Chapter 8
Eight
Rhodes
I wake to a noise downstairs.
At first, I think it’s one of the kittens—they seem to prefer being most active during the nighttime hours.
Much to my chagrin…and my sleeping patterns.
But as I roll over, intending to go back to sleep I smell something.
Cookies.
Sitting up, blinking against the darkness, I snag my phone and check the time.
It’s after midnight.
“What the hell?” I whisper, grabbing my T-shirt from the floor and tugging it over my head, padding quietly by Chloe’s room and making my way downstairs.
The kitchen light is on and soft music filters out into the hallway.
Pulse speeding, I move closer…and Finn is standing at the counter wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants and a faded tank top, spooning dough onto a baking sheet.
She jumps when she sees me.
“Sorry,” she says and quickly turns down the music that’s playing on her phone. “Did I wake you?”
I glance at the mixer, the bowl, the bags of flour and chocolate chips spread across the counter. The ingredients for a complicated cocktail beside them, her glass half-drunk.
“Just my nose.” My stomach rumbles and I smile. “And maybe also my stomach.”
She nibbles at the corner of her mouth. “Let me clean up. I can finish this tomorrow.”
“No,” I say, moving farther into the room. “It’s okay.”
She studies me for a second. “You sure?”
“Sure that I want freshly baked cookies?” I ask lightly. “Um, yes.”
Her eyes hold mine for a few more seconds, then she goes back to measuring out flour. “There are some warm cookies on the rack.” A nod to the shaker. “And another drink if you want it.”
“Sure,” I say, snagging a cookie as she pours me a cocktail. I take a big bite, nearly moan. “Delicious.”
She smiles, but it’s not her normal warm one and something cold slithers through me.
“What are you making now?” I ask into the quiet that falls between us.
“I’m sorry?”
“The chocolate chip cookies are done,” I say softly. “So what’s in the mixer?”
“Snickerdoodles.”
“Your favorite?”
She shrugs. “Cinnamon and sugar. What’s not to like?”
“Nothing, I suppose. But are they your favorite?”
Her eyes come to mine. “Why do you want to know?”
Because I want to know everything about you.
But I don’t say that out loud.
Can’t say it aloud.
“You know most of my favorites,” I tell her as she continues measuring flour. “It seems only fair for me to know some of yours.”
Hazel eyes coming to mine, holding for several heartbeats. “Yes,” she eventually says. “Snickerdoodles are my favorite.”
I want to know more favorites—her favorite color and movie and TV show and what her dreams are and why she got into making blankets and why the trip she’s planning seems so important.
But it’s after midnight and…she’s off.
“You couldn’t sleep?” I ask softly.
A pause then, “Something like that.”
I lean back against the island. “So this is…stress baking?”
She slants a tiny smile my direction. “Maybe.” Then she shocks the shit out of me by asking, “What was she like?”
I still, my heart slamming against my ribs.
“Your wife,” she clarifies softly. “I, um, it’s okay to not want to talk about her. I just…I’ve seen the pictures and Chloe’s mentioned her a few times, and I was”—her eyes come to mine for a second then drift back to the bowl—“I guess I’m just curious.”
I glance down at my hands.
No.
At my left hand.
My wedding ring gleams in the fluorescent lights overhead, and when I glance back up, it’s to see that Finn’s expression has gentled.
“In her pictures,” Finn murmurs. “She looked kind.”
“She was.”
I think of the first time I ever met Anna—I’d dropped my wallet and she ran down the street to stop me so she could return it.
I think of her catching spiders and taking them outside because she didn’t have the heart to squish them.
I think of her cooking dinner for our neighbors when they had a baby, and giving a stranger her brand-new coat because she had a perfectly good one at home and taking the time to coax a scared dog out from the bushes so she could reunite it with its owners.
“And she was patient,” I murmur. “So much more patient than I ever was—with Chloe, with me, with my career, with stupid small things like ill-timed signals and delayed flights.”
I think of her laugh, of her face when she held Chloe close.
I think of her with flour in her hair and demanding I measure the brown sugar correctly.
“She was tough, too—would go toe-to-toe with me when it mattered.” My mouth curves.
“She made the best pancakes,” I say. “And she was so damned sweet ninety-nine percent of the time, but when it came to cooking for the holidays, she turned into Gordon Ramsey, bossing me around and demanding perfection—and it was worth it. Everything always came out exactly right. Not just the food, but the whole holiday. It was…” I sigh.
“Perfect,” Finn whispers.
“It really was. And I miss her,” I say. “But nowadays, I miss the potential of her more, you know?”
Finn’s voice is soft when she says, “I’m not sure I understand.”
“She never got to see Chloe grow up, and we didn’t get to celebrate our ten-year wedding anniversary.
She won’t get any more Christmases or visits to the Easter Bunny or…
anything,” I push out, my voice going a little hoarse.
“And I hate that Chloe doesn’t get to know her.
Not really. Yes, I share all I can—talk about all of the things that made Anna Anna.
But I’m worried I’ll forget things and Chloe will never understand how truly great her mom was—even if her favorite candy bar was an Almond Joy. ”
Finn wrinkles her nose.
“See?” I laugh softly. “She had the worst taste in candy. Clearly Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are superior.”
“That’s true enough.” She winks. “Though I think this is where you’re supposed to say, she might have had bad taste in candy, but excellent taste in men.”
I snort at the teasing question.
Finn’s eyes are gentle, her mouth tipped up at the edges.
“That’s questionable,” I mutter.
Thankfully, that gets a real laugh out of Finn.
But then the sound fades, and I see it again.
The sadness.
The heaviness she’s carrying that sometimes creeps into her eyes.
“What’s bothering you?” I ask.
Her hand stills on the measuring cup. “How do you know something’s bothering me?”
I shrug. “Male instinct.”
That earns me a wry look.
I grin faintly. “Or maybe it’s Anna’s excellent taste in men talking.” I shift closer to her, wait until her eyes come back to mine. “Or maybe it’s the fact that you’re making cookies after midnight like your life depends on it.”
Her mouth flattens.
And for a second, I think she’ll keep pretending everything’s fine.
Then she exhales heavily. “My parents called.”
“Yeah?” I prompt when she doesn’t go on.
She sighs again, her voice going small. “I told them about the fair.”
“And?”
Her laugh is humorless. “And they reminded me that I’m wasting my life.” A beat. “Again.”
Something sharp twists in my chest.
But I don’t interrupt.
“They think this”—she gestures vaguely around us, at the cookies, at the blankets folded and sitting in a basket by the table, at herself—“is a waste of time. Something I should’ve grown out of by now so I can get a real job and do something valuable.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Her eyes jump to mine.
But I don’t soften my words.
Because it is bullshit.
She looks away, throat working. “I know,” she says quietly. “But hearing it from them still…”
“Hurts.”
A nod as she blinks rapidly. “I just wish they could be proud of me.”
It’s so quiet I can barely hear it, but it’s full of so much pain that my heart twists again.
I want to reassure her, want to tell her that they are proud of her.
But I don’t know them.
I just…I don’t know how they couldn’t be.
But I don’t know them.
“If I’ve learned anything,” I say, “it’s that life can slap you hard across the face when you least expect it.”
“I know.” Her eyes are damp with tears and she reaches out then stops, teeth pressing into her bottom lip. “I know you know what that’s like.” Another breath then she closes the distance between us, her fingertips lightly grazing my forearm. “I’m sorry.”
My entire body locks.
Because it’s nothing, just the lightest touch.
And it’s only for a moment.
But I feel it everywhere.
She must feel it too, because her hand drops away quickly and she spins away.
“Life shouldn’t make you small, Finn. It’s for living and being happy and if that means making blankets and going on a trip that takes you all over the world, then that’s what you should do.” I take her hand, slowly draw her around to face me. “Not for them. Not for anyone else. For you.”
One tear slips free, sliding slowly down her cheek.
I use my thumb to wipe it away.
Her lips part, and fuck, they’re so plump and pink and look so soft.
I want to taste them—need to taste them.
To taste her.
I bend—
Beep-beep! Beep-beep!
We jerk apart and, the moment broken, she hurries to the oven, pulling out the sheet of perfectly baked cookies, their warm, sweet smell filling the room.
I wait until she sets them on the counter to cool, then step toward the hall, “Goodnight, Finn.”
Her gaze comes to mine and a wealth of unsaid things flow between us.
But all she does is pick up the spoon and say, “Goodnight, Rhodes.”
I go up to bed.
But I don’t sleep.
Not until much, much later when I hear her quiet footsteps on the stairs, the soft click of her door closing.
Not until the scent of cookies fades from the air.