The surface had worked fine for her. No one got hurt on the surface. Everything was simpler there, cleaner. This situation with him was getting complicated and messy, and she already ached at the thought of him leaving. So what would it be like when he actually left and they were forced to go back to texts, phone calls and FaceTime to stay in touch? Would he want to stay in touch if they had a hot and heavy fling while he was here? Maybe a fling was all he wanted anyway.

This, right here, was why she avoided entanglements at all costs. So how had she found herself firmly entangled in this enigmatic man?

It had happened the night he told her his real name. Nothing had been simple after hearing he shared a name with her beloved brother.

“Hey,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. “Where’d you go?”

She emerged from her thoughts to find that Evan McCarthy and Grace Ryan had arrived with her friend Fiona, Evan’s brother Adam and his fiancée, Abby Callahan.

“Nowhere,” she said in response to Slim’s inquiry.

“You’re not overthinking things by any chance, are you?”

“What? No. I’m not doing that.” Scalded by his insight, she tried to escape, mumbling something about helping Jenny in the kitchen.

He took her hand, stopping her. “You want to go?”

“I…” She wanted to go, and she wanted to stay, to buy herself some time to figure out what was happening to her and how to get it under control while she still could.

He watched her with those knowing eyes that saw right through her bullshit and found the heart of her more easily than any man before him ever had. “Let’s go.”

“I, um, Jenny…”

“She’ll understand.”

And she would. Erin had no doubt about that. “Okay.”

They made their excuses to Jenny, who was far too pleased about the development for Erin’s liking.

“Call me in the morning and tell me everything,” Jenny said as she hugged her. “Take notes so you don’t forget anything.”

“Stop it.”

“You stop it.”

“What am I doing?”

“Other than freaking out?”

“I’m not doing that.”

“No?”

Erin could fool some people but not Jenny. Never Jenny. “Maybe a little.”

“It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“You can’t know that for certain.”

“None of us can, but one thing I know for certain is that a life half lived is no life at all.”

And what, really, could Erin say to that?

After shaking hands with the McCarthy and Martinez brothers, Slim held out a hand to Erin, who was still reeling from Jenny’s pronouncement. “Ready?”

Eyeing his hand the same way she might an unpinned grenade, she nodded and let him help her into her coat and lead her from the house.

“Leave your car here,” he said. “We’ll get it in the morning.”