock again, but at the sound of my voice, his arm fell limp at his side and his jaw went slack. Finn Covington was on my porch—again—dressed for work—again—with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the middle of his forearms in a way I knew to be very usual for him. His light brown hair was longer than it had been when I saw him last, his jaw freshly shaven, his eyes far less tired than before.
“Daniel?”
Finn’s stare flickered from my face to Sophie’s behind me and back to mine.
“I didn’t…” he snapped his mouth closed and reached up, grabbing the back of his neck and kneading the muscles there.
“Obviously.”
“Do you two know each other?” Sophie asked quietly, voice cautious.
“We do.” I cleared my throat and stepped back, gesturing weakly. “Did you want to come in?”
“Doyouwant me to come in?”
Wasn’t that a loaded question?