Page 72 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

“Get those asses up there,” Dee said cheerfully and punctuated the invitation with a sharp slap to each of their backsides.

There was a beat of horrified silence.

“I feel objectified,” Ryder said, already climbing up because apparently he was a coward, “and that something has gone wrong with my life choices.”

A loud, delighted whistle split the air. Finch located the source—Libby, Ryder’s partner.

“You,” Ryder said, jabbing a finger in her direction, “need to behave.”

Libby raised her glass to him.

“I get vertigo,” Finch lied, which was a wild claim given that the bar was chest height.

Then Kurt vaulted up with ease and started gyrating his hips.

Nina shoved two fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle. “Move those hips, Kurt!”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to, Finch. Kurt’s hot enough, along with Ryder, to make them happy,” Dee said. “I mean, look at Nina. She’s drooling over the man.”

He shot Dee a look, and something in her eyes had him tensing.

“You go on and put those glasses away,” she added. “Kurt’s got the moves, and I’m not sure both you and Ryder up there dancing—or not, as the case may be—is good for business anyway.”

“I can dance,” Finch protested.

“Sure you can,” she fired back, then burst out laughing. “Nina just waved money at Kurt. Her luck could be in tonight.”

His head snapped back to Nina. She was looking up at Kurt, grinning, a folded note pinched between two fingers.

“Did I tell you that my husband and I share everything? Amazing the things you see when you’re out exercising at 9:30 p.m.”

He knew then that Red had told her he’d seen Finch leaving Nina’s place the night of the funeral and had clearly added two and two and come up with the truth.

“Dee—”

“I won’t say a word.” She mimed zipping her mouth shut. “But don’t mess around with that girl if you’re not serious. She looks like she can handle it, but she can’t. And you sure as hell can’t, either, in your current state.” Dee leaned in to pat his cheek, her expression softening for just a second. “But if you do, I think she’d be perfect for you, as you would be for her.”

She then walked away, leaving him standing there with a wine glass in one hand and his pulse spiking.

Looking at the bar, he watched Ryder attempt to move his hips to the music, and his sister and sisters-in-law laughed so hard, one of them had to grab a table for support. His mother wolf-whistled loudly.

“Fuck it,” Finch said, climbing up there, the surface sticky under his boots. “Follow me, Ryder.”

He then moved two steps to the right, one foot behind the other, in a move he knew was called the grapevine, and Ryder followed, scowling the whole time as if the steps insulted him.

“Now back,” Finch instructed.

Soon Bradford and Kurt the asshole joined in, and the women clapped and danced along, hooting out their encouragement. Birdie and Blue were yelling insults at him—and filming every second on their phones to show Lynx, Jay, and Sawyer, he was sure.

“How do you know this shit?” Ryder asked over the cheers.

“Don’t ask. Can you manage a turn?”

“Fuck off,” Ryder snarled, but he turned anyway, badly.

Finch turned, too, and when he was facing the women again, his eyes locked on Nina’s. She gave him a wink, which he returned with a smile.

“Off, off, off!” June Matilda and her friend LouJean called, banging their glasses rhythmically on the table.