Chapter 13 #2
The third kiss is mine. His lips are firm and smooth, addicting.
Finn makes a small noise at the back of his throat, his lips lingering as if he’s simply enjoying the feel of me.
We’re barely touching, barely kissing even, yet it feels almost frantic, as if we have to take what we can get now. My hand
rises, fingers clutching his shirt. More. Give me more.
“Yeah, enough of that,” Glenn—the rat bastard—says, suddenly in front of us. “We have a tree to trim, and Mom’s hooched-up
nog to drink.”
Finn’s glare is scary. I’d run if I were Glenn, but the man seems immune. He gives us a shit-eating grin and backs away, holding
up a silver ball ornament like a taunt.
Shaking his head wryly, Finn turns back to me. Meeting his gaze is too much. I can’t kiss him again. Not here. Not now. I
won’t be able to stop.
“Kissing in front of the family accomplished,” I blurt out, hating myself as I do.
Ugly heat prickles on my cheeks, as he simply looks at me. I expect to see disappointment, but it’s worse. His expression
is one of affection and gentle amusement, as if he’s silently saying, Oh, Chess, who do you think you’re fooling?
“I think,” he says after a long, hellish moment, “we’ll have to practice that play some more.”
With that, he leaves me. And I want to follow.
Finn
Sunset at Black’s Beach is one of my favorite places to be. It’s almost surreal, this canvas of gleaming oranges, hot pinks,
and turquoise blues. The cliff face flares tangerine in the fading sunlight. The air is cooler now, tinged with briny sea
spray.
A few surfers are enjoying an evening ride. I know some of them, but thankfully they haven’t yet recognized me. I need a few
moments alone.
Which is why I didn’t invite Chess along, even though I want her to see this place.
I know what her lips feel like now. We’ve kissed. If you can even call what we did kissing. It was PG-13 stuff, quick pecks on the lips. Fuck if those stolen touches, the almost frantic fumblings, with her weren’t the hottest thing I’ve done in recent memory.
First touch of her lips and I was hard. The second, I’d wanted inside her. I’d needed it.
It had been so unexpected—her kissing my cheek, me snatching a little taste of her mouth in return—that I’d been coiled tight
as a spring, unable to move or do anything but steal a few more kisses like a greedy, horny bastard afraid of having the whole
opportunity ripped away from him.
And then it was. She pretended the whole thing was just for show.
Bullshit.
Question is, what do I do about it? Call her on it? Let it ride?
I’ve never been struck by this level of indecision. In football, you hesitate, you’re done. We train, run drills, and practice
until reaction is muscle memory and instinct.
There is comfort in that. Hell, there’s comfort in knowing that you’re one of the best at something. I know I’m not the best
quarterback in the world. Not yet. But I’ll get there. Perfection in this sport comes with experience and finding your groove.
But with Chess, I might as well be in the peewee leagues. I’m bumbling around, not knowing the plays or how to read a line.
It’s frustrating as fuck. And I cannot fuck up. Not with Chess. She’s too important.
I’m at a crossroads here.
A small voice inside me is whispering to cut and run while I still can. That’s the easy solution. No failure there. I can
back off, treat Chess as a casual friend. The kind I call every couple of months when I have some free time and nothing to
do.
That was Dex’s advice, and the man is a master strategist. Leave Chess alone. Go back to being alone.
I watch a surfer paddle out, calling to his buddy. Their voices are thin on the air, the surf crashing to the shore. Sun glitters off the curve of a wave, turning it murky, turquoise blue.
I feel old. Not yet thirty, not yet in the full groove of my career, and suddenly I feel so fucking old. Apart from everything.
I could have been a dad.
Would she have had my eyes? Would she have hated green peas like I do? My fingers dig into the sand. It’s cold and rough just
below the surface.
The sound of my phone ringing has me dusting off my hands. I reach for it, expecting Chess. “Hey, I’m down at the beach.”
“Ah, okay.”
It isn’t Chess.
“Britt?” I almost look around as if expecting her to pop out of the sand.
“Yes, it’s me.” She pauses. “You thought I was someone else?”
Well, obviously. “What’s up?”
I have no idea why she’s calling, but I don’t like it. It feels like one of those woman traps that end with her crying and
me generally feeling like a heel.
“I . . . ah . . .” She clears her throat. “Look, I don’t like how we left things.”
This is why I’m terrible with women—because I have no fucking clue what she means. She asked me if I knew my mom had invited
her to spend the holidays with us. I told her no. What else is there?
My silence must have gone on too long because she makes that sound again, as if she’s trying to push her words past some blockage
in her throat. “There were things I wanted to say, Finn. But I got distracted, upset.” A soft, half laugh escapes her. “It
was difficult seeing you again.”
Again, I feel like a shit for rushing her out. I pinch the bridge of my nose. A headache is coming on. I need to get back
to my parents’ house. I’ve been gone too long, under the guise of making a wine run.
“I know it’s hard,” I tell Britt as gently as I can. “I was . . . I was just thinking of her.”
A lump rises swift and painful in my throat, and I swallow convulsively.
“You do it, too,” she whispers thickly.
“Sometimes.” My fingertips press against the hot skin of my eyelids. “At random moments.”
“The other day, it hit me that she would soon be old enough to start eating baby food.” Britt’s voice trembles. “And I had
to pull over my car and cry.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.
The beach is cold now. I get to my feet. I don’t want to be here anymore. I need to get home.
Chess had gone off to take a nap, jet lag catching up to her. But she’ll be awake now.
“Could we meet for lunch or something when you come back?” Britt asks, pulling me back to the conversation.
Fishing my keys out of my pockets, I rest the phone on my shoulder, holding it in place with my cheek. “You’re still in New
Orleans?”
“Yes. I’ll be here for a while.”
It makes no sense. Britt’s home is in Stockholm. “I’m in California for the week.”
“I’ll be here next week,” she says.
When I don’t say anything, she presses again. “I want to see you. And I . . . I’d rather not talk about it over the phone.”
I don’t point out that she called me. This feels off. No, it feels like she’s working her way up to asking me out. “Britt,
I don’t . . .”
“We share something, Finn. There is no one else in our lives who understands it the way we do. I don’t have anyone else to
talk to.”
The desperate pain in her voice is too much for me. With a sigh, I turn on the Jeep and pull out of my spot. “All right. Text
me next week, and we’ll set something up.”
As soon as I hang up with Britt, I toss the phone on the car seat. I’m not looking forward to that meeting at all. Sharing with her doesn’t make me feel better. There’s only one person who does that. I turn onto the main road and head for Chess.
I can’t let her go. It’s too late for that now. But I can give her space.
Either she takes that distance and pulls away. Or she’ll find it as unnatural as I do now. Instinct tells me it will be the
latter. I fucking hope so.