"I didn’t think it’d be like this," I admitted. Not just what I felt for Aidan, but was starting to feel for his family too. All of this was too fast, like I was about to hit the gas while going over a speed bump, but there was no stopping it mostly because I didn’t want it to stop.
"What?" Aoife’s gaze softened. "Love? You do love him, right? I could see it when you were sitting next to him, but like, you might just be putting on a show for Lena."
That had Jen elbowing her again. "Hey bitch, are you calling my other BFF a liar?"
Aoife snorted. "No. But she worked on TV, and I’m going to assume that someone as woke as her knows what a creep Stewart Allsheim is but she still smiled at him like she didn’t want to skewer him with, what are those fluffy-headed mikes called?"
"You mean a wind muff. We don’t use those so much in the studio," I explained.
Aoife nodded. "Thanks. But yeah. One of those."
I grinned. "You’re not wrong. I’ve got a good poker face."
"Just never let her play poker with you," Jen muttered.
"Lose big?" Aoife queried.
"Lost my shirt and any rights to bitching about how bad her coffee is too."
"Ouch."
Camille shot me an interested glance. "You play poker?"
"Texas Hold ‘Em. My brother and I were on the road a lot as kids with the band, you know? Gerard Sullivan, Sully, he was a card shark." I whistled. "One of the basics of poker is the ability to count cards—he taught me how." And that was nothing to what Star could do.
"Okay, I’m going to encourage the guys to start a poker game," Camille said with a cackle. "Just so you can whoop their asses."
"You guys need to not get jealous because I mean no harm, but it might take more than a couple of meals to get me over the fact I’m surrounded by O’Donnellys."
Aoife frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Like, you probably had a crush on Justin Timberlake as a teen. The O’Donnellys were my thang."
She snorted. "Really? I grew up being terrified of them."
"Smart girl," Camille drawled.
"Well, I wasn’t so smart, and they were bigger than my boogeyman so I fell for them."
"Who’s your boogeyman?" Jen questioned with a frown.
I waved a hand. "It doesn’t matter." It totally did, but now was not the time to overshare. I had to impress these women. If I had my way, they’d be my sisters-in-law soon enough.
"I think you’ll find it does."
"So, you think because you fangirl over them you wouldn’t be able to win?" Aoife queried, ignoring Jen.
"Maybe." I shrugged then, leaning into the table, whispered, "The other night, I woke up surrounded by them. It was scary until I realized who they were and then I’d never wanted to be in a bukkake flick more in my life than at that moment."
Jen snickered, so did Camille, but Aoife frowned. "What’s a bukkake flick?"
"Jesus, Aoife, how are you still so fucking innocent with me as a friend?" Jen groused, but she was chuckling as she grumbled. "Bukkake is this Japanese porn where, like, this girl gives a group of guys a blowjob. They’re all standing around her in a circle. Basically they come on her face, jack off on her, shit like that."
Aoife’s cheeks turned pink. "Oh."
"We need to hook you up with better porn," Jen said with a sigh. "Finn is obviously not educating you right."
"He’s educating me well enough," Aoife countered.