Chapter 2 – Finn
This February sucks more than most; the anniversary of my parents’ deaths, and hey, bonus, I haven’t seen or talked to my twin sister in weeks. Not since she took up with her boyfriends, one of whom I used to call my best friend in the world. West is like a brother to me. Or was.
Clearly, Callahan feels differently since she’s sleeping with him now. And their third, Raleigh. I’m still annoyed at myself for liking him when we first met.
Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’m allowed to be pissed, damn it. They lied to me.
Doesn’t change the fact that I miss them. West is nearly family, and Callie is the only actual family I’ve got left, besides our cousin Sullivan.
A knock sounds at the door. Only two people have this address since I moved in a few weeks ago, and I told one of them to make sure she calls before coming by.
Which means?—
“Speak of the devil,” I say.
Sully pokes his head through the door, looking around. “Speaking… to whom? Talking to yourself again, Finn?”
“Close enough.” I let him in, closing the door against the cold. The new apartment isn’t home, but I never expected it to be. After ten years out on the farm, I’m ready for a little bit of city life. It’s high time I start living for myself; Sully and Callie started their lives ages ago, apparently. Maybe that’s not fair.
Tough shit.
Sully helps himself to a beer and tosses me one.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you, but I thought you had a hot date tonight.”
“I said I was going to have dinner at Rusty’s,” says Sully.
“Same difference.” He’s got a crush on a bartender there, but he won’t tell me which one, which means I get to give him no end of grief since it’s not like Sully to strike out. Not like him to pine for so long, either. She must really be something to see.
“You know, I’m new in town. I need a place to hang out. Maybe I’ll come down there with you. You can point her out to me,” I muse, just to irritate him. Sully’s the one who kept Callie and me out of the foster system after our parents died. He’s only a few years older, but it was enough. As his honorary younger brother, I consider it my duty to give him grief.
Sully looks legit puzzled. “Her, who?”
“Your ladylove bartender. Come on, man. You’ve been hanging around down there for months. You’re not going to tell me it’s because you like the ambience.”
“Oh,” he says. “Yeah.”
Sully doesn’t elaborate. He must be really gone for her, whoever she is. Before I can open my mouth to poke him about it some more, he points at me and changes the subject.
“You need to talk to Callie.”
I roll my eyes. “We’ve been over this.”
“I don’t care,” he says. “Get over yourself. You’re being a prick, and she misses you. West, too. Lee is a pretty laid-back guy, but he’s getting pissed. He might actually take a swing at you at this point.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything to him.”
“You made Callie cry.”
I set down my beer. “Shut up.”
“It’s true,” says Sully. “Honestly, I’d knock you one myself if I thought it would help, but you’re so fucking stubborn it’d probably just set us all back another month.”
“They lied to me, Sully.” I glare at the wall over his shoulder.
“Yeah, they did. And you need to man up and get the fuck over it.”
“Just like that.” I scoff.
“You can choose,” he says pointedly. “Just like that. The thing is, Finn, life is going on with or without you. She’s about the only family you’ve got left.”
“I’ve got you,” I say, just to be a dick.
“You do,” he says. “And I’m not going anywhere. But I’m not your twin, dude. You need to get over this and make it right. Callie doesn’t need this shit. Not from you.”
The way he says it makes me go cold. “What are you talking about? I thought therapy was going well.” The thought of Callie shutting herself away from the world, after all the work she’s done the last few months to get out of her shell, turns my stomach to lead.
“It is,” says Sully. “That’s not what I’m talking about. What are you going to do, skip their wedding? What about when they have children?”
I blink, feeling the blood drain from my face. Sully nods, pointing at me again.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he says. “Maybe they’re not there yet, but life goes on, Finnegan. Do you want to be a part of her life? Or are you okay just missing out on all that?”
“She’s not pregnant,” I say. “They’re not married.”
“Not yet.”
I want to punch him. I know by the tightening of his jaw that he can tell.
“We can go a round,” says Sully. “Won’t be the first time I’ve had to kick your ass, and I doubt it’ll be the last. But it’s not going to help.”
“That’s what you think.”
That makes him grin a little, and my blood pressure starts to come down. I finish off the beer and wipe my mouth.
“Tell me how I’m supposed to do that, Sully,” I say at last. “If I can make it right, I will.”
Not having Callie in my life has been like missing a limb. It hurts the way it hurt after our parents died, and God knows, if there were anything I could do to make that stop back then, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. Keeping on like this sucks, and I don’t want to do it anymore. I miss my sister.
Hell, I miss Weston. Besides Sully and my friend Alex, West is the only other friend I’ve got. We’ve gone our separate ways sometimes, but this is the longest we’ve ever gone without speaking.
“Swallow your pride.” Sully leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Say you’re sorry. Explain that you’re not a bigot.”
“For fuck’s sake. I was best man at Alex’s wedding! They were there!” Alex had married his roommate and their girlfriend. That’s where Callie and West had met Raleigh, for God’s sake. A wedding that Callie would never have attended, except I forced her to. West too, for that matter. So, in a way, what Sully is getting at is this whole mess is really all my fault. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Lee thinks it might be a factor,” says Sully. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like he’s had the chance to get to know you.”
“Fuck’s sake.”
“He wouldn’t think that if you’d just talk to them.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, waving him off. “I get it.”
Sully lets me change the subject and liberates a couple more of my beers before seeing himself out a little while later. He’s long gone before I remember he never responded to my comments about the bartender.
I’mlate to meet Alex for coffee the next morning, which is a little silly because “late” means it’s almost 9 a.m. I don’t know why the man gets up so early, but apparently, it had something to do with taking his mother to work, which makes no sense because Mrs. Weaver’s been retired for… a while.
Whatever. I shove my sunglasses on and drive into the heart of the city, a familiar car in front of me the whole way. It takes me until the parking lot to realize I’ve just followed my new next-door neighbor, Nic, the whole way into town.
That car is sexy as fuck. All sleek lines and sharp edges. Bet it handles like a dream. I pull into the parking spot next to him at the Sizzle HQ building just to try to get a peek at the interior. Leather, of course. Be still my heart.
“You following me, Hale?” he asks as I climb out of my truck.
“Hardly,” I say. “You’re not my type.”
He snorts, then shocks the hell out of me by checking me out. It’s slow, thorough, and damned deliberate, and by the time his eyes make their leisurely way back up to mine, my body is tingling with awareness.
What the hell?
“Pity,” he says blithely. His lips quirk at whatever expression is on my face, gives me a bro-like up-nod, and heads inside.
I’m still trying to figure out what the fuck just happened when I realize I’m following him yet again. I stand beside him at the elevator, pretending I’m invisible. While he’s not the first man who’s ever checked me out, he’s the first one to be so obvious about it, and I… I do not know what the fuck to think about that.
“Seriously?” he says, catching me out of the corner of his eye.
“Seriously,” I say, shoving the weird thoughts away. “Do you work at Sizzle?”
He shakes his head. “My office is on the eighth floor. Do you work here?”
I laugh. “Not really my thing.”
Nic raises his eyebrows. “Working isn’t your thing?”
“I work,” I say, amused by his insinuation. Smartass. “Contract stuff. Construction. Gigs sometimes.”
“Security?” Nic asks, eyeing my shoulders, lingering on my arms.
“Sometimes.”
The elevator dings, sparing us any further awkwardness. Not that Nic looked anything but right at home in the snazzy lobby—top-of-the-line suit and shoes, briefcase to match. I have no idea what he does for a living, but he clearly does it well.
The elevator doors open and out steps my best friend, Alex. And his mother.
“Finnegan!”
“Hello, Mrs. Weaver.” She squeezes me, hugging my neck with surprising strength for a woman her age.
“So good to see you again,” she says, stepping back. She looks between Nic and me. “New boyfriend?”
I only manage to stammer sounds that aren’t words. Nic laughs.
“I’m late,” he says, stepping into the elevator and pushing a button. “Good to see you, Alex. See you at home, Finnegan.” He winks. The bastard actually winks at me. The elevator doors snick shut before I can think up a decent comeback.
I glare at the door, then realize what else he’d said. “You know him?” I ask Alex. He holds up his hands in defense.
“We’ve done some volunteering work together,” he says. “And I know he’s done some work for Sizzle. I didn’t realize you two knew each other.” Alex says “knew” in the Biblical sense. I can tell.
“He’s adorable,” says Mrs. Weaver. “You’d do well to put a ring on it, and quick, young man.”
I sputter again, and Alex just about chokes on the laugh he’s trying to suppress.
“He’s my next-door neighbor,” I say finally. Mrs. Weaver looks so disappointed I don’t even bother explaining I’m straight.
She sighs. “Well. Can’t win them all. Anyway, I’ve got to run, boys. I’m late for my class. I just ran upstairs to say hello to Joelle.” She kisses Alex on the cheek, then me. She hugs me again, harder this time. When she lets me go, she grabs my chin and looks me right in the eye. “I’m glad you’re back in town,” she says. “If you need anything, you call me, you hear? Anything at all.”
It occurs to me that of all the other people in the world who know and might care what day it is, she’s one of them.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, swallowing hard. “Thank you.”
Alex is watching me as she leaves. “I’d forgotten what day it is,” he says finally. “I’m sorry, Finn.”
“Not your fault,” I say. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“I think we maybe do.”
“Coffee first,” I say. We take my car to the Market Street Market, because it’s the best coffee in town.
We talk about everything and nothing. He tells me about married life—the G-rated parts, anyway—and I admit I still haven’t talked to Callie lately.
“That’s not right,” he says. “Especially not today.”
“I know.”
“She’s your sister. Your twin sister.”
I just look at him.
“Yeah, I know you know, and I am on your side,” he says. “Always. But don’t you think it’s time to get past this?”
“That’s pretty much what Sully said.”
“Smart man,” says Alex.
I’m tempted to throw a sugar packet at him, but we’re not fourteen anymore, so I manfully refrain.
“I get it,” he says. “I’m not going to nag you about it. But I think, today of all days, you ought to reconsider what you’re doing.”
Before I can argue with that, he puts up both his hands to ward me off. “And anyway, I’d rather talk about you and Nic.” He wags his eyebrows, and the subject of Callie is mercifully dropped.
I let him make his jokes. It’s the best hour of my week, bar none. When he leaves—“Because some of us have actual jobs”—I’m left to my own thoughts. I climb in my truck, crank the heat, and head home, no closer to a solution than I was when I left this morning.
At least, no closer to a solution I like. But, like it or not, I owe my sister an apology. And Weston. And Lee.
Surely, this day can only get better from here.