19. FINN
Chapter nineteen
FINN
By Monday afternoon, I’m trying not to check my phone between drills.
Bailey texted once earlier, one word, yes, when I asked if her shift was as bad as she expected. Since then, nothing.
Which is fine. She’s working. I’m working. We are both adults with jobs and reasonable expectations.
Still, every time practice breaks, I think about the phone sitting face down in my stall.
Coach Reese blows the whistle, and the whole line shifts direction. My blades cut hard across the ice. Ty curses under his breath behind me, Gavin’s voice carries from the net, and Roman moves through the drill with his usual quiet precision.
Usually, this would clear my head.
Hockey has always been the easiest place to know what to do with myself. Move here. Pass there. Take the shot. Keep your feet under you. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Simple.
Clean.
Nobody asks what it costs to kiss Bailey against her front door and still walk away. I stopped because she needed me to, not because I wanted to, and that moment has followed me into every quiet pocket of the day.
“Finn,” Coach calls. “You planning to join us?”
I blink and look up.
Ty glides by and grins. “He’s emotionally elsewhere.”
“Shut up,” I mutter.
Coach lifts his whistle toward me. “O’Malley. Focus.”
“Yes, Coach.”
We run the drill again, and I pay attention.
Mostly.
By the end of practice, my legs burn, and my shoulder aches from a collision during Saturday’s game that I’ve been pretending is nothing.
We lost by one, which means practice today has been less about punishment and more about reminding us that playing angry only works if the anger has somewhere productive to go.
In the locker room, the usual noise takes over. Showers running. Tape ripping.
I sit at my stall and reach for my phone.
There’s one message from Bailey.
Bailey: Yes.
That’s it.
One word.
She’s answering the text I sent earlier from the hallway before practice.
Me: Long day?
Bailey’s not a one-word woman unless she’s tired enough to conserve energy like it’s a medical supply. Usually, she gives me something. A dry comment. A correction. A little bite. Even when she’s annoyed with me, especially when she’s annoyed with me, she has plenty to say.
This is different.
I type three things and delete all of them.
You okay? feels too much like asking her to perform reassurance.
Want me to come over? feels like pressure.
“Need anything?” sounds useful, except Bailey is exactly the kind of woman who will say no because needing something costs more than doing it herself.
I think about her on the porch Saturday night, her hand against my chest, and how fast I made myself stop.
Choice matters with Bailey.
So I type the only thing that feels right.
Me: Then I hope people leave you alone tonight.
I send it before I can dress it up.
No joke.
No making it about me.
Across the room, Knox looks over at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“You’re a mess.”
“Coming from a man who secretly dated his best friend’s sister while living with her, that feels rich.”
He smiles a little, then looks down as he unlaces his skates. “Bailey?”
I don’t answer right away.
Which answers him.
His voice lowers enough that the room doesn’t get invited in. “Don’t overcomplicate it.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Then don’t.” Knox glances at my phone. “Think about what she needs. Not what you want to do.”
It would be easier if Knox gave bad advice. He rarely does. It’s one of his worst qualities.
I look down at Bailey’s one-word text again.
She needs sleep. Food. Quiet. Probably someone to handle one practical thing without making her feel like she now owes them energy she doesn’t have available.
I know what I want.
I want to see her.
I want to kiss her again.
I want to find out what happens if the door opens and neither of us pretends we’re responsible.
But none of that is the same as what she needs.
“I think she needs dinner,” I say.
Knox nods once, like that answer is better than anything clever I could’ve thrown at him.
After I shower, I sit in my truck in the players’ lot with my hair still damp and my hoodie pulled on, looking at Emerson’s contact on my phone.
I should not involve her.
That seems like a rule.
But Emerson knows Bailey, and I’m trying to do this right, which is a phrase that would make Ty choke if he heard it out loud.
I call before I can talk myself out of it.
She answers on the third ring. “Finn?”
“Hey.”
A beat of silence. “Is Bailey okay?”
“I think she had a long shift. I want to bring her food, but I don’t want to show up with the wrong thing or make her feel cornered.”
Another pause.
Then Emerson’s voice softens. “Soup from Nora’s. Chicken noodle if they have it. The good bread. She’ll pretend a salad is sensible, so bring one, but don’t be offended if she ignores it.”
“Peppermint tea?”
Now she’s quiet.
“How did you know that?”
“I guessed tea might help.”
“Peppermint,” she says. “After a bad shift. She drinks it because it settles her stomach when she’s exhausted.”
I grip the steering wheel with my free hand. “Okay.”
“Finn?”
“Yeah?”
“Text before you knock.”
“I was planning to.”
“And mean it if you tell her she can say no.”
There it is.
Not a warning exactly. More like trust handed over in a container marked fragile.
“I will,” I say.
“I know you like to make things lighter,” Emerson says. “Sometimes she’ll need that. Sometimes she won’t. Tonight, if she’s as tired as I think she is, don’t make her take care of your feelings about wanting to help.”
The words settle in the cab.
I don’t like how accurately they find the old, ugly habit in me.
Make them smile. Make them laugh. Be easy to have around. Be useful. Be wanted. Never let the silence get too wide, because silence is where people remember they don’t have to keep you.
“Yeah,” I say, quieter. “I can do that.”
“I think you can too.”
I sit there for a second after we hang up, the lot mostly empty around me, damp pavement shining under the lights.
I’ve been good at being fun for a long time.
But I don’t want Bailey to feel like she has to laugh tonight. I don’t want to turn her exhaustion into a stage and my care into a performance. I want to be the guy who leaves the food on the porch if that’s all she can take.
The thought feels strange.
A little uncomfortable.
I start the truck.
***
Nora’s Café is still open when I get there, the windows glowing warm against the damp November dark. The dinner rush is mostly over, but a few people linger at tables with coffee and pie. Nora spots me as soon as I walk in.
“Finn O’Malley,” she says, like she has caught me committing a crime near the pastry case. “You’re late for lunch and early for breakfast.”
“I’m here for soup.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
She studies me over the counter. “Someone else?”
I keep my expression innocent. “Can a man not appreciate soup?”
“A man can. A hockey player after evening practice usually appreciates three sandwiches and a cookie the size of his head.” Her eyes narrow with immediate, terrifying interest. “Who is she?”
“Nora.”
“Oh, don’t Nora me. I have fed this town for thirty years. I know romance takeout when I see it.”
“It’s not romance takeout.”
“It has bread?”
“Yes.”
“Tea?”
I say nothing.
Her smile grows.
I sigh. “Chicken noodle, good bread, a salad, and peppermint tea, please.”
“Two teas?”
“Yes.”
“And dessert?”
“No.”
She gives me a look.
I amend, “Maybe a cookie.”
“That’s better.”
While she packs the order, I check my phone again. Nothing from Bailey. Which is fine. Expected. The point of my text was to leave her alone.
I still wish she’d answer.
Bailey’s house is quiet when I pull up. Porch light on. Curtains drawn. Her little blue car is in the driveway. I sit there for a second with the engine off, one hand on the takeout bag, one on the steering wheel.
This is the part I know how to ruin.
Not with bad intentions.
With too much.
Too much charm. Too much noise. Too much need disguised as generosity. I can turn almost anything into a joke before anyone notices my pulse is jumping, but Bailey notices.
So I take out my phone.
Me: Before you decide not to answer, it’s dinner.
I wait, then add the truth because I’m still me, and because I want her to smile if she has one left in her.
Me: Also me. But mostly dinner.
A few seconds pass.
The front door opens.
Bailey stands there in wrinkled scrubs, hair coming loose from the clip at the back of her head, face bare, eyes tired in a way that makes every joke I had lined up disappear before it reaches my tongue.
There’s something about seeing her like this.
Not dressed for a wedding, not flushed from dancing, or lit by a candle across a restaurant table. Not pressed against her front door.
This is Bailey after a long day at the hospital, and she is still the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all week.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi.”
“I come bearing food.”
“I see that.”
“And no expectations.”
Her fingers tighten on the edge of the door. “No expectations?”
“None.” I lift the bag slightly. “You can take this, shut the door in my face, and I’ll leave with my dignity mostly intact.”
“Mostly?”
“I’m prepared to take a small emotional bruise.”
For a second, she only looks at me.
I can see the calculation behind her eyes. The tiredness. The question of whether letting me in will require more energy than she has. I keep my mouth shut and wait.
Finally, she steps back. “You can come in.”
The relief that moves through me is embarrassingly strong, but I keep it out of my face.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. But first, I’m changing out of my scrubs and putting on leggings and slippers.”
“Solid plan.”
“And I’m not being entertaining.”
“Wasn’t on the agenda.”
“I might fall asleep sitting up.”
“I’ll eat quietly and let you.”
Something shifts across her face. Too quick to name. Too soft to touch.
Then she turns before I can stare too long. “Kitchen.”