Heartbreaker(3)

While I’m reeling, he gives me a wink and strolls back outside.

Delilah lets out a slow whistle and fans herself with a condo brochure. “Hello, lover.” She leans against the desk like she’s swooning. “The road’s been good to that boy. Real good.”

“I guess.” I grab the file, and pray we’ve got some decent listings. Hopefully, he’ll want the first place I show him, and this nightmare will be over in twenty minutes flat.

“Well, never let it be said I don’t make sacrifices for our friendship,” Delilah adds, dramatic. “I saw the way he was staring. He’s all yours.”

“What? No!” My head snaps up. “You’re wrong.”

“Mmhmm.” Delilah just laughs, and goes to rifle through her purse. “Come on, the man’s waiting. You can borrow my lipstick.”

Part of me wants to walk straight outside looking like this, to show Finn I don’t care at all, but the other part – the one still reeling from that smile – needs a moment to pull myself together. “Thanks,” I tell Delilah, and race to the bathroom. I slam the door, and face myself in the mirror.

Oh boy.

I drag my hair up into a ponytail and quickly slick lipstick on – then blot it all off again. I can feel the storm of emotions whirling in my stomach, and I run the cold water to cool off my sweaty hands.

My reflection isn’t the problem; it’s the illegally hot guy waiting outside. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I used to have game, and flirt with cute strangers in bars all the time, but that was years ago. And besides, Finn isn’t a stranger – he knows me right down to the core.

Why is he back here, after all these years?

I close my eyes. Finn didn’t just leave town that night after graduation. He erased himself completely. No note, no calls, no casual updates online. He vanished so thoroughly, he didn’t even tell his father where he’d gone. I don’t blame him for that, since the two of them were never close. Lord knows Hank McKay wasn’t exactly the warm, fuzzy type. But still, how could he do that to me?

A tap at the door breaks through my thoughts. I startle, splashing water as Delilah’s voice comes. “I know it’s a lady’s right to keep a man waiting, but he’s been cooling his heels out there ten minutes now.”

I pause. Not for the first time, I wish we’d been closer friends back in high-school. Delilah was a year ahead of me, so she never knew what happened with Finn. Nobody did – we kept it secret. I didn’t want the small-town gossip, and sneaking around only made things more fun – and more lonely when he left. I didn’t reconnect with Dee until I moved back here after college, and by then, I didn’t want to drag the past up all over again. Now, I wish she knew the whole story, instead of expecting me to swoon and drool right along with her.

I shut off the faucet and open the door. “How do I look?” I ask, reluctant.

Delilah doesn’t do tact, but I must look pretty pathetic because she gives me a big grin. “Perfect! Irresistible! Now go get him.” She sends me off with a slap on my ass.

As I head back out front, I feel more like a sacrifice getting tossed to the lions. You can do this. You’re not a kid anymore, I tell myself, trying to pump myself up again. You’re a grown woman with class, and style, and you’ve got moves he’s never seen.

Not that I’m going to use them. What kind of * leaves and never even picks up the phone? I dial back every missed call, even when it’s a timeshare scam in Albuquerque. You’d think he could have returned a message from the girl he swore he’d love forever.

But when I open the door, and step outside, and find Finn by the curb, leaning again a classic grey Mustang – a molten-whiskey look in his blue eyes– I take it all back.

Is it too late to pick the lions?

“So what kind of property are you looking for?” I ask brightly, approaching him. I clutch my file to my chest like it could possibly shield me from that seductive smile and piercing eyes.

Finn doesn’t answer. He just opens the passenger door for me. “You cut your hair,” he remarks as I duck into the car.

“You didn’t,” I say pointedly.

“Touché.” He laughs, closing the door behind me and circling around to the driver’s side. I watch him, déjà vu rushing through me like a wildfire, hot and insistent. I must have sat in the passenger seat of his car a hundred times or more, all those late nights we’d slip away to the creek or out past the shoreline drive. I would have said once that it was my favorite place in the world, sitting right there beside him with my feet up on the dashboard, humming along to whatever old country songs his beat-up AM radio could pull from the wire.

“Nice upgrade, huh?” Finn must be reading my mind as he settles behind the wheel. “That old thing took me as far as Georgia before the engine crapped out on me in the middle of highway seventy-five.”

Georgia. I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking if that’s where he went. Instead, I pull out the first listing. “It’s waterfront, new build. Just take the beach road out past the harbor.”

“Yes ma’am.” Finn doesn’t seem shaken by my cool tone. He cruises through the center of town, one hand on the wheel, the other resting out of the open window. “So, you’re a realtor now? Somehow I didn’t picture you behind a desk selling condos.”