Her Seven-Day Fiancé. Brenda Harlen

a girl you’ve supposedly had your eye on for weeks?”

      “I was waiting for the right moment,” Kevin said.

      “How long were you going to wait?” Jay wondered.

      “Until last night,” his friend said. “If you remember, it was my idea to go to Diggers’ last night because I knew Alyssa would be working.”

      “And if you remember, you left the bar without making any kind of move.”

      “She was busy,” Kevin said in his defense.

      “That didn’t stop Carter from flirting with her.”

      Kevin glared at their other friend.

      “But all I did was flirt—Jay’s the one who kissed her,” Carter said, eager to throw Jay under the bus.

      He could argue again that she’d kissed him, but he couldn’t deny that there had been kissing. Instead, he said, “Do you want me to apologize?”

      “Are you sorry?” Kevin asked.

      He thought about the very public and very brief kiss he’d shared with Alyssa and felt desire stir low in his belly. He could tell Kevin that it wasn’t quite as steamy as people were saying, but the memory of that innocent kiss had kept him awake half the night. He could lie, but they’d been friends for too long for that option to sit comfortably with him. “No,” he admitted.

      Kevin shook his head. “You haven’t changed at all.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “It’s always been about the score with you. Jay always has to be with the hottest girls, the most girls—even the unavailable girls.”

      “I was a dick in high school,” he acknowledged. “But we’re not in high school anymore.”

      “You don’t think kissing Alyssa was a dick move?”

      Of course it was, if he’d done it for the purpose of getting between his friend and the girl he liked. But he hadn’t. Nor could he deny that his friend’s secret crush on the bartender had been the furthest thing from his mind when Alyssa’s mouth touched his.

      “Okay, it was,” he agreed. “But when you were talking about the new bartender at Diggers’, I had no idea it was Alyssa. If I’d known, I would have told you—weeks ago—that I knew her.”

      “I don’t care that you knew her first—you shouldn’t have kissed her.”

      “I get that this is a guy thing,” Nat interjected. “You want to beat your chests to figure out who gets the hot girl, but you’re overlooking two key pieces of the puzzle.”

      “What pieces?” Carter asked.

      “First, dibs and friendships aside, it’s not up to you to decide who gets Alyssa—it’s up to her. And truthfully, I don’t know why she’d waste her time with either one of you.”

      “Thanks,” Jay said. “That’s very helpful.”

      “Second,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “and this point is really for Kevin...I know you think Jay only kissed Alyssa because he knew you had a crush on her, but that’s not true.”

      “How do you know it’s not true?” Kevin demanded.

      “Because Jay isn’t a big fan of early mornings, but he’s been the first one here almost every day for the past several weeks.”

      “He owns seventy percent of the business—he should be the first one here every day,” Kevin pointed out.

      “I didn’t know there was a gold star for being an early riser,” Jay said, giving Nat a subtle shake of his head.