Chapter 12 #2
I lift my lids and our gazes clash. He hasn’t moved away. The heat in his eyes makes my thighs tight. For a mindless second,
I want to taunt him, really dare him to do it. Kiss me. Make me forget my name.
But then his mom’s voice slices through the thick air between us. “Finn,” she calls from the hall. “Hurry up! Glenn is here!”
Finn doesn’t move, but his grimace is swift and pained. Slowly, he straightens, holding my gaze the entire time. “I’m beginning
to think that woman has some sort of sixth sense.” With a wry twist of his lips, he takes a step back. “Come on, then, you
heard the woman. Glenn is here!”
I should be grateful for his mother’s impeccable sense of timing, but I’m not. I glance back at the bed as we leave the room. She won’t be around at night. And I really don’t have much faith in my willpower anymore.
Finn
Awkward is a grown man hobbling out of his childhood bedroom, trying to tuck away his hard-on so he can face his family without
causing anyone mental trauma.
While part of me wants Chess to see the effect she has on me, I’ve pushed her enough already. I’m certain Chess would have
no compunction about kneeing me in my tender balls and taking the next flight home.
I haven’t been doing a good job of keeping away from her. I know this. I’ve told myself this more times than I care to count.
Problem is, I want her with a ferocity that aches low in my gut, and I find myself reaching for her without thought, only
to restrain myself at the last second. Because she is not mine.
My body insists otherwise and is pissy with me at present. Aching dick, bruised heart, twitchy hands, I’m an undisciplined
wreck.
Then I had to go haul Chess off to my room. A stupid play. I have no idea how I’m going to keep my hands off her when we’re
stuck sleeping together in that small-ass bed. Jesus, I haven’t been this torqued for release since the seventh grade, when
I caught sight of Angel Ramirez’s boobs in gym class.
Pathetic.
“What did you say?” Chess peers up at me with suspicious green eyes.
“Nothing.” I open a pair of French doors and lead her out to the patio.
Seated at a grouping of rattan chairs are my brother and his wife, Emily. They both stand, and I notice the small swell of Emily’s belly. I take a hard step, the ground meeting my foot too soon.
Because she’s right beside me, Chess bumps into my shoulder. But then her hand slips into mine, her grasp secure and firm,
and I know she’s seen Emily too, that she understands exactly. A lump rises in my throat.
I squeeze her hand in return and then ease my hold as if I’m merely a guy leading his girl out to meet his family.
Glenn meets me halfway. My brother is five years older than me. Though he is two inches shorter, with blond hair instead of
brown, and thicker about the waist—because he doesn’t have a job that requires him to work out until he drops—we still look
a lot alike.
Glenn was a running back in college, but didn’t make it to pros. Doesn’t mean he isn’t still strong as an ox. He nearly knocks
the air out of me as we hug, thumping my back hard enough that I cough.
“Good to see you, man,” he says, stepping back, his gaze darting to Chess.
I make the introductions, give Emily the standard hello kiss and ask how she’s doing with her pregnancy. Yes, I knew. I just
hadn’t seen the visual proof until now. Soon enough, Chess and I are tucked together on a love seat as my family not so subtly
grills us for information.
“So,” my mom says, margarita in hand, “how did you two meet?”
“I took nude photos of Finn,” Chess says before biting into a tortilla chip loaded with guacamole.
Mom chokes on her drink as Glenn laughs, and my dad holds back a smile. Chess pauses, mouth filled with chip, and her creamy
skin goes brilliantly pink.
“Shit,” she mumbles around her food, as I start to laugh. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“I was posing for a charity calendar,” I tell them, taking pity on Chess. “Chess is a professional photographer.”
Weakly, she nods as she takes a bracing sip of her drink.
“Finn must have made a good impression,” Emily teases with a wink.
“Jesus, Em,” Glenn blurts out, still laughing.
“What? All I’m saying is that a girl can get a little sidetracked seeing a naked guy.”
“Oh, he wasn’t the only one nude,” Chess assures, then catches herself again and grimaces. “I mean, I saw a lot of other dicks—
Shit.”
My father loses it and starts laughing in that low, wheezing way of his.
“Fucking hell,” Chess mutters, now tomato red. The cuss words seem to make her even more mortified, and she buries her face
into the crook of my shoulder. “Let me die now.”
My heart gives a weird sort of lurch at her unexpected turn to me for comfort and protection, and I wrap my arm around her
slim torso, snuggling her close. “Maybe have a few drinks before you speak again,” I tease, pressing my lips to her hair.
“You know, to loosen up your tongue.”
Her small fist punches my abs. “Shut up,” she says into my shoulder, her breath heating my shirt.
Because she’s my girl here in this moment, I grab her fist, press it to my heart, and then kiss the top of her head. I don’t
even notice my family gaping at me until I lift my head.
The look on my mom’s face is so relieved, she’s almost weepy with it, and it sends an uncomfortable prickle of guilt down
my neck. That look tells me she’ll no longer worry that I’m lonely, but it’s too hopeful. She glances at Emily, and her happy
smile grows.
She’s finally getting her grandbaby.
At my side, Chess is still bemoaning her big mouth.
“Don’t worry, Chess,” my dad says, leaning forward to give her a gentle pat on the knee. “You’ll fit in here just fine.”
Chess lifts her head, brushing the inky strands of her hair away from her face. I miss the contact immediately.
“Somehow, I doubt you continuously stick your foot in it,” she says to my dad with a wry smile.
“No,” he agrees with a chuckle. “But Finn certainly does, and we’ve decided to keep him around.”
“That and, whenever he loses a game, I get sympathy drinks at the bar,” Glenn adds with a wink.
Absence has made me forget what a dickhead Glenn can be.
Chess takes a cool sip of her margarita before replying. “You must not get many free drinks, then.”
It’s right there, on my parents’ sunbaked patio, with the tart taste of margarita on my tongue and the sound of Chess’s husky
voice in my ears, that my heart, brain, and body come to one simple agreement: this woman is mine.
Dad starts telling Chess about places she should visit in San Diego, and I help my mother take in the empty chip bowl. She
doesn’t need the help, but I have a few words for her.
As soon as we’re in her sunny kitchen, she rounds on me. “All right, let’s have it, then.” She braces herself against the
counter.
“Oh, you mean the part where you invited Britt to stay here without asking me?”
“I can hardly ask, Finnegan, when you don’t answer your phone.”
Zing.
With a sigh, I lean against the opposite counter. “I said I was sorry. I shouldn’t have avoided you. But you can be stubborn
as shi . . . as hell.”
My mom snorts and turns to put the dishes in the sink. “You can say ‘shit,’ Finn. I am a grown-up.”
“Mothers aren’t grown-ups. They are part chaste saint and part eternal nag.”
“Ha.”
I steal a mango from the fruit bowl and go in search of a paring knife. “I’m fine now, okay? Happy even. So, please, let it
go with Britt. Let the scab heal.”
“Consider me done with meddling,” my mom vows with a lift of her hand. “A wise woman knows when to say when.”
I let it go that she missed that mark by a few months. Wise men know when to back away slowly.
“So . . .” my mom says in a voice that is distinctly meddling. “Chess is nice.”
A smile pulls at my lips. “Nice isn’t how I’d describe her.”
“Oh? And how would you describe her? Here, use a plate.”
Perfect. Fuckable. Stunning. Funny. Mine. Mine.
Mine.
“Great.” I put the mango on the plate. “She’s great.”
Mom sighs in exasperation. “Men. None of you know how to properly describe your feelings.”
She makes me grateful for every sunrise. Because I wake up knowing she’s in the world.
I set the knife down and face my mother. “Just . . . be nice to her, okay?”
“Finnegan Dare Mannus, I am never rude to my guests, and you well know it.”
“That’s not what I meant. She’s had a rough time. Lost her house, her workplace. Her best friend is off in a new relationship.
I don’t think her parents are in the picture.” I run a hand over my face. “She needs a little care, okay? It’s important to
me.”
Mom’s eyes meet mine. God, she’s welling up again. “Oh, Finn, you’ve gone and done it. You’ve fallen in—”
“Jesus. That’s it. No more heart-to-hearts with you for at least five years.”
“Just remember, Finnegan,” she says, ignoring my protest. “Love with your heart, not your head. Think about things too much
and it all turns to shit.”
I grimace, hoping to hell Chess doesn’t hear her. Even so, I fight a smile. “Thanks, Mom, but don’t say ‘shit.’ It offends
my delicate sensibilities.”
Before she can snap me with a towel, I grab my plate of mango and head out to find Dad. And some much-needed testosterone-injected conversation.
Chess
Finn’s old room is not a shrine to all things Finn as I’d expected it to be. There are a few tasteful black-and-white photos
of him throughout his career, including a ridiculously cute peewee football shot, where Finn is basically an oversize helmet
and pads walking around on tiny legs.
Aside from that, the room is done entirely in ethereal blue and creamy white. The ocean, I know, is just beyond the massive
windows that are open a crack to let in the breeze. But it’s dark as pitch out there now.
Finn and I dithered and stalled, talking around the firepit long after dinner had ended and his family had trickled off to
their beds.
Sitting huddled together under a blanket in front of a crackling fire seemed like an equally bad idea, so I had announced