14. BAILEY
Chapter fourteen
BAILEY
Morning arrives with rude confidence.
Light slips through the gap in the curtains, soft and pale, brushing across the hotel room like it has every right to expose the scene of the crime.
Not a crime.
Bad phrasing.
The scene of the choice.
Also bad.
The scene of the very naked hockey player currently asleep beside me, with one arm heavy across my waist.
I don’t move at first, mostly because moving will confirm several things I’m not ready to analyze before coffee.
Finn is warm against my back. Warm everywhere, really. His chest is pressed to my shoulder, his breath slow near my hair, his leg tangled with mine under the sheets like his body found me in the night and decided not to let go.
The second bed sits untouched across the room, a crisp, useless reminder that good intentions only get a person so far.
It’s fine.
No.
It’s not fine.
Fine has a plan. Fine gets dressed, goes to brunch, drinks coffee, and keeps moving.
Complicated is Finn asleep beside me after a night I can’t make feel casual, no matter how hard I try.
There are reasonable contributing factors.
Wedding weekend. Shared room. Champagne.
Adults make decisions under strange circumstances all the time.
There are studies, probably. Psychological ones.
Maybe medical. I’m sure someone with a degree and a blazer has written about forced proximity and formalwear lowering a woman’s defenses.
Except I wasn’t drunk.
I don’t feel tricked.
I don’t even feel surprised.
That’s the worst part.
Somewhere between the dance floor and this bed, I stopped pretending Finn was only a convenient bad idea. I wanted him. I knew I wanted him. I said I wanted him.
Very clearly, actually.
My face heats even though no one is awake to see it.
Finn shifts behind me, his arm tightening for half a second before relaxing again. The movement pulls me closer, and my whole body responds with an enthusiasm I don’t appreciate.
Apparently, I have learned nothing.
I ease out from under his arm slowly. Carefully. Like I’m disarming a bomb with spectacular shoulders.
Finn makes a low sound in his sleep and rolls onto his back.
The sheet slips to his waist.
Oh, come on.
This is unnecessary.
His chest is bare, one arm thrown above his head, hair messy against the pillow. There’s a faint mark near his collarbone from my mouth, which my brain notices before I can stop it.
I stare for one second too long.
Then two.
Then I spot Finn’s white dress shirt on the floor near the bed and pull it on before my morning brain can make this any worse. The fabric is soft, too big, and still faintly smells like him, which is deeply unhelpful.
I find my overnight bag, tiptoe to the bathroom, and shut the door as quietly as possible. Once I’m alone, I press my back against it and exhale.
The bathroom mirror is brutally honest.
My hair is a mess. My lips are still a little swollen. My skin has that unmistakable “I made several questionable choices and enjoyed all of them” look.
I point at my reflection.
“No.”
Last night does not change everything.
It doesn’t.
Finn is still Finn. Charming. Flirty. Funny. Too easy to like.
And now, I know what he can do with all that focus when he stops aiming it at the room and aims it at me.
I close my eyes, and memories rush in immediately. His mouth, his hands, his voice going rough when he said my name. The way he kept checking without making me feel fragile. The way he looked at me like wanting me wasn’t casual, even when I desperately needed it to be.
I open my eyes again.
“Absolutely not.”
The problem is that I don’t know which part I’m refusing.
The sex?
No. That would be a lie, and I’m not awake enough to lie convincingly to myself.
The possibility that it mattered?
Yes.
That part.
That’s the dangerous one, and Finn absolutely didn’t make it feel like something we stumbled into.
I turn on the shower before my thoughts can get any more confusing. Hot water fills the bathroom with steam, and I step under it, letting it run over my shoulders, my neck, the places where my body still feels him.
By the time I get out, I have developed a plan.
Not a great plan.
A functional plan.
Step one: Act normal. Step two: Attend brunch. Step three: Drive home. Step four: Once safely back in Redwood Grove, process this like an emotionally mature adult.
I dress in jeans, a soft cream sweater, and boots, then take longer than necessary with my hair because leaving the bathroom means walking back into the room.
With Finn. Awake, probably. Or still asleep and unfairly hot with that bad boy body, those sparkling green eyes, and his rumpled bed head.
Damn it, I’m supposed to be talking myself out of wanting him, and this is not helping.
When I finally open the door, he’s awake.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed in dark sweatpants, elbows braced on his knees, hair still a wreck, eyes on me the second I step out.
Not sleepy enough.
Not casual enough.
Definitely not forgetful enough.
“Morning,” he says.
His voice is low and rough from sleep.
My entire plan stumbles on step one.
“Morning.”
His gaze moves over me, not in the same heated way as last night. Softer now. Careful. Like he’s checking for damage without asking a question that would make me bolt.
“You okay?” he asks.
There it is.
The question I knew was coming.
I could say yes too fast. I could make a joke. I could tell him I’m fine and hope he respects the wall I’m building one brick at a time.
Instead, I make the mistake of looking at him.
Finn O’Malley, who should look like a reckless decision in daylight and instead looks like the man who held me afterward, like there was nowhere else he wanted to be.
“I’m okay,” I say.
Not excellent.
Not fine.
Okay.
His shoulders ease, but only a little. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
He nods. “Okay.”
I look around the room, anywhere but at the bed. “Brunch is at ten.”
“I remember.”
I cross to my suitcase and start folding things that don’t need folding. “We should probably head down soon.”
“Bailey.”
My hands pause.
I don’t turn. “Hmm?”
“I’m not going to make this weird.”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Small. A little unsteady. “You keep saying that.”
“I keep meaning it.”
I turn then.
He is standing by the bed, still shirtless, still looking at me like I’m not a mistake he’s trying to tidy up before checkout.
That should be comforting.
It is.
“I know,” I say.
“And I’m not going to push.”
“I know that too.”
“But I’m also not going to pretend last night was nothing.”
The words settle quietly between us.
Not hard or dramatic.
Just there.
I look down at the sweater in my hands.
“That sounds like pushing.”
“It’s not.” His voice stays even. “It’s me telling you where I’m standing.”
“And where is that?”
A pause.
When I look up, his eyes are on mine.
“Still here.”
My throat tightens, which is ridiculous because it’s two words. Two simple words from a man standing next to a hotel bed with ruined hair and too much honesty for a Sunday morning.
I wish it didn’t matter.
I wish I could fold that sentence into the rest of my clothes and zip it away.
Instead, I nod once. “Okay.”
His gaze holds mine for another second before he starts toward the bathroom. “I’ll shower fast.”
I look away because self-preservation is not dead, only injured.
“Good idea.”
He stops near the door.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, voice quieter, “I don’t regret it.”
I don’t answer right away.
Because the easy thing would be to say me neither. The safe thing would be to say we should talk later. The Bailey thing would be to make a dry comment and keep moving.
But none of those come out.
Finally, I look over my shoulder.
“Brunch,” I say.
His mouth softens, but he doesn’t call me out.
“Brunch,” he agrees.
Then he disappears into the bathroom, and the shower turns on a second later.
I stand alone in the middle of the room, holding a sweater I have folded three times.
I can do brunch.
I can sit across from my mother. Smile at Lily. Drink coffee. Pretend I’m not aware of every inch of Finn beside me.
I can do all of that.
What I can’t do, apparently, is make last night feel small.
And I am not ready to decide what that means.
***
By the time we make it downstairs for brunch, I have successfully achieved the appearance of a woman who got a decent night’s sleep.
This is a lie, but a presentable one.
My hair is smooth, my sweater is soft and neat, and my makeup is doing heroic work for someone who spent the night having wild sex with Finn O’Malley and then tried to cover the aftermath with concealer.
Finn walks beside me in dark jeans, a white button-down, and the kind of easy confidence that should be illegal. His hair is still a little damp from the shower, and he smells like soap and him, which is deeply unsettling.
Every few steps, my brain supplies information I didn’t ask for. His mouth on my neck. His hands on my body. His voice in the dark.
I tighten my fingers around my purse strap.
Normal.
We are being normal.
Finn glances down at me as we step into the elevator. “You doing okay?”
I look straight ahead at the closing doors. “I’m okay.”
He waits for more, but he doesn’t ask again.
That should make me feel relieved. Instead, it makes my chest ache a little because he means it. He is paying attention. He is adjusting to me. He is not pressing, not teasing, not making the quiet between us into something I have to manage.
Which gives me nothing to push against.
When we arrive in the dining room, my mother hugs me and asks how I slept.
I blame the hotel pillows, which is both a lie and a coward’s strategy, but Finn backs me up without missing a beat and turns it into a harmless joke about fancy pillows trying so hard to look good, they forget to be comfortable.