Chapter 9 Rosie
nine
Rosie
I fall asleep quickly that night, but I wake some hours later with anxiety gnawing my stomach. The high of making so many cutthroat moves earlier is gone, replaced with a little voice that says if I wasn’t alone before, I certainly am now. And what’s it all worth?
All I’ve ever wanted is to make music. I never set out to be a pop icon or—what did Finn call me? The female force behind a billion-dollar brand. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it without an industry baron like Chip in my corner. So what the hell am I fighting for?
I pick up Finn’s watch from the nightstand and sigh. It’s nearly one a.m. I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night.
Staring up at the beamed ceiling, I slip my hand beneath my pillow to touch the notebook tucked underneath.
The song I wrote today is different from the tracks on my last two records.
Less pop and more country, and although I’m happy with the lyrics, my fingers itch to play it on an instrument.
Switch up the bridge. Experiment with the key.
See if I can give it a little more… something.
I hum the melody to myself in the darkness, but I still can’t figure out what’s missing.
The loft is dimly lit by moonlight filtering through the windows, and as the song’s final refrain leaves my throat, I pull the covers up to my chin and tally my years of sleeplessness.
It began the week my grandmother died, and I don’t need a therapist to explain why.
I’d never lived alone before, and even though it’s silly to think an eighty-year-old could protect me, I felt her absence so deeply that the night became an empty place without her in my life.
I should have slept better when I moved in with Chip, but that didn’t happen, and at the time I didn’t understand why.
Once we were sleeping together, I’d wait until he was dead to the world, then creep out from beneath the covers and spend hours in the kitchen sipping cocoa and playing solitaire with my grandmother’s cards, flipping them the way she taught me until I was exhausted enough to pass out when my head hit the pillow.
I struggled even worse on tour. Abandoned by Chip. Moving constantly between hotels. Physically worn out by my relentless schedule. I should have slept like a baby, but I was overworked and overtired. Too wound up to ever wind down.
I think back to the first night with Finn on my personal protection team.
It was the second week of my six-month tour, and I was staying in the best hotel in Chicago.
I ordered room service, wrapped myself in a terry robe, and curled up at the suite’s dining table with Gram’s cards.
Finn hovered in a corner while I played, a silent guardian like all the others except that I hired him.
And I remember thinking how that made things different.
In the dark, all alone, I wanted to talk to him when I never wanted to talk to the others.
“Are you thirsty?” I asked with a gesture at the pitcher of cocoa. “There’s plenty.”
“No,” he replied, deep and smooth. After a shadow of a pause, he added, “Thank you.”
It was the genuine tone of his thank you that nudged me to ask, “Do you know how to play gin rummy?”
His hesitation was obvious this time, like he didn’t want to tell the truth but couldn’t bring himself to lie. “Yes.”
I scooped up the cards and shuffled, then dealt them to the empty seat across from me.
“Those are yours,” I told him as I got up to fetch a notepad and pencil. “Let’s go.”
After a short debate about whether playing cards with a client could be considered professional, Finn sat down and picked up his hand, and we played in silence for an hour.
We played for another hour the next night.
When I had a show, we played as soon as we got back to my hotel room.
When I didn’t, he was always waiting when I tiptoed out of bed in the dark.
He put up a fight every time, and persuading him to play became a game I loved to win.
Finn played every night for as long as I needed until the night my stalker found a way to sneak into my hotel. Made it past security to my room. Knocked on my door. Screamed and lunged and swung his knife when he couldn’t pass Finn to get to me.
After that night, Finn was gone.
I blink to stop my tears from falling and flex my feet under the sheets, focusing on my calf muscles tightening and releasing.
I can’t close my eyes because it’ll make the memories bigger, so I stare at the ceiling and count my breaths.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
Over and over, waiting for my heart rate to ease, my throat to open, and the panic to recede. Only tonight, it doesn’t.
I curl into my pillow, letting the tears fall silently at first. There’s something cathartic about the feel of them on my cheeks, trailing along my nose, dripping onto the sheets, and soon I can’t help the small sobs that catch in my throat or the trembling in my body.
It’s been years since I’ve cried like this, and now I’ve done it twice in three days.
I was never comfortable being vulnerable around Chip.
I knew on some level I was safest when I was small and silent, not falling apart and practically begging for someone to help put me back together.
He got off on my fragility, and that scared me.
“Hey,” Finn says, his voice soft and careful in the darkness. “Are you all right?”
I didn’t even hear him climb the ladder over my weeping, which means I must have been louder than I realized.
I sit up, sniffling into the baggy sleeve of Finn’s flannel shirt.
I borrowed another one from his closet even though there are pajamas among the things Violet brought me.
It’s soft and big and smells like him, and he hasn’t asked me not to wear it, so I have to believe he’s okay with it.
The I’m fine is on the tip of my tongue, but then I lift my head and see his formidable frame at the end of the bed, moonlight limning his beautiful body in a silver glow and my grandmother’s deck of cards almost hidden in his hand.
All I want is for him to take me in his arms the way he did my first day here.
I want to be held while I cry and not worry that the person comforting me will hold my weakness against me someday.
I shake my head as a fresh wave of tears breaks over me. “No,” I blubber. “I’m not.”
He hesitates, his body weight shifting toward me almost imperceptibly, and I move the pillows to make it clear there’s a space for him beside me. Still, he hesitates, brow creasing as his hand coasts through his hair.
“Just hold me for a few minutes,” I say between disjointed inhales. “The way you did before. Please?”
Finn’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep, defeated breath before he crawls onto the mattress beside me and pulls me down against his chest. The warmth of his skin and the protection of his arms are everything, and I come apart against him, crying until I’ve got no tears left to cry.
Soon my wails fade into whimpers, and then silence.
I don’t remember how we got here, but Finn is stroking my hair away from my hot, damp face, and I’ve wriggled so close that the covers are twisted between us.
My legs are looped around his, and every inch of my body is pressed hard against him.
My hands are tucked under my chin, Finn rests his head atop mine, and I focus on the steady rhythm of his heart beneath my cheek to restore my own breathing to something more regular. Gram’s cards are on the nightstand.
Neither of us moves, even when I’m no longer crying, and I don’t want this to end.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“Talk?” he echoes.
One of us has to point out it’s hardly professional for the two of us to be in bed together, but it’s not going to be me.
I prepare for him to say no, but to my relief, Finn relaxes beneath me and then sticks his other hand behind his head.
His pose is effortlessly sexy, displaying the hard lines of his upper arms and chest and abdomen, body art flexing with his every breath.
I glance down to where his legs are crossed at the ankle, his body a shaded figure of sexy ridges and valleys and ink.
I try not to stare at the bulge in his underwear, but my eyes return to it over and over.
“Yeah,” I say, breathless for reasons other than my recent breakdown. “Talk.”
“Sure.”
He waits for me to go on, but it takes me a moment to find the right place to start. Finally, I settle on a question that’s always interested me. “Did you always want to join the military?”
His fingers grow still in my hair before he begins stroking again. “No.”
It’s not what I’m expecting, and the little glimpse into his head makes me want more. “So what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” I ask. “You don’t know?”
I shift my feet to try and cover them with the tangled covers, and Finn sits up a little to rearrange them over the lower half of our bodies before he returns to his position, scooping me close to him again.
“I…” Finn’s tone drops, like he’s thinking about the answer. “I didn’t know at the time.”
“What were you like as a kid? What were your favorite subjects at school?”
I glance up in time to see Finn’s amused smile, small and subtle to match the guarded warmth in his eyes. “Rosie. I don’t want to talk about me.”
“Why not?”
“Because my life isn’t very interesting.”
I sigh and settle back against his chest. How can a man be so hard and distant but feel so warm and safe?