All We Ever Wanted(72)

“So,” he said, closing the door. “What do you want to do?”

I shrugged, looking around his extremely fancy foyer. “Whatever you want…Where are your parents again?” I asked, even though he hadn’t told me.

“My mom’s in Bristol,” Finch said. “Her hometown.”

“She’s from Bristol?” I said, having imagined that she was from somewhere more chic, like New York or California.

“Yeah. She grew up poor,” he said super-matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” I said, wondering what constituted “poor” in his mind and whether I qualified. I told myself it didn’t matter—and that I should stop overthinking things. “And your dad? Where’s he?”

“He’s coming back from Texas today…but his flight doesn’t land for a few hours.”

“Oh. Cool,” I said, as Finch turned and led me down a hallway and into a gorgeous white kitchen. “Can I get you a drink?”

At first I thought he meant alcohol, but then he clarified and said, “Tea? Juice? I think we have orange and grapefruit….Water?”

I said water would be good.

“Sparkling or still?” he said, a question I’d only ever heard posed at a really nice restaurant Nonna had taken me to once.

“Um. Either. Still, I guess,” I said, as I noticed the gigantic slab of marble on the kitchen island, veins running through it like the lines in one of my dad’s oversize paper road atlases.

Finch opened the door of an enormous stainless-steel refrigerator and grabbed two bottles of SmartWater. He handed me one, then paused to unscrew his and take a sip. I did the same, and we swallowed in unison, then smiled at each other.

   “Let’s go to the basement,” Finch said.

I said okay, suddenly picturing Caleb’s unfinished basement, with its concrete floors and cinder-block walls, and odor of cat litter, mildew, and Clorox. I knew Finch’s would be nothing like that, but as we went downstairs and he turned on the lights, I almost laughed out loud at the contrast. It was like a freaking hotel casino—with a fully stocked bar, a pool table, several old-school videogames and pinball machines, and a huge leather sectional along with a bunch of stand-alone recliners all positioned around a mammoth TV that looked more like a movie screen.

“Welcome to my man cave,” he said.

“Wow,” I said, too impressed to play it cool. “This is incredible.”

He said thanks, flashing me a modest smile, then walked over to the sofa and sat down, patting the cushion next to him. I followed him and took a seat, leaving only a few inches between our legs.

“You have a favorite movie?” he asked, grabbing one of three remotes from the coffee table in front of us. He flipped on the TV, then pulled up a menu of movies.

“Not really,” I said, my mind going blank because I wasn’t thinking about movies.

“Just pick something. Anything,” he said, scrolling too quickly for me to read the titles.

I threw out Mean Girls—because it was the first thing that popped into my head—and within a few seconds, we were watching the opening credits of a movie I’d virtually memorized, I’d seen it so many times.

Finch put his feet up on the table, then grabbed another remote, hitting a button that turned off all the lights at once, transforming the room into a private theater. A beat later, he slid down a few inches, closing the gap between our legs. Then he took my hand, his entire forearm resting in my lap. It was so comfortable and natural, yet my heart still pounded in my chest, racing even harder as he caressed my thumb with his.

   For a long time, we stayed like that, my hand in his, watching and laughing. It felt intimate and amazing, but not sexual, and I began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t going to kiss me after all. Then, in the middle of the four-way-call scene—one of my favorites—he hit the pause button and said, “These bitches remind me of Polly and her friends.”

I started to laugh but then glanced at his face and saw that his expression was stone serious, maybe even a little pissed.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

I waited for him to unpause the movie but was glad when he didn’t. Instead, he let go of my hand, then reached down for his bottle of water. As he took a sip, I knew what was coming, so I took a sip of mine, too, preparing myself for his next move. It came smoothly, in the form of a quarter turn of his body toward mine, his arm extending behind me, draping along the back of the sofa.

“Hi,” he whispered, as I angled myself toward him, too.

“Hi,” I said back, feeling completely light-headed.

He held my gaze for another few seconds, then closed his eyes, our faces coming together until it was finally happening. Finch was kissing me. And I was kissing him back. It sounds so cheesy to call it a dream come true, but that’s what it was—something I had imagined so many times alone as I was falling asleep in my bed.

Only this was better. Because he kept kissing me, more and more passionately, until we were lying down beside each other, our faces illuminated only by the light of the frozen screen. I glanced over at it, and he took that as a hint to reach for the remote and turn it off altogether.

   He kissed me again, now in complete darkness, then rolled onto his back and pulled me on top of him, running his hands under my shirt from my shoulders down my back. They were big and strong, soft and warm. At first, I was too overwhelmed to react, but then I moved my hips in motion with his, sliding one hand down the back of his sweatpants, touching the top of his ass, as far as I could reach. He had such a good body.