Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)(36)

Second, I can’t bang Finn, but I also can’t spend every free second at my parents’ house. The reality of illness is it’s a fairly miserable? isolating business. Mom doesn’t want us hovering, and if she wants anyone, it’s Dad. It’s time to cut the apron strings.

Third, and maybe most important, I need to figure out what I’m doing for dinner now that I’ve shattered Plan A all over the kitchen.

When I’m on my hands and knees, scrubbing the last of the stain from the grout between the tiles, my phone dings on the counter with a number I don’t recognize.

You up for getting a beer or two?

I squint at the screen in the darkening kitchen, typing back, Who is this?

The guy you were just fantasizing about.

Colonel Sanders?

The reply comes immediately. Try again.

I giggle as I type, Ethan? I hit send and quickly type, No! Jake, I’m so sorry!

Finn’s reply comes up after about a minute: Funny.

Finn and I exchanged numbers in Vegas nearly three months ago and I’m strangely tickled that we’ve never used them until now. Are we going to a lumberjack bar? I ask.

I think the word you want is fisherman.

Whatever, I’m just impressed you’re doing the texting. I type back. I look down at my outfit and cringe, before deciding— f*ck it. And this is perfect, I’m dressed like you.

I’ll be there in twenty.

I run upstairs, kiss my parents goodbye, and head out of the house, diving into my car and hoping to beat Finn back to my place. I don’t want him to know I wasn’t home. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because right now—and shockingly—Finn Roberts is my happy place; just being around him makes me feel better, and part of it has to be that he never asks me, “How are you feeling? How is your mom? Hanging in there?”

She’s such a fighter.

She’s so beautiful.

So young.

I can’t imagine how this must be for you.

Strangely, Finn is the one who probably could imagine how this is for us, and it’s a relief to not have to face it when I’m with him.

I get home in record time; the traffic light gods were smiling upon me. I could change out of my grungy clothes, but don’t bother. If we aren’t banging, I’m not primping.

He’s such a gentleman that he texts from the curb that he’s here, and I meet him at his truck and jump in.

“I forget how to get to Fred’s,” he says by way of greeting.

“Hello.” After buckling my seat belt, I tell him, “Hang a right on Prospect and then a left on Draper.”

“Oh, yeah.” He maneuvers out of the spot and then follows my direction. “I think I’ll remember from there.”

“Especially given that it’s on Draper,” I say with a cheeky grin.

But he doesn’t smile back. In fact, Finn seems lost in thought. He fiddles with the radio and settles on NPR, so instead of conversation, we have a rerun of Terry Gross interviewing Joaquin Phoenix to keep us company. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel at a red light, looking out his window away from me.

“This not-having-sex thing sure is way more stimulating! I’m super glad we’re still cool just hanging out.” I lean forward to get a better look at his face, but I don’t even get a flicker of a grin.

“Just wanted to get out for a bit,” he mumbles cryptically. Oliver lives a block from the beach. Finn could easily “get out” and do about a hundred different things other than taking me to Fred’s, where we just went just a few nights ago.

He parks in front of the bar and meets me on the sidewalk, as usual gesturing that I lead the way.

Mr. Furley calls out to me when we enter, telling Kyle to kick some “ratty-ass kids out of Harlow’s booth.”

“How dare they?” I hiss playfully to him.

“Kids these days,” he says, wiping down the bar. “Buncha little *s. How’s Madeline?”

“She’s hanging in there.” I stretch across the bar and kiss his stubbly cheek before hopping down and grabbing the two bottles of beer he hands me. I give him my best Bogart: “Tanks, schweetheaaart.”

Handing one to Finn, I gesture for him to follow me to our corner, wiping a few stray peanut shells off the table as I slide into our booth.

“You sure have him wrapped around your finger,” Finn says as he climbs in after me, looking back at Mr. Furley behind the bar.

“Yep. He’s the best.” I take a long pull on my beer, watching Finn swallow as he does the same.

God, I love his neck. It’s tanned, and defined, and dark stubble just barely shadows it, from his cheek . . . down his jaw . . .

I clear my throat. No sex. “So what’s up?”

Finn shrugs, and stares at the television nearest us, currently playing a Padres game.

At first the silence is comfortable: I have my beer, he has his beer. He has the Padres, I have a couple of adorably dorky senior citizens cutting a rug on the dance floor. But when they go sit down at their table, I feel the weight of the silence at ours. I don’t have the sense that Finn asked me to come out so he could sit and watch baseball alone.

“So, is Oliver working tonight?”

He doesn’t seem to hear me.

“Do you want me to order us some food? I’m starving.”