Fighting Redemption(20)

Maybe you need to look at why, Rachael replied.

Shaking her head, Fin put her phone back on her bedside table. Lying back down, she cuddled her pillow. Ryan had always been the first one to defend her when they were growing up. That hadn’t changed. But neither had anything else.

Resolving to do everything in her power to move on, Fin reached for her phone again. She would ring Ian, and she would make an effort to be who he needed her to be.

A soft knock came at her door.

Before she could say anything, it opened slightly and Jake whispered, “It’s just me, Fin. Can I come in?”

Ignoring the irrational disappointment that it wasn’t Ryan at her door, she mumbled, “Sure,” and put the phone back on the table.

Fin rolled to her side as Jake climbed on her bed and stretched out on his back. He turned his head to look at her and sighed deeply. “What the f*ck was that?”

She rubbed at her brow. “Things haven’t been going so well with Ian and me lately.” Jake raised his brows. “He wants us to move in together.”

“First of all—no f*cking way. Second—how does that end up with him throwing a f*cking glass at you?”

“Ian didn’t throw it at me,” she defended him. “He threw it at the cupboard behind me.”

“Why?”

Fin buried her head in the pillow, shifting her face slightly so she could breathe. “He thinks there’s something going on between Ryan and me,” she mumbled.

“Is there?” Jake frowned, his eyes searching her face in the soft darkness. “Because even if there was, that’s no excuse to throw a f*cking glass at your face,” he growled.

“No!”

After a pause, Jake nodded and said, “I don’t like Ian. Maybe he used to be a nice guy, but I don’t like the way he treats you.”

“You don’t have to like him,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “I’m going to ring him in the morning and see if we can work this out. Ian and I … We have a lot of history.”

“So do you and Ryan.”

Fin’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jake rolled to his side and sat up, putting his feet over the edge of the bed. He looked at her over his shoulder. “You two have always been friends. I thought the Army would be good for him, and it is, but he’s not letting go, Fin. Maybe you’re the one who can help him do that.” Jake stood up and moved to the door.

“How can I possibly help him do that?”

Jake shrugged. “You could try being friends again.”

“But he’s the one who left!” she burst out. “Six years have gone by, Jake, and he didn’t contact me once.”

“Did you get in touch with him either?”

“He didn’t want me to,” she told him.

“Sometimes it’s not about what you want, but what you need.”

Jake opened her bedroom door and stepped out.

“Jake—”

“Night, honey.”

The next morning Fin hadn’t worked out what to say to Ryan so she left for work before both he and Jake were up. She tried ringing Ian when she arrived at her desk, but he didn’t answer. Keeping her head down, she worked solidly through the day, and when she got home later that night only Jake was at home.

She tossed her keys and files on the desk in her room and met Jake in the kitchen. “Where’s Ryan?”

“Training exercise,” he replied, stirring something on the stove.

“Oh? I thought you both had time off.”

“We do.”

So Ryan and Ian were both avoiding her. Great. “You cooking me dinner?”

Jake turned around, pointing the spoon at her. “I am, and you’re gonna like it this time or you’ll be wearing it.”

“Just like the last time you cooked and I wore your pasta all down my favourite shirt?”

He grinned. “You shouldn’t have complained that it tasted like shit.”

Fin poked her tongue out. “It did taste like shit.”

“Interesting.”

“What is?”

Jake smirked. “That you know what shit tastes like.”

Fin gagged a little and he laughed. “Don’t be gross.”

“You said it, not me.”

She walked over to the stove and peered into the saucepan. It looked like some kind of red sauce with odd shaped lumps of meat. “What is that anyway?”

Jake stuck the spoon back in the pan, and sauce splattered up the tiles as he gave it a messy stir. “Go away or I won’t cook anymore.”

She grinned. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

Jake swiped at her with the tea towel, and she danced out of his reach. “Go. Get out of my kitchen!”

It wasn’t until three nights later, with Ryan yet to return from his exercise, that Ian called her back.

“Fin,” he muttered when she answered the phone.

Fin put her head in her hand. “Ian. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.” After a pause, he said, “We need to talk.”

“I know,” she agreed softly.

“My place?” Ian shared an apartment closer to the city with his co-worker, Evan. “Evan’s not here,” he added.