Chapter 3
Chapter Three
F inn watched as Makayla—Mak—drove off in her little silver car, his thoughts darkening when he remembered the way she’d flinched away from his touch.
Maybe he had caught her off guard and surprised her, but his gut told him her response was based on something more.
His grip tightened on the bag in his hand. He was a firm believer that if a man lifted his hand to a woman in anger, he ought to get it broken as a result and a lesson taught, but the thought of a man taking a hand to someone as small as Makayla?
“So what’d she bring you?”
Hudson’s voice broke through his anger, and Finn reminded himself that whatever her deal was, it was none of his business. She was with Sam, so she’d already taken steps. That was a start at least. “Sweets.”
“Seriously? Like homemade? Let me see.”
Finn held the bag out of reach.
“You can’t be serious. You’re not going to share?”
Finn chuckled at his baby brother’s upset. “She brought them for me.”
“Yeah, but I’m here on my day off being your gopher all day, so you have to. Come on, gimme one, at least.”
Finn put his feet in motion and grinned when Hudson quickly fell into step behind him like a playful puppy.
One taste of the treat had left him hungry for more, but these called for a coffee break as well.
Hudson followed him into the house, dogging every step.
“Wash up and get plates,” Finn told him “We’re not animals.”
Hudson’s boyish grin split his face as he took off down the hallway to the bathroom. Finn shook his head and washed his hands at the kitchen sink before he grabbed the coffee pot to fill and put on. Hudson entered the kitchen and grabbed plates and forks and even a few paper napkins before going to the table.
“Wow, these are fancy. But why are they so small? They’re like one little bite-size snack.”
Just like their baker. The thought hit him like a fist to the gut and sucked the breath from his lungs. He forced it away and removed two mugs from the cabinet, turning to see Hud staring down at the containers of goodies like a kid about to have his first treat after growing up in a sugar-free house.
The coffee finished, and Finn poured them each a mug before moving to the table to have a second taste of Mak’s delicious treats.
This time he went for a strawberry one and fought back a groan because it was just as good as the German chocolate he’d eaten earlier.
“Dude, these are awesome. Think she would make my birthday cake? I’d kill for a huge one of whatever this is when we all get together.”
“It’s German chocolate. And maybe.” Finn tucked that bit of information back to inquire about later and resigned himself to the fact that the treats weren’t going to last long. He grabbed a third to try the brownie bites and knew he couldn’t pick a favorite if he had a gun to his head. Hudson seemed to agree as he grabbed a fourth.
A knock sounded at the door before their brother, Elias, called out. Hudson said they were in the kitchen, and Elias entered a moment later.
“You call this working?” Elias asked.
Hudson smirked and went for a fifth, and once he got it, Finn moved the treats out of Hud’s reach. The youngest Blackwell could eat all the brothers under the table. And then eat the table.
“A hot woman dropped these off to Finn to apologize for something, but he hasn’t told me what for yet. You have to try— Oh, sorry, E. I always forget you can’t eat stuff like this,” Hudson said, referring to Elias’s food allergies. “Man, you’re missing out though. They’re awesome.”
“Thanks for downplaying how good they are,” Elias grumbled, eyeing the treats with interest.
Finn started to grab a second brownie bite when he looked up to find his twin watching him a little too closely.
His gut clenched once again but for a different reason. He forgot about the goody and rose to his feet to get Elias coffee and avoid eye contact.
“What are you doing here?” Hudson asked. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping in with your new fiancée?”
Finn poured a fresh cup for his twin. He ordered the blend online because it was guaranteed to be gluten free and safe like Elias needed.
Finn handed it over, still looking just about anywhere but at the brother who knew him better than any of the others.
“Thanks,” Elias said. “And the soft opening was just that. The real opening is in two days, and there’s a lot to do yet. By the way, Hud, have you talked to Brooks today?”
Finn noted that his kid brother’s face suddenly looked more than a little ruddy by the end of the question.
“Yeah, he found me.” To Finn, he said, “If you’re not going to share anymore of those, I’ll get back to work. Do you want Dash on the schedule for the market this weekend, or are you taking Harriet?”
“Harriet.”
“I’ll go put her on the schedule for a bath. Later.” Hudson quickly carried his empty plate to the sink before hightailing it out of the house.
“What was that about?” Finn asked his twin.
Elias smirked. “You missed the show last night when you left so early. Brooks caught our baby brother in a rather…delicate situation in one of the restaurant bathrooms—with one of our niece’s teachers. Needless to say, Brooks and Allie are not amused. The school year just started, and Hud’s made it extremely awkward now.”
Finn fought the urge to roll his eyes at their kid brother’s antics. “He’s going to learn the hard way. One of these days he’s going to forget to make sure they’re single and find himself beaten to a pulp.”
“We’ve all warned him.” Elias’s gaze darkened, and he lifted a lazy hand to point at the goodies.
“What’s that about? Who apologized and for what?”
Finn ground his teeth until his jaws hurt because of the way Elias stared at him.
The thing about his twin was that he didn’t ask stupid questions. And rarely did he ask a weighted question he didn’t already know the answer to. “It was nothing.”
Elias cocked an eyebrow and stared him down until Finn shrugged and shook his head, lifting his hand to rub the back of his neck. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“That got you handcuffed?”
He grunted softly. “How do you always know everything? You’re as bad as Alec and his whole Dad-radar.”
Their eldest brother had just turned eighteen when their parents were killed in the car crash Finn had survived, but taking over as head of the family had left Alec with an extraordinary gift when it came to seeing through his siblings’ BS.
At some point over the years, Alec had called them all out on whatever prank or bad behavior they’d tried to get away with.
Maybe it was because he’d been a teenage boy himself and knew all the tricks, but whatever it was, Alec had a sixth sense that served him well.
One that had apparently rubbed off on Elias.
“It’s easy to know things when you leave the house and stop avoiding people.” Elias narrowed his gaze on Finn. “You should do more of it. It might help with…things.”
Yeah, no, Finn thought with a barely concealed snort. Look at what happened last night when he did. First he’d locked up at the soft opening and made a fool of himself. Then he’d gotten himself cuffed. “I don’t have to leave. Plenty of people come here to see the animals.”
“Yeah, but do you talk to them?”
Elias grabbed the chair Hud had vacated and sat down.
“Did you come just to give me a hard time?”
“I came to check on you. One of the cops on duty last night was at the gym this morning. He mentioned he’d paid a visit to your neighbor’s house—and wound up cuffing you.”
Finn grimaced at the memory of the metal locking down on his wrists. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It was that bad?”
That bad? No, it was a party complete with shiny bracelets and humiliation. Not his kink. “Stupid stutter locked me up tighter than a vault. The little girl was missing so…”
Elias looked angry on his behalf, but Finn shrugged again. “Mak— Sam’s niece hadn’t met me. I was just some guy who appeared out of the woods.”
Elias shifted uncomfortably. “Raz felt really bad about it, for what it’s worth. Said to apologize to you again. He…mentioned you might want to carry something on you, like a card, for when that happens.”
Finn glared at his brother but knew the advice was given out of kindness. Out of concern. But it didn’t make it any easier to swallow. “They told me that last night.”
Seconds ticked by, marked by the old clock in the hallway. When they’d left the house to venture out on their own, every Blackwell kid had taken one item from the family home.
The clock had been a gift from their grandparents to their parents. And it served as a reminder of how precious time was. And how quickly it could be taken away. Something he’d never allow himself to forget.
“You could try therapy again, you know. Things have come a long way since we were kids. The docs said it seemed to be a mental block due to the accident. Maybe you should give counseling another shot.”
Finn couldn’t stop the surge of anger that flooded his veins. He knew his twin meant well, but some things… Maybe some things were just meant to be.
Especially considering the circumstances.
And to say flat out that it was a mental thing? Yeah, maybe it was—or maybe it was his punishment for the pain he’d caused his entire family. His punishment for his parents’ deaths.
“Okay, fine. I know that look,” Elias said in a low tone. “Just know that whatever crap you’re probably still telling yourself about the night of the accident still isn’t true.”
He fisted his hands and fought the urge to slam one or both into his twin.
Elias didn’t know. He didn’t know what that night had been like. That it was his fault. That he had caused all of it.
Elias got up and carried his mug to the sink and rinsed it before adding it to the dishwasher.
Finn didn’t speak. He couldn’t when he still fumed over Elias’s words. Still reeled from the memories—the screams, his screams—flooding his head like they always did.
The horror and shock in the mere seconds it took to be riding in a car to flipping through the air and rolling over and over.
The fear and pain and that moment of silence when the world finally stopped spinning and he became lucid enough to realize what had happened. That he was trapped inside the wreckage, pinned. That his father was…gone. His mother bleeding out in front of him, eyes on him as though she tried to say something but couldn’t.
All he could do was watch. And scream. Over and over again until he’d lost the ability to speak.
“Look, I’ve said it before, but I’ll keep saying it until it finally sinks into that thick head of yours. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to shut everyone out the way you have. You ripped me a new one not that long ago when I was being stupid regarding Quinley. Now it’s my turn to remind you that you didn’t die that night, and the last thing Mom and Dad would ever want is for you to think you didn’t deserve to live life to the fullest because you survived and they didn’t.”
Finn stayed still despite everything inside of him wanting to bolt.
Thankfully Elias did it for him and left after shaking his head and murmuring a goodbye along with how Finn needed pull his head out of his ass.
His brother’s words echoed long after he was gone. Images of that night continued to loop in his head until he pressed his palms to his eye sockets and scrubbed like he could rub them away once and for all.
Realistically he knew he wasn’t driving the car. He hadn’t crossed into oncoming traffic. He wasn’t the one who’d been under the influence and plowed into his parents’ vehicle.
But they wouldn’t have been there on that road at that time if not for him, and that?
That was his fault.