6. Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Finn
“ H ow does baked potato soup sound?” I asked while washing my hands in the sink.
“Sure,” she replied. “That sounds great.”
I opened the door of the fridge and handed her the bacon. “Do you mind cooking this while I get everything else together?”
Tessa’s demeanor shifted, alarm momentarily spreading across her expression before disappearing so quickly I wondered if I imagined it. She squared her shoulders before nodding and taking the package from me.
We worked in silence, and eventually the smell of bacon filled the air. Turning the faucet on to wash the potatoes, a popping noise and the smell of smoke alerted me to trouble. I whipped around and saw flames reaching toward the hood above the stove. Tessa stared on in horror as the blare of the smoke detectors echoed around the room. Luka ran into the kitchen, his constant barking mixing with the pandemonium. Leaping into action, I pushed Tessa further away from the hazard before hauling open the cabinet next to the stove. Grabbing a metal cake pan, I quickly slipped it on top of the flaming bacon. Within seconds, the fire was extinguished. I moved the pan off the burner and turned the stove off before grabbing a kitchen chair and resetting the smoke detectors.
Silence descended, and I turned to check on Tessa. I froze. Her shoulders, which had been relaxed, were hunched forward as though she was trying to make herself smaller. Her pulse pounded rapidly against her neck while her eyes searched the room for the nearest exit, and her hands wrung the fabric of her shirt so hard I worried it would rip.
Recognizing the response and knowing how I handled this situation would likely define the rest of our time together, I slowly raised my hands and murmured her name. Still locked inside her own head, my attempt to get her attention went unnoticed. Focusing on the bruising that grew more prominent overnight, I remembered what she said about how she was injured.
Knowing any physical contact would only spook her more, I repeated her name louder. Finally, her eyes snapped toward mine.
“I’m so sorry, Finn,” she said, her lip trembling while she struggled not to break in front of me. “I don’t know what happened. I thought I was doing okay and then all of a sudden, the stove was on fire.” She paused, swallowing several times. “And then I just froze.” Her watery eyes met mine, the anguish and sorrow she felt written all over her face. “I’ve never been very good in the kitchen, and I should have known better. I’m so sorry.”
“Tessa, it’s okay, really. I promise I’m not mad.” She stared at me, disbelief written across her features. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say you set the heat on high?”
Her eyebrows furrowed, her mouth opening repeatedly as she stared at me. “How did you know?”
Chuckling lightly, I moved the pan over to the sink. “Because I did the same thing when I was younger. When I was about ten, I was helping my mother make breakfast one morning. She was running behind, so she asked me to cook the bacon. I had no idea what I was doing but figured it couldn’t be that difficult. Since we were running late and needed it fast, I turned it on high and tossed the bacon in the pan.” I shook my head at the memory. “What I didn’t know was that bacon grease is highly flammable if it gets hot enough.”
I turned toward Tessa, the pained expression on her face causing something that felt distinctly like heartburn to flare in my chest.
“The pan caught fire and instead of calling for my mother, I decided I was going to put it out myself. My dad was one of the local firefighters back then, so I figured I had it covered.” I grinned as I recalled the stupidity of my then ten-year-old self. “I turned the sink on full blast and grabbed the sprayer, which was literally one of the worst things I could have done.”
Noticing Tessa’s increasingly relaxed posture and the captivated expression on her face, I continued my tale. “The water caused the grease to splash, which spread to the dish towel I left sitting on the other side of the stove. Before I knew it, the entire stove was engulfed in flames, the smoke alarms were going off, and my mother was calling 911.”
“And believe me, you have not experienced the true definition of embarrassment until your father has to respond to his own house because his idiot kid almost burned down the house.” I laughed as I relived the fear I would be grounded until I graduated. “But my dad surprised the hell out of me. He couldn’t have cared less about the damage. He launched himself off that truck before it even came to a full stop and didn’t stop until he barreled into the huddle my siblings, my mother, and I formed.”
I smiled to myself when I recalled the way my father latched on to us as though his life depended on it. I could still remember the way he frantically checked over each and every one of us, refusing to deal with the house until he made sure we were okay.
Shaking myself from the memory, I looked at Tessa. “My point is, you’re not the first person to cause a grease fire, Tessa, and you sure as hell won’t be the last. I promise it’s not a big deal, so please don’t be upset over it, okay?” I bent slightly at the waist to meet her now downturned stare.
Slowly, she raised her head, her wide brown eyes studying me for any signs of deceit. She could look all she wanted; she would find none. Seeming to come to that conclusion on her own, she nodded before giving me a weak smile.
“Is there something else I can help with? Perhaps something that doesn’t allow for the possibility of burning down the entire house?”
I laughed, glad her sense of humor was still intact. “Sure thing. How about you get started washing and peeling those potatoes while I clean out the pan and get a new batch of bacon started?”
Tessa pursed her lips, a look of sheer determination settling over her features before she nodded and moved toward the sink.
We worked in silence for the better part of an hour. After she finished with the potatoes, I gave her small tasks to help with while I did the actual cooking.
As we sat down to eat, I cleared my throat. “You’ve been quiet this evening. Is everything alright?” The second the question came out of my mouth, I mentally smacked myself. She was stranded in the middle of a snowstorm with a complete stranger, her car was stuck in a snowbank somewhere, and she was recently in a car accident. Not to mention the fact she was clearly running from a man who thought it was okay to hurt her. She had more than enough reasons to not be alright.
Tessa studied her soup while she stirred her spoon in a figure eight pattern. After several long moments, she answered. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad.”
I swallowed my spoonful of soup. “Do you see him often?”
She continued to stare at the soup as though it might contain the answers to all of life’s greatest problems before gently shaking her head. “No, he and my mother died in car accident when I was twelve.”
My hand halted halfway to my mouth, the spoonful of soup frozen in midair while I took in the woman across the table from me. Tessa was taller than most women, but in that moment, I could have mistaken her for a small child, the forlorn and lost look on her face tearing at something in my chest. I knew firsthand there was nothing anyone could say to make the loss of a loved one easier and how empty blanket platitudes of condolence felt. Nonetheless, I felt the urge to acknowledge her loss. “I am very sorry that happened to your family.”
She studied my face, and I hoped she could see the honesty of my words reflected there.
“It happened a long time ago,” she responded quietly before she went back to inspecting her soup.
“It doesn’t make it any easier, though.” That was a fact I knew better than most. “Do you have any other family? Siblings, grandparents?”
“No. My grandparents passed away before I was born, and my parents were both only children. They tried for years before they had me, and my mom was never able to get pregnant again after I came along.”
I processed what she said, sensing she was sharing pieces of herself with me she rarely offered others.
“What made you think about your dad?”
She contemplated her response, twisting her lips to one side as she did. “You mentioned you were in the military. He was in military too when I was little. I haven’t met many others who served,” she confessed.
“What branch was he in?”
“The Air Force,” she responded. “What branch were you in?”
I took a sip of my drink before answering. “The Navy.”
Silence descended upon the table, the sounds our cutlery made as they scraped the bowls filling the space between us. Just as I moved to grab seconds, Tessa spoke.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop earlier.”
My eyebrows furrowed while I tried to recall what she was talking about.
“When you were on the phone,” she clarified as the fabric of her shirt began to shift. The table blocked their view, but I was positive she was wringing her hands in the hem of her shirt.
My mind drifted back to the conversation she mentioned. “I never thought you were,” I said honestly. “But even if you were, I doubt you would have been able to understand much, unless you happen to speak Arabic,” I amended, ensuring my face remained relaxed to ensure she knew I wasn’t upset.
“Did you learn to speak Arabic in the Navy?”
I settled back into my chair, pleasantly surprised she was opening up. “Yes, among others.”
“You speak more than two languages?” she asked, disbelief lacing each syllable.
Unsure why that was so surprising to her, I nodded. “I speak four actually. English, Arabic, Spanish, and Scottish Gaelic.”
She tilted her head to the side as she studied me. “The Navy made you learn all of those languages?”
“Not really,” I said, debating the best way to answer her questions. “The ability to speak other languages was considered an asset in the unit I was assigned to. I learned Arabic due to the amount of time we spent stationed in the Middle East. It wasn’t required, but being able to speak the language saved our asses more times than I can count. As for Spanish, I picked that up from out partner troops when we spent time training local military forces in South America.”
“And Gaelic? I wouldn’t imagine you spent a lot of time in Scotland as part of your Naval duties.”
The corners of my lips tilted up, satisfaction thrumming through my body that she felt comfortable enough with me to continue asking questions.
“No, that one wasn’t for the Navy. That one was for my mother, actually.”
Tessa leaned forward during our conversation. I groaned internally when her full breasts kissed the table between us. Determined to change my train of thoughts before my cock woke up and took notice, I refocused on our conversation.
“My great grandparents immigrated from Scotland when my grandmother was very young. My mother tried to teach us about our heritage when we were growing up, but as kids we weren’t exactly receptive.” I stared out the window as memories of my mother trying to convince my father to wear a kilt to a Scottish festival played through my mind. He caved of course, seeing as there wasn’t a single thing that man would deny her, but he still brought it up from time to time when he needed brownie points.
“It was always on my mom’s bucket list to go there and see where her family was from. Her and my father planned several trips there over the years, but each time something happened at the last minute, and they were forced to cancel.” I continued to watch the flakes of snow blow past the window, recalling the sadness I heard in her voice when I called home after the last failed vacation.
“I was in the Navy at the time, but in my downtime, I started studying the language. The next time I came home for leave, I took her to a Scottish festival.” I wiped my hand across my mouth to hide the grin spreading across my face at the memory. “You could have knocked my mother over with a feather when I started speaking Gaelic to one of the vendors that flew in from Scotland.”
I turned back from the window and was struck speechless by Tessa’s wide smile. Her eyes shone with a happiness I’d yet to see in our short time together as I finished the story.
Something rattled behind my sternum while I continued to stare at the woman before me. Tessa was always beautiful, but in this moment where she radiated happiness, she was ethereal.
“Wow,” she said, her voice pulling me out of my head. “That’s incredible. I bet that was a core memory for your mother.”
I furrowed my brow and considered her words. When I reflected on that time in my life, I wasn’t particularly proud of my decisions. Sure, I was proud of my service and the difference I made in the military, but I knew I hurt my mother by being gone all the time. I hurt her further still when I returned home broken, stubbornly refusing her attempts to help me heal.
The truth was I did it all out of guilt. Guilt for all the times I didn’t call home. Guilt for the birthdays and holidays I missed. Guilt for the men I hadn’t been able to save.
Unable to bear the way Tessa looked at me as if I was worthy of her admiration, I abruptly stood and turned from the table to carry my empty bowl to the sink. Glimpsing the way her smile fell at the abrupt end to our conversation allowed that guilt to roar back to life.
She’s not for you , the voice that had become my shadow whispered. She’ll leave you too, just like everyone else.
I swallowed hard, closing my eyes and willing the voice to shut up. I made my peace years ago that this was the fate I deserved, but every once in a while, I wished my demons would take a vacation.
Pressing my lips together, I subtly shook my head to clear the cobwebs. When I turned around and leaned against the counter, Tessa was back to wringing her hands with worry.
Way to go asshole. She was happy and smiling a minute ago, and you had to go and fuck it up.
I gritted my teeth as the voice continued taunting me. Knowing the only way to truly shut the voice up was to get out of my head, I focused on the weather report I watched earlier.
“The weather man’s reporting the storm isn’t moving through as quickly as they anticipated. The latest projection shows the storm won’t break until Tuesday at the earliest.”
Tessa avoided looking at me while she continued her assault on the hem of her shirt. Needing to ease some of her anxiety, I continued, “We have plenty of food to hold us over and more than enough fuel to keep the generator going if the power goes out. I know it’s not what you planned, but I promise you’ll be safe and warm here until we can dig ourselves out.”
Her eyes briefly met mine before darting away again. I hadn’t thought there were any parts left of me to break, but after seeing the way I caused her to retreat into herself, I felt the crack in a real and visceral way. She rose from the table before moving to the sink, quickly rinsing her bowl and gently placing it in the dishwasher.
“Thank you for dinner,” she murmured. “The last few days are catching up with me, so I think I’m going to head to bed early.”
We said goodnight, and I watched her retreat down the hallway. The soft snick of her door shutting echoed like a gunshot in my mind, and I hung my head, alone with my regrets once more.