Eight Hundred Grapes (60)

Then Ethan reached in his pocket, and for a second, I thought he was going to take out his handcuffs. He took out a key instead.

Ethan opened the jail cell door, a tiny room with a toilet and a mattress and a pine tree air freshener.

Finn rose up from the twin mattress, Ethan jokingly knocking on the jailhouse bars.

“You decent?” Ethan said.

“Decent enough,” Finn said, smiling. He was slightly disheveled, but I’d never have guessed that he’d spent the night in jail if that hadn’t been where he was standing. Smelling of trees.

Ethan walked out of the cell, locking the door behind himself, the click deafening. “Give me a few minutes to sneak you past Sheriff Elliot. And summon your sister here for her hit-and-run altercation from the other night.”

I drilled Ethan with a look. “It was a fire hydrant, Ethan, not a person.”

Ethan got in my face. “What it is, my lady, is unacceptable.”

Then Finn stepped forward, putting his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “Let’s just calm down here, okay? You need to ignore her. She wasn’t even in the truck. She’s just trying to help me out.”

“Is that true?”

Finn gave me a threatening look. “Tell him, Georgia,” he said.

“I guess,” I said, convincing no one.

“Come on, Ethan. Think about it. You think I’d let her drive my truck?”

Ethan looked back and forth between us, trying to decide if that was something he was willing to accept, which was when his walkie-talkie went off, Ethan picking it up.

“We’re not done here,” he said, pointing to me. Then he turned to Finn. “But I will deal with Elliot for you, Finn.”

Finn smiled. “Thanks, Ethan. I appreciate it.”

Ethan smiled back, no one immune to Finn’s charms, female or male. “No problem, pal,” he said, heading out, giving me a look as he went.

Finn looked at me. “Way to narc on yourself.”

“I didn’t want to leave you in the cold.”

“I’ve got Ethan covered.”

I looked around the jail. “Obviously.”

Finn shrugged. “Yeah . . .”

We hadn’t spoken since our blowout and he looked uncomfortable. He was embarrassed about our fight, this stint in the city jail, apparently one of many stints. But what was there for him to say? The Ford children didn’t apologize to one another. We did what my mother had told us to do as children. We held out a hand and the other sibling had to take it. Everyone willing to move on.

This was what he did. He reached out his hand and took mine as he sat back down.

“My hands are a little clammy,” he said. “I haven’t washed them for twelve hours.”

“You really do suck at apologizing,” I said.

He smiled. “Thanks for coming to get me,” he said.

“You okay?”

“Yep. It’s no big deal. Just needed to dry out.”

“Ethan says you guys have a standing date, like a weekly poker game. Without the poker.”

He shrugged. “Ethan likes my company.”

I shook my head. “Finn . . .”

“You want to start, Miss Hit-and-Run?”

He shook his head, getting serious all of a sudden. And looking older than he was.

“I know. It’s going to stop. I’m stopping it.”

“How?”

“However I can,” he said.

Then he nodded, like he was resolved. Resolved and exhausted—done with his own nonsense, done with how he was feeling.

He looked down at his fingers, shaking his head. “Maybe it was sleeping here last night, but I keep thinking about the night before they got married. That wedding we crashed together. Do you remember?”

“Your first arrest?”

“Very funny.” He looked up and sighed. “Do you know what I was thinking the whole time? Maybe they won’t be able to get me out of here in time for the wedding. That I would miss Margaret and Bobby getting married.”

“And that made you happy?”

“It made me sad, actually. What do you think that means?”

“That you love your brother.”

He smiled. “. . . And don’t say that you love your brother.”

I paused, trying to think of what to tell him, sitting in this depressing jail cell. Finn needed to figure out how to be somewhere else, both of us needed to be somewhere other than where we’d been.

“I was out of line,” he said. “What I said about Ben. Sometimes it takes people a minute to figure it out.”

I smiled, grateful and relieved to hear him say that.

“But, the thing is, you just used to be so fearless when we were growing up. Fearless and fucking happy. I don’t know. I want you to be happy like that.”

I smiled. “I was happy, wasn’t I? What happened?”

“Adulthood. Ambition. Compromise.”

I laughed. “All things you have managed to avoid.”

He shrugged as a smile crept up. “I hear there is a famous movie star in town. Someone by the name of Michelle Carter?”

“How did you hear that?”

“I’ve been in jail, not . . . in jail.”

I smiled.