8. BAILEY
Chapter eight
BAILEY
Finn O’Malley shows up at my house fifteen minutes early with coffee, road snacks, and the kind of self-satisfied smile that says he knows he’s starting strong.
I open my front door and look him over.
Dark jeans. White T-shirt. Black jacket. Sunglasses hooked at the collar. Hair just messy enough to look styled instead of accidental.
He is holding two coffees and a brown paper bag from Nora’s.
“You’re early,” I say.
“I know.”
“People who are early usually apologize.”
“I brought coffee. That’s better than an apology.”
“I’m listening.”
“Coffee,” he says, handing me one cup. “I guessed.”
I glance at the label. Vanilla latte, extra shot.
“Decent guess.”
His mouth curves. “I had a feeling you’d require caffeine.”
He holds up the bag. “And food. Nora’s had a line, and panic ordering happened.”
I peek inside despite myself. “This is a lot of food.”
“It’s a road trip. Snacks are essential.”
I should not be smiling before eight in the morning while standing in my doorway with a small suitcase by my feet and a man who is not my date looking like that on my porch.
“Did Emerson tell you my coffee order?” I ask.
“No.”
“Jade?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it?”
“You ordered it twice at Nora’s,” he says, like this is obvious. “And once at the rink, but the rink coffee is an insult to coffee, so I don’t count that.”
I pause.
Because that is not flirting.
That is remembering.
Which is worse.
I step back to grab my bag, but he’s already reaching for it. “I’ve got it.”
“I can carry my own bag.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you taking it?”
“Because I’m standing here with two hands and excellent manners.”
I let him take the bag because arguing on my front porch feels like a waste of time. Also, because he doesn’t make a big performance of it. He just picks it up, waits while I lock the door, and follows me down the walkway toward his truck.
His truck is clean, which surprises me too.
Not sterile. Not Knox-level controlled. But clean enough that I don’t feel like I need a tetanus shot before climbing in. There’s a spare Raven’s hoodie folded in the back seat, gum in the console, and a playlist already pulled up on the screen.
“Do I want to know why this is called Bailey Approved?” I ask, settling into the passenger seat.
Finn closes my door, then walks around to the driver’s side and places my suitcase behind him.
He slides in and starts the engine. “Because it contains music you like.”
“And how do you know what music I like?”
“I listen when people talk.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“Very. People reveal things.”
The first song is one I mentioned weeks ago during a group night at The Thirsty Raven, which means he remembered that, too.
I take a sip of my latte and look out the window. “You’re making it hard to accuse you of making reckless assumptions.”
“Please don’t let that stop you. I like when you’re mean to me.”
“I’m not mean.”
“No, you’re not really mean,” he says, putting the truck in reverse. “You just don’t let people get away with much.”
I turn my head toward him. “That’s your read on me?”
“So far.”
“Bold, considering I’m trapped in your truck for the next two hours.”
His mouth curves. “Exactly why I waited until now.”
The drive starts easily, which makes me suspicious because I know better than to trust a calm surface. Especially with a weekend ahead of us, where the words “friends only” are going to have to work harder than any two words should.
We head south through West County, past vineyards, dark redwoods, and hills softened by morning fog. Finn drives one-handed, relaxed but attentive, and doesn’t tailgate, cut people off, or attack every slow driver with an insult.
Which is irritating, because I had a perfectly reasonable version of him in my head, and he keeps messing with it.
He hands me the bag from Nora’s at the exact moment my stomach starts to make itself known.
“You timed that,” I say, unwrapping the bagel sandwich.
“You get quiet when you’re hungry.”
“I’m often quiet.”
“No,” he says. “You’re often controlled. Different thing.”
My fingers pause against the wrapper.
I glance over.
He keeps his eyes on the road, expression casual, like he didn’t just reach over and pluck one of my least favorite truths out of the air.
“Are you diagnosing me now?” I ask.
“No. I know better than to diagnose a nurse.”
“Smart.”
“I try.”
“That is also not reassuring.”
“Then I’ll stick to what I can control.”
“Which is?”
“Getting you there on time, keeping you fed, and making sure Evan Whitaker doesn’t get more of your attention than he deserves.”
I huff a laugh and take a bite of my sandwich before I say something I’ll regret.
By the time we hit Golden Gate Bridge traffic north of the city, the morning has shifted into that strange road-trip intimacy where talking feels easier because neither of you has to look straight at the other person for too long.
Finn asks about my cousin Lily. My aunt Diane. Whether my mother is actually nice or nice in the way women are nice before they say something devastating. I tell him my mother is genuinely nice, but still fully capable of asking questions with surgical precision.
He asks about Evan once.
Only once.
“What’s the safest topic if he corners us?” he asks.
“Us?”
“If I’m doing my job, yes. Us.”
I look out at the slow lanes of traffic and pretend that word doesn’t shift anything in me.
“Work,” I say. “He likes talking about work.”
“What does he do?”
“Corporate law.”
Finn is quiet for half a second. “Of course he does.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m just storing the information.”
“He’s not awful,” I say, even though I’m not sure why I’m defending him.
“I didn’t say he was.” Finn’s hands stay loose on the wheel. “I was just thinking corporate law explained the shoes I’ve already imagined him wearing.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Finn’s mouth tips up, but he doesn’t push. He lets the laugh sit there and keeps driving.
We’re maybe thirty minutes from the hotel when my phone buzzes with a text from my mother asking when we’ll arrive.
I answer her, then open the hotel confirmation to double-check the address.
The reservation details load.
My name. Check in today. Check out on Sunday.
One room.
Two queen beds.
I blink at the screen.
Then blink again, because apparently, I think the reservation will rearrange itself out of respect for my blood pressure.
Finn glances over. “What?”
I sit up straighter. “Question.”
“That tone worries me.”
“When I sent you the hotel information, did you book a room?”
His brows draw together. “No.”
“No?”
“No,” he says slowly. “You said you’d send me the hotel information.”
“Yes. So you could book a room.”
“I thought you were sending me the information so I’d know where we were going and that the room was handled.”
“The room was handled for me.”
“Right.”
“Finn.”
He looks at me.
I look at him.
The silence between us becomes very specific.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay?”
“We have identified the problem.”
“No, we have created the problem.”
“I think we share responsibility.”
“Do not make this sound reasonable right now.”
His mouth twitches.
“Don’t you dare laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re internally laughing.”
“A little.”
“Finn.”
“Sorry.” He clears his throat, poorly. “We’ll get another room when we check in.”
“They might be full. It’s a wedding weekend.”
“It’s a hotel. Hotels have rooms.”
“I know you’re used to someone booking your room when you travel for games, with a bed waiting when you get there, but this is not the same.”
“I’m choosing to trust it will all work out.”
“Choose a backup plan.”
“Fine. If they’re full, I’ll find another hotel nearby.”
“And if every nearby hotel is booked?”
“Then I sleep in the truck.”
I turn toward him fully. “Absolutely not.”
“It reclines.”
“You are not sleeping in your truck in San Francisco because of a reservation misunderstanding.”
“Our reservation misunderstanding.”
I press the heel of my hand to my forehead and breathe in slowly.
This is fine.
This is fine because we are adults. Because the room will have two beds. Because Finn is my friend. Because one hotel room does not automatically become a disaster unless both people involved have no self-control.
I have self-control.
I have excellent self-control.
I glance at Finn.
He is still trying not to smile.
“You understand this is not funny,” I say.
“I understand you would like me to agree it’s not funny.”
“Finn.”
“Right. Serious.” He nods once, but there is laughter at the corner of his mouth. “We’ll fix it at the front desk. If we can’t, we’ll figure it out.”
No big deal.
One room.
Finn O’Malley looking entirely too good behind the wheel beside me.
I look back down at the confirmation.
“Friends only,” I say.
His gaze stays on the road, but his voice changes by the smallest degree. “I remember.”
“Separate rooms were one of the rules.”
“I remember that too.”
“We can still get separate rooms.”
“Absolutely.”
Neither of us says anything for a few seconds.
Then Finn adds, “Probably.”
I close my eyes.
He laughs then, low and quiet, and I hate that the sound settles somewhere warm.
“This is already a bad idea,” I mutter.
Finn changes lanes smoothly, still smiling.
“No,” he says. “This is a manageable logistical complication.”
I look out the window as the skyline edges closer through the haze.
One weekend.
One wedding.
One room we are absolutely replacing with two.