23. Finley
“I’m nervous,” I say, smoothing my sweating palms over the skirt of my strawberry-printed sundress. Anxiety knots low in my stomach, spreading out to my limbs.
In the mirror, I can see Grey smiling at me from where he’s propped against my bedroom doorframe, his body all lean lines and effortless relaxation. His eyes are heated as he watches me, like warm honey drizzled over biscuits.
“Don’t be nervous,” he responds, voice low, comforting, slipping over my shoulders and down my spine to unknot the tension tied tightly there. “Charlie is going to love you.”
“Charlie is going to think I don’t deserve you.” I don’t turn from the mirror, switching from standing on one foot and then the other to decide which shoes look better. Espadrilles or ballet flats with laces that tie up my ankles. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“The ones with the ties,” he says, and pushes off the doorframe. I can feel his heat as he comes up behind me. He’s dressed in soft-looking linen pants and a dark navy short-sleeve button-down that stretches across his biceps and contrasts stunningly with his pale blue eyes. He looks edible.
His hands find my hips, circle around my stomach, and pull me back into him. “And Charlie could never think you don’t deserve me. No one could. I don’t deserve you .”
The words he’s saying are sweet, tender, but there’s something haunted in his eyes that makes my chest hollow out and ache.
I think he truly believes that. That he doesn’t deserve me. That he has to do something to earn my love. I want to tell him that I already do, but that feels terrifying. Like standing at the edge of a cliff and deciding to free-fall off it, expecting to be stopped from hitting the ground.
So instead, I spin around in his arms so we’re face to face. My hands land on his chest, and I feel his heart beating beneath my palm in time with my own. Like our hearts were made with each other in mind. I wonder if they’ve always beat like this, in tune with one another, and they were just waiting to be brought together.
My eyes find his. They look like they always do. Steady. Unique. Full of a longing I only recently noticed and now can’t unsee.
“Grey Sutton,” I say, and see his lips quirk, a hint of a smile that he ramps back down. “Just by existing, by being the person you are, you deserve happiness.” I swallow, my gaze darting from his. “Love. You don’t have to change yourself, mold yourself into someone other people want. You’re worthy, as is. I hate that people have made you feel otherwise.”
His throat bobs, and his mouth tightens. His expression turns vulnerable, and I swear I can see him as that little boy who rode his bike across town to a fire station and asked to be given to a new family so his own could be happy. It’s painted across his features like the most heartbreaking canvas.
I want to bottle up his heartache and hold on to it so he doesn’t have to feel it anymore. If I could take it myself, I would. But I can’t, and that’s its own kind of heartbreak.
I watched my mom secretly cry over my father after his death. I watched Holden learn to fold in on himself so he didn’t feel the pain of his ex-wife leaving him. I watched all the people I love go through dozens of situations over the years that have made me ache in unimaginable ways. But no one prepared me for this . For the pain I would feel looking at Grey, knowing how much I love him and how much I want to fix the chasm that has split open in his heart.
Finally, one of his rough palms settles on my neck, his thumb sliding over the pulse in my throat. I wonder if he notices how we’re synced the way I do. He tries to speak, but it gets caught, and he shakes his head before trying again, tongue darting out to wet his lips.
“Finley” is all he says, and then he kisses me. It speaks louder than words, really. There are some things that can only be said with our bodies. Promises that can only be made with our lips and hands . Thank yous and I love yous and I want yous that are too big for words.
I know exactly what he’s not saying. I feel it in my bones and my nerves and my blood and all the pieces of my body that were either made to echo his or rerouted the day he came into my life, reorienting to match what we didn’t know yet.
When he pulls back, my mouth is wet, and only when his fingers slide over my cheeks do I realize it’s from tears. Silent ones that dripped down my face as he kissed me.
He doesn’t ask if I’m okay, he just wipes them from my face and presses his lips to the places they were, little promises imprinted onto my skin.
“We better get going,” he says, and the anxiety returns, but it’s not as prominent as before. Now it’s just a low buzz under my skin, a nervous hum that comes with wanting to make a good impression. I’ve met Charlie over the years, but never like this, and I know how important he is to Grey. More important to him than his own father, and that holds a weight that I didn’t feel when going to his parents’ for dinner.
“You sure this is okay?” I ask, looking down at my dress one more time. It’s smocked at the top and has straps thin enough to be dental floss tied in delicate bows at the tops of my shoulders. The cotton is covered in tiny red strawberries, and the whole thing is so pretty that when I saw it, I immediately knew I had to have it.
His hand moves to one of the tiny straps on my shoulder, fingering the bow, tugging on the string that falls to land on my collarbone like he wants to pull it free. My skin flushes, blooming under every light graze of his knuckles and fingertips.
“You’re perfect.”
We meet Charlie at a restaurant on the water, a place with a patio bedecked in fairy lights that hang low, warming up the cool blue-black of the night sky. Fontana Ridge is full of breweries and cafes and diners, but this is one of the nicer restaurants. For one, there’s a wine menu with more than three options. And the wineglasses aren’t even plastic.
It’s the little things.
Charlie is already waiting for us, as Grey promised he would be. He told me that he’s tried beating Charlie places, that he even showed up thirty minutes early one time, but Charlie was already there, halfway through a basket of bread, a smile on his face.
He’s smiling now too, as we walk out onto the patio, my sundress catching in the wind. There’s electricity crackling in the air, the first hints of a summer storm rolling in. Tomorrow, the air will be hot and humid, the sun burning off the excess water lingering on the ground but not managing to erase it from the heavy, muggy air.
But tonight is perfect. There’s a breeze, and lights glow, casting a golden hue over the lake beyond. Stars twinkle in the night sky like God himself is pricking holes in it, letting the brightness of heaven shine down into the dark.
Charlie looks just like I remember him: easy, charming smile, gray peppering his dark hair, laugh lines crinkling beside his eyes and mouth. He doesn’t look like Grey, not really, but I see the resemblance in the way they grin, in how they hold themselves. When I went to dinner at Grey’s parents’ house, I thought I recognized his father in him, but now I’m wondering if it was Charlie. If the charm didn’t come from genetics, but rather it was learned from someone he admired, the person he most wanted to be like.
“Hey, son,” Charlie says, gripping Grey in a tight hug. I see the way it makes Grey relax, how his mouth splits into a smile like he can’t help it. Deep-seated tension releases from him like a balloon with a slow leak.
“Hey, Charlie,” Grey says into his shoulder, holding on for longer than necessary before backing up, his hand settling on the small of my back. “You remember Finley.”
Charlie’s grin widens, eyes twinkling in a way that makes him look like some iteration of Santa Claus in a holiday movie. “Absolutely. So glad you could make it. And I hope Grey extended the invite for Labor Day weekend.”
I lift my brows, looking from him to Grey, who now wears a guilty expression, making something twist in my gut.
“Labor Day weekend?”
Charlie’s gaze swivels between the two of us, his easy smile not even slipping an inch, completely unaware of the tension. “I originally invited Grey out to check out a job that will be opening in the fall, but when he turned me down a few weeks ago, I told him he should still come out to visit and that he should invite you.” He nudges Grey’s shoulder with the palm of his sun-spotted hand. “I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned it to her yet.”
“Slipped my mind,” Grey says. But he sounds faraway, distant. I tamp down the insecurities and anxieties that want to rear up inside me, the possible reasons he wouldn’t want me to go, and force myself to be rational. He hasn’t been faking the way he feels, so whatever his reasoning is for not mentioning it, I shouldn’t worry.
And remarkably, I don’t. I’m able to sink back into Grey’s touch, let a smile tilt my lips, and when he sees it, some of the tension coiling inside him loosens.
Dinner goes long. But the kind of long between friends, where you finish drinks, appetizers, entrees, dessert, all without really noticing they’ve been set in front of you. The kind that when people ask you how dinner was, you talk about the company instead of the food.
We talk about everything and nothing. Charlie tells stories of Grey when he was young, before he met Holden and wedged himself so deeply into our family that if he were to try to extricate himself now, he’d leave a gaping hole. My heart aches as he tells me about the time he picked up Grey from his house when he was twelve and home from school for the summer. He’d tripped and hit his head on the corner of the coffee table, leaving that scar I’ve noticed above his eyebrow. Grey’s parents were at work, and he couldn’t get ahold of them, so he called Charlie.
Something warm swirls inside me when Charlie talks about picking up a drunk Grey from a party in the woods the fall that Holden went off to college. Charlie had been sound asleep when he got a call from Grey, who had to pause to throw up in a bush.
I’ve gotten so many pieces of Grey over the years, but I’m only now realizing that there’s so many I’ve never seen. And I want all of them. I could stay at this table under the golden twinkling lights listening to Charlie tell me all about a Grey I’ve never met.
We talk for so long that we don’t notice the way the restaurant empties, how we’re the last ones and the workers are shutting down, cleaning around us. Grey snatches the bill before Charlie can and disappears to the front to pay, leaving Charlie and me alone as we quickly down the last of our drinks. I feel pleasantly buzzy, the alcohol fizzing in my veins but not escaping to my head.
Charlie looks at me from across the table, eyes shimmering as he sets down the last dregs of his beer. “I’m glad Grey has you.”
A hot blush steals up into my cheeks, and I can’t help the smile that follows. “I’m glad I have Grey.”
Charlie’s laugh is hearty, infectious. “I can’t say I’m not sad he’s not coming to Maine. It’s a great job, lots of room for advancement, and I’d obviously love having him close again. I’ve never had children of my own, but Grey has always felt like mine.” He smiles, something warm and tender. “But I’m glad he’s found someone here worth staying for. He deserves that.”
The words are beautiful, but they land in my gut like lead. I manage a smile and a “me too,” but I feel sick, the alcohol making a firm departure from where it fizzed in my veins to settle heavily in my stomach, nausea gripping me.
Grey returns then, smiling as he takes us in. “We better get out of here before they lock us in.”
Charlie’s chair scrapes against the wooden planks, sounding overly loud in my ears, and I follow the two of them out, thoughts swirling in my head like vultures around something vulnerable and injured.
I barely hear the goodbyes, although I must put on a good enough show for Grey not to notice my internal turmoil. It’s not until we’re in the car, stopped at a stoplight, red lights bleeding into the cab through the windshield, that he finally looks at me and asks if I’m okay.
I shake myself out of my trance and flash him a smile that must look genuine enough to convince him. “Yeah, just tired.”
He smiles, single dimple popping. “Charlie can talk your ear off.”
I laugh despite myself. “That he can.” Then, rolling my head against the headrest to look at him, his profile a warm red from the stoplight, I say, “You’re a lot like him, you know.”
My eyes track the way his throat bobs, hands flexing on the steering wheel. “I hope so. He’s the best man I know.” This sends another pang through me, a mixture of guilt and fear. Quieter this time, he says, “Most of the time, I’m worried I’m a lot like my dad.”
I sit up in my seat, turning fully to face him. “Why would you ever think that?”
His shoulder lifts in a half-hearted shrug as the light turns green and he pulls forward, heading for my apartment in town. “He likes to be the center of attention. He’s outgoing and usually the life of the party. And his history with women…” He trails off, swallowing again.
“Grey,” I say, willing my voice to sound strong even though my heart is breaking, because I can tell he actually believes this . “You are nothing like him. Nothing. You might have gotten some of those traits from him, but the way you express them is vastly different. You’re warm and funny and charismatic, and you make everyone feel at ease. You can talk to anyone about anything and they leave feeling like they were the most important person in the world for a few minutes. You do that, not him. He makes everyone feel small. You make everyone feel—” My voice chokes. “Enough.”
My monologue has filled the rest of the drive, and by the time I’m done, I realize Grey has pulled into the small parking lot behind my shop. His leather truck seat squeaks as he turns to face me. I think it’s just a trick of the light, but I swear I see silver lining his eyes.
“Thank you,” he finally croaks out, clearing his throat. “Fin, you’re—”
I cut him off with a hand on his forearm, leaning across the console to speak the words directly into his ear. I feel him shiver against me, muscles pulled taut. “You don’t need to compliment me. I told you: just being with you—the real you—makes me feel like magic, like someone special. Like someone’s most important person.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment, and I hope he sees the truth in my eyes.
Finally, I can’t hold back the thought that’s been nagging me since we arrived at dinner. “Why didn’t you tell me about the job in Maine?”
His eyes shutter for a second, and in the dim glow of the streetlamps outside, I see pink creeping into his cheeks. Grey Sutton is embarrassed . Immediately, I want to pull the question back, but he’s already answering it.
Hand on the back of his neck, he says, “I was considering it for a while. I love this town. I love your family. I love…” He trails off, and I have never wanted anyone to finish a sentence more than that one.
“I love so much about my life here,” he continues, “but it’s been…hard too. There are reasons I thought leaving would be better.” He doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t need to. I had dinner with those reasons just a few weeks ago. I saw the way being around his family makes him miserable, and I wonder if living away from them would make him happier. Freer.
My stomach jolts again, and panic grips me tightly.
“Charlie seems to think it’s a good job, and I trust him. I love him. I thought I should at least give it a chance.” He hasn’t been looking at me, but his eyes fasten on mine now, appearing darker in the dimness of the cab, but still just as mesmerizing. Just as penetrating.
“I have reasons to stay here that are more important than leaving.”
Just like Charlie’s words at dinner, these should make me ecstatic. It’s as close to a confession as I’ve ever gotten from him, but instead, they feel like shrapnel, hitting all my most vulnerable parts.
Because Grey has an opportunity to get out of here, to be happy somewhere else, to shed the parts of himself that are broken and shattered and chase the ones that are vibrant and healing. But he’s staying. Because of me.
He’s staying because of someone who has never been able to hold on to anyone, whose heart is slippery, easily dropped and disposed of. He’s staying for me, and I’m not sure he won’t end up regretting it.