Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Raya
If there’s one area where I’ll never take charge, it’s in the kitchen.
Which is why, when I show up to Thanksgiving dinner two days later, I know I’m going to feel useless.
I hate feeling useless.
It’s been a week without work, and I’m ready to go back. I feel good. My body feels good.
My heart? Different story. I desperately need a distraction.
Yesterday, I’d hoped to see Justin. I want things to progress with him because how else am I going to get Finn out of my head? He’d asked if Justin and I were exclusive, and once I can answer “yes” to that question, I think he’ll stop flirting with me.
Right?
It doesn’t really matter because Justin had to cancel our plans to show a luxury property to an investor.
“He’s the kind of guy you don’t put off,” he’d told me, and I assured him it was fine. Understanding things like this—last minute changes and having work take priority over social things—was the deal.
But when I hung up the phone, for the first time since this thing began, I started to question whether or not it’s working.
Our arrangement is only effective if he shows up, and in the nearly three weeks since we first agreed to try this, most of our dates have been cut short or outright canceled.
As a result, I feel a little like I’m walking half-blind into Thanksgiving dinner with my family.
Really, how well do I know this guy?
More to the point, how well can I pretend to know him in front of my family?
The Comets had a home game last night, which they won, a fact I know because I watched the whole thing.
Finn didn’t play—he’s still in the concussion protocol—but he sat on the bench with the team, and every so often they’d show him on the screen, reminding viewers what had happened to put him there.
Every time, my breath caught in my throat at the memory of his nearness, something that’s been happening regularly since I left his apartment Tuesday. My brain has been pretty much replaying the almost-kiss on repeat every hour.
On a continuous loop.
I’m really conflicted about it—and my straightforward, clinical, logical side is having trouble reconciling this new, heated, emotional side.
Maybe the trick here is to kiss someone else.
Interrupt the mind stream. Disrupt the desire to unlock the box where I stashed my feelings for Finn.
Seems plausible. Justin and I haven’t had the opportunity to explore what attraction there might be between us, and I’m thinking maybe today is a good time.
The thought of kissing Justin does absolutely nothing for me.
I don’t really want to kiss Justin.
What does that say about our future? Or more to the point, our present?
I huff out a breath like that’s going to clear my head and pull into Dallas’s long driveway. There, inconspicuously parked, is a familiar Jeep Cherokee.
Nobody told me Finn was coming.
A burst of nerves shoots through me. Nobody told me Finn was coming!
My pulse quickens. I hadn’t planned on seeing him today. Like planning on seeing him would help. I don’t know if I can pretend I’m not wrestling with all these emotions that I really, really do not want right now.
Not when he’s in the same room.
No. It’s fine. I have years of practice locking out every single thing I feel. I’m a fortress.
I go over the plan in my head, and it’s as ridiculous as it is futile. Not only do I have to pretend I’m smitten with a man I don’t really know, but I have to do it while simultaneously pretending I’m not thinking about Finn.
Piece of cake. Not stress-inducing at all.
I park the car, steel my nerves, and grab the bottles of sparkling cider—Poppy’s request—from the back seat. I walk to the front door, surprised when it opens before I knock.
But not surprised to find Finn standing on the other side. He’s wearing jeans and a sweater, and it throws me for a second. I’m not used to seeing him in anything but gym clothes or hockey gear.
“Saw you pull in,” he says, nonchalant and easy. “Your hands were full, figured I’d, you know . . .”
I force myself not to react, tamping down the little flutter in my stomach. I straighten—like I’m locking my armor into place.
Impenetrable. Except for that gaping hole in my breastplate where my heart sits.
He smiles, moves aside, and I step into the house, our arms brushing as he takes the bottles from me and sets them down.
“Coats in the guest room.” He motions for me to follow him like this is his house and I’m the guest.
“Are you on door duty?” I ask as I slip my coat off and trail down the hallway behind him.
“I wanted to help,” he says, because of course he did.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here.” I keep my tone clipped. Just stating facts.
“That okay?” He smirks, and I can feel him working extra hard to be normal with me.
“Fine,” I feign nonchalance.
“Dallas invited a few of us who didn’t have plans.” He opens the door to a bedroom, then nods toward the bed where there’s a whole pile of coats. I drop mine on top.
I turn to go, avoiding his eyes, but he gently catches me by the elbow. I look at him and he squints, like he’s trying to decipher a secret code hidden underneath my skin.
“You good?”
“Yep,” I lie.
“You know, it doesn’t have to be like this,” he says.
“Like what?”
“Weird. Tense. Whatever your face is doing right now.”
I try to change my expression, but it defaults to chin out, eyebrows up, come at me.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful face.” He says this like he is also stating a fact.
Heat crawls up my neck, and I look away before it shows on my face, aware that his hand is still resting on my arm.
This is not going well.
“This is because of Tuesday,” he says.
I scan behind me, on lookout for family members, then hiss, “Nothing happened Tuesday.”
“Did you want something to happen Tuesday?” he asks.
I think YES, but say, “No, and don’t bring it up around my sisters. They’ll turn it into something it’s not.”
“It doesn’t have to be a big deal,” he says lightly. “We almost kissed. It happens.”
I look at him. “It doesn’t happen. Not to me.”
He faces me, studying. “So it meant something.”
I scoff, but my heart could give Secretariat a run for his money. “You wish.”
“Actually, you’re right.” He leans in. “I do.”
He walks away, and my fortress of pretending that moment in his apartment never happened falls under siege.
I take a second to get my head back in the game, then walk down the hall just in time to see Finn open the door for Justin. “Welcome to the Hart fam—”
I reach the entryway and push Finn out of the way. “I got it!” I look at Justin, brushing my hands down the front of my outfit. “Hey!”
He’s wearing a long, dark coat, gray dress pants, a white button-down and a maroon tie. I should’ve included the casual dress code in the details I sent his assistant. Shoot.
“Come in.” I grab his arm and pull him inside the house, then see Finn, studying him. “Finn, Justin, Justin, um . . . Finn.” I awkwardly hold out a hand between them.
Finn settles into Finn mode. “The famous Justin!” He extends a hand, but then gets a quizzical look on his face.
Justin reaches out and takes it, “Nice to meet you.”
Finn holds his hand for a second too long. “Man, you look familiar. Have we met?”
Justin smiles awkwardly, looks at me, then back at Finn. “Uh, no, I don’t think so, unless I showed you a house recently.”
Finn shakes his head, “Nah, that’s not it. But welcome! Glad you’re here!”
This feels so surreal. It’s like I’m watching this happen on a screen and not in Dallas’s house.
“Uh, how was the race,” I ask, doing my best to snap out of it.
“Good,” he says. “Guess I made it on time after all.”
I smile, then take the bottle of wine Justin’s holding and hand it to Finn. “Hey, do you mind taking this into the kitchen?” I widen my eyes at him, trying to silently tell him to stop being weird.
I move to take Justin’s coat, heart pounding a mile a minute.
“I can put this in the guest room,” I say. “Be right back.”
Justin nods, and I shoot Finn a Be nice look. He raises an eyebrow, like Who, me? and I walk away, wracked with guilt I’m not even sure I should feel.
Do I owe Justin my emotional loyalty if our relationship has barely started and isn’t exactly real? This is a conundrum I don’t want and didn’t predict, and there’s nobody to ask because nobody knows the truth about how we started dating.
I open the door to the guest room, but instead of dropping Justin’s coat on the pile, I lay it neatly over the back of an armchair in the corner. I’m about to leave when Finn walks in, his expression smug despite the confusion lacing his brow.
“What is this, Hart?” he hisses.
I slowly look around. “What is what?”
“That’s the guy? That’s Justin?”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t come in here and start talking trash about him. You don’t even know him.”
“Actually, I do.”
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s the guy from the café,” he says. “I knew I recognized him. You said you were interviewing him, remember?”
My stomach drops. I’m a notoriously bad liar, and I’d forgotten he was there that day. Another thing I didn’t plan for.
“You said you were looking for someone to help out with a few tasks,” he says. “And now he’s here? At your family’s Thanksgiving dinner?”
“That’s how we met,” I say, and it’s true, to an extent. “I didn’t want to tell you it turned into a date.”
“Wait. Your interview turned into a date? That’s . . . isn’t that totally against the rules?”
Notoriously. Bad. Liar.
“No, the interview didn’t turn into a date, the interview”—it’s out before I can stop it—“was the date.”
Wait. That’s not how I meant to say it. Because that’s not exactly true, either.
Finn stops. He has three distinct faces in a row—confusion, realization, then suspicion.
“You had back-to-back dates?” he asks. “Because the other guy was there first.”
I frantically look down the hallway, knowing we’re not exactly being quiet. “Can you keep your voice down?” I whisper at him. “And no, I didn’t have—”