7. Finn
Finn
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20TH
I t’s National Bacon Lover’s Day and so naturally, Tuft Swallow has to have a monumental event in celebration. This time around it’s a carnival, complete with terrible games, terrible food, and my terrible attitude.
“Ooo, bacon cheddar fries!” Lex exclaims. “Dad pleeeeease! I’m starving .”
I scrunch up my nose. “Alexis, no.”
“Ugh! Whyyyyy?”
“Because it’s a coronary in a tiny paper basket, that’s why.”
I hear Jonah stifle a laugh with his left hand, but he keeps his face forward and his right hand linked with Delilah’s, so I spare his life.
Lex rolls her eyes for the thousandth time since dinner. “Oh my god, Dad, I’m twelve years old.”
“Well, forgive me for wanting you to live more than twelve more years!”
Delilah glances at me and I already know what she’s going to say, so I shoot her a look that tells her no, as a matter of fact, I’m not being too harsh. I’ve been fighting with this child for the last ninety-seven days and I’m tired.
“Why did you drag me to the festival for National Bacon Lovers Day if you just wanted me to eat rabbit food for the rest of my boring existence?”
I pinch my lips together in a silent bid for patience. Do not ask your friends if they want to adopt your daughter. Don’t do it.
“If I have to smell all this bacon and can’t eat it, I want to go back to Grandma and Grandpa’s,” she states plainly, before adding, “at least they’ll give me a donut,” under her breath.
Typically, my parents would be here with us, but they stayed home for what they called their “special time.” It’s scarring enough for me to think about so I’m not going to traumatize my kid. “They’re not home,” I offer her instead.
“Okay, so whatever, I can be home by myself then. I’ll be safe. The only thing this stupid town thinks is criminal is the guy who ran the cat rescue.”
“Bookstore!” Jonah whips around and startles Lex. “Sorry,” he adds. “It’s a bookstore now. Just…try not to talk about that too loud in crowded places. It’s still a real sore subject for some people.”
It doesn’t help my constant attempt to make Tuft Swallow sound cool, but unfortunately, he’s right.
“Hey, Lexie, I was going to go check out the face painting booth, do you want to join me?” Delilah asks. I’m so grateful I could kiss her, and I must not be hiding it that well because Jonah is giving me a dirty look.
Lex opens her mouth to answer, but then her eyes light up, and she smiles. “Miss Callie!”
“What?” I ask out loud, blocking my hands in front of me like an idiot. But that’s what you instinctively do when something dangerous is crashing towards you, okay?
“Hi, Lexie!” Callie approaches, flanked by her two cornhole teammates, Kodi and Lily, along with Piper and Lana, from school. “Coach,” she smiles at me, and I absentmindedly rub my chest. “I see you wear regular sized clothes in your free time.”
Piper and Lana chuckle.
“Add any more vermin to your growing collection?” I shoot back.
“I thought we talked about this, my ferret isn’t vermin. I figured you’d remember your own kind, being a weasel yourself.”
I make a show of clutching my heart. “Rush me to the burn unit. Are you going to challenge me to a dance-off next?”
“I might, but I hardly think it would be a challenge since you clearly have no moves.”
My traitorous daughter has now joined Team Callie in crowing at her insults, along with my two best friends.
My two former best friends.
They’re dead to me now.
“What’s going on?” A broad-shouldered guy comes up and hands Callie a lemonade. He looks familiar, so I’m sure I know who he is, but the way he loops his brawny arm over Callie’s shoulder erases most of my short-term memory.
“Finn and Callie were about to have a dance-off,” Piper helpfully offers.
“Oh, a dance-off! I love those! Can I join?” he asks. He looks like he’s in his early twenties. Way too young for Callie. Where the hell do I know this kid from?
Kodi and Lily chant “dance-off, dance-off,” and Lex actually joins in. Apparently, trash talk is her love language.
“We’re not really having a dance-off, Aaron,” Callie says, to the disappointment of everyone except me. I don’t miss how she touches his forearm in sympathy. “Aaron” is so bummed he looks like a kid who just found out Santa isn’t real. This guy is the Golden Retriever of people.
“Aaron, how are you doing?” Jonah stretches his hand out and Aaron shakes it (just like a good boy would).
“Very well, Chief, thank you. How about yourself?”
I don’t wait for Jonah to answer before holding my own hand out. “Leo Finnegan,” I announce. “You can call me Finn.”
Aaron’s firm grip betrays his sad puppy demeanor.
Callie intervenes to explain. “Finn works with us at the school.” Then she turns to me. “My friend Aaron is an assistant over at the library.”
Ha! The way that dog is looking at her says he wants to be more than friendly. Not that I care.
I just want to make sure she knows who she’s out with. She’s new in town, she isn’t familiar with all the locals.
Although the crowd surrounding her suggests otherwise…
Then it hits me. The library—he’s Aaron Hillmore. Son of the criminally insane Loretta Hillmore. And they’re still attached at the hip, from what I remember. I’m surprised she’s not looming over him now, he must have escaped her clutches somehow.
“Oh my god, Chief, did Officer Johnson tell you about what happened at The Cuckoo’s Nest the other night?” Callie’s eyes are bright.
My stupid friend has the stones to preen a little. “Yes, ma’am, he did,” Jonah laughs.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed. And then when she yelled?—”
“Wait, you forgot the seashell bra!” Callie, Jonah, and Delilah all say together and everyone bursts out in laughter.
Don’t think about her wearing a seashell bra, don’t think about—dammit! Too late.
By the time my brain rejoins the conversation, we’ve gone from two separate, small groups to one, large group that starts walking towards the center of town where the games are.
Callie is effortlessly chatting with everyone, like she’s the one who’s known them for years instead of me. Tweedle Dum has his arm around her waist now, and Lexie is on her other side, speaking up whenever she can.
“You’re looking a little green there, buddy,” Jonah’s voice is low, but his face is conspiratorial.
Delilah loops her arm in mine. “Yeah, Finny, what’s going on?”
“Don’t ever call me that again. And what the hell are you talking about?”
“Just feels like you might want to trade more with the new teacher than insults,” Jonah answers. “Like maybe your phone numbers.”
“Or spit,” Delilah laughs.
“What?” I scoff. Are they crazy? “So you’re saying I’m what? That I’m jealous of Air Bud up there? Please. She’s all his.”
Jonah and Delilah look at each other and do that bullshit mind reading thing they used to do when we were in high school.
“Stop it!” I yell. “Stop mind fucking each other in front of me, it’s so creepy. And you’re wrong, anyway. That woman is nothing but trouble and tattoos, she’s the complete opposite of anything I need.”
“But what about what you want ?” Delilah asks.
“What I want is to get my little girl through middle school with minimal crying from both of us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can suck up to her with bacon fries.”
I pick up the pace, leaving the Woodcocks behind me and approaching Callie and her entourage. “Hey, Lexie,” I smile. “I changed my mind. How about some of those fries?”
“Thanks, Dad, but I think I’m gonna play some games with Miss Callie.”
She must see my disappointment because she adds, “But I’ll have fries with you after! I know you hate carnival games.”
She’s right, I detest them.
“Callie, let’s start with the milk bottle knock!” Aaron exclaims.
“I’m in!” I announce. A little too loudly.
Lex raises her eyebrows so high that a couple of the tiny rhinestones on her face fall off.
I know, I know, don’t even say it.
There are three milk bottle stacks, so I stand in front of the station to the far left, with Aaron on my right. I have eyes only for the pyramid of glass in front of me. My grip tightens around the little vinyl ball as I stand at the ready. I have three shots.
As soon as the whistle blows, I carefully and methodically launch each ball towards the bottles. There’s no room for error here.
“Winner!” The booth runner, Claudia, announces. I’ve knocked all but one bottle down. Then I look next to me to see Aaron only knocked over two.
“YESSSS!” I yell. “I win! HA!”
Claudia is holding a miniature teddy bear and looking at me strangely.
“Uh, Dad,” Lexie murmurs.
A glance to my far right shows that someone took the third station and all the bottles are down.
“Hi there,” Callie waves her fingers at me and gleefully accepts the bear.
Kodi and Lily chant again, this time it’s Callie’s name and everyone joins in. She laughs and holds up the stuffed animal, marching to the beat of her own audience.
“Ring toss next!” Lily declares and heads towards the next booth.
“Well, my victory was nice, but it probably ends here,” Callie says with a smile. “I’m terrible at the ring toss.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll help you,” Aaron offers.
I roll my eyes and spin to see Jonah and Delilah staring at me knowingly. I flip them off before turning back around, only to have to watch Aaron give pointers to Lexie and then wrapping his whole body around Callie to hold her arm and help her toss the ring.
Seeing her laugh and lean back towards his chest…something in me snaps. Before I can stop myself, I call, “Oh hey, Loretta!”
Anyone near us who heard lets out a gasp and looks around. No one wants to be anywhere close to Loretta Hillmore, especially at a fair celebrating bacon.
I hide my grin, expecting to see Aaron running in the other direction, but instead he’s just…gone? Callie seems as confused as I am, like he just vanished into thin air. But I’m not one to overthink my good fortune at this point.
“Looks like you have to wing it,” I stroll over and tell her, grabbing a handful of rings from the game agent.
“Another bird pun? I thought you were better than that,” she says.
We start tossing rings into the pool, aiming for the targets. She misses them all, but by circling two; I get a friendship bracelet with a bacon charm. “Do you want this, Lexie?”
“Do I want a friendship bracelet from my dad? No thanks.”
“I’ll take it,” Callie says, and tightens it around her wrist. The second she puts it on, I can see my daughter’s face change. Suddenly, the bracelet is cool, but she’ll die before she gives me the satisfaction of saying it out loud.
The balloon pop is next, and while I expect others to join in and actually play some of these games, it turns out they’re more entertained watching me play them with Callie instead. I decide to add a little roasting for the crowd.
“You’re done for, Stavropo...Staverpl…St?—”
“Please stop,” she laughs.
“Well, you’re still done for.” I’ve played enough darts at the Crow Bar to feel confident here.
“You ever thrown a dart sober, Finnegan?” Kodi taunts. “You need us to grab you a shot first?”
“My kid is right here,” I scowl.
She’s unfazed. Her competitiveness doesn’t acknowledge age or family relations. “Just saying, you might want to throw back a few pints before going up against our girl here.”
“Go, Callie!” Oh good, Kodi’s boyfriend, Brian, has now joined in. No doubt the inked-up teacher has charmed him along with everyone else.
Callie narrowly beats me, and when she’s offered a pencil for her victory, she leans in and says something to the booth runner. He smiles and reaches under the counter, trading the pencil for a friendship bracelet.
“Can we match?” she asks Lexie.
My kid lights up like a damn Christmas tree. “Slay!” She puts it on and they both hold their wrists out while Lexie takes a picture with her phone.
I rub at my chest again and Delilah’s hand pats my shoulder. “She’s a monster, all right. It’s all those damn tattoos.”
“Ohhhh, snap, Callie’s got this one, y’all!” Lily gloats ahead of us, her red ponytail swaying back and forth. “The bean bag toss? Please!”
More chanting as we all surround the next booth.
“Think you’ve got what it takes?” Callie’s voice holds promised bad behavior and my dick is suddenly very interested in finding out more. Don’t ruin the family event, dude.
“Do you think I’ve got what it takes?” I challenge.
Her cheeks go pink and I enjoy a small inner victory.
The bean bag toss is understandably the epicenter of the games, with its strong ties to cornhole. And our spectators have grown from around eight to around thirty.
Every pair of eyes locks on the two of us, and every lob elicits a raucous reaction. We’re tied with one bean bag left apiece. Kodi’s hurling insults my way like I’ve just punched her dad in the junk.
I think Piper is taking bets.
I think Jonah is placing one.
“Did you forget I was on the starting lineup for our championship win this year?” Callie asks and then throws her bean bag. It just barely misses the fifteen spot and goes through the ten.
The tension is ridiculously high for something as stupid as this, but I can feel the pressure, anyway. “Did you forget I grew up here? Cornhole is in my blood. Don’t repeat that, that sounds terrible.” With a deep breath and a soft swing, I pitch the bean bag directly through the fifteen.
The crowd erupts, mostly with cheers, but I can hear some distinct booing from Kodi and Lily.
Then Callie smiles at me and stretches out her hand. I take it in mine and the urge to pull her into me is almost overwhelming.
“Good game, Coach,” she winks.
Her lips look like they need me to lick them, but I’m smart enough not to lean in.
“Wait, wait, you can’t shake yet!” Delilah yells. “You’ve each won two games, you need a tie breaker!”
“The Ultimate Championship!” A teenage boy agrees, and I recognize him from my class. I see Lexie looking at him with stars in her eyes, I’ll have to address that later.
Callie draws my attention back to her with a shrug. “What do you say? Give me one more chance to kick your ass?”
“Don’t be too disappointed when I’m handing you yours instead.”
Don’t think about your hands on her ass, don’t think about—dammit. Too late.
If you were to say that the game, “Bobbing for Bacon,” sounds inherently dangerous, then I’d be inclined to agree. But this is Tuft Swallow and they typically save their scandals for love lives and cat rescues—er, bookstores.
No, there’s no hot oil here. Just six people sitting at a picnic table, each with a giant serving bowl of bacon slices mixed into scrambled eggs in front of us. Bibs circle our necks, hands are safely tied behind our backs, and Callie sits across from me, looking ready to dive in wholeheartedly. The announcer reminds us of the rules and that all leftovers will be used for compost in the community garden before starting the countdown.
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” I turn to see Ernie jogging up to the table with Piper by his side. “Before you get started, we’d like to propose a little friendly wager.”
Everyone starts whooping.
Lex approaches, too, with the nameless boy from earlier whom I will be threatening in the near future, I’m sure of it.
“Winner chooses the loser’s punishment!” Lex exclaims.
Callie looks at me like she’s just had a thousand ideas, and I believe she has. “You mean, if I win, I can pick out the clothes Coach Finnegan wears to school?”
That can’t be good. The spectators are pretty excited about it, though.
“You sure dish out a lot of grief about my clothes from someone who looks like an Avril Lavigne reject,” I counter.
“Foul!” Kodi yells. “Cheap shot!”
“And untrue!” Lily adds.
But Callie doesn’t seem to mind. She keeps her focus on me and her smile in place. Did she just lick her lips?
Is she messing with me?
Oh, I can play dirty, sweetheart. “Hey, Ernie,” I ask, my eyes trained on my opponent. “Do we still have that giant inflatable hamster ball?”
Ernie laughs. “We sure do.”
“Think we can fit an adult in there?”
“Oh yeah, we can make that work.”
“Perfect,” I smile. “If I win, then I think the rodent lover here needs to try it out on the football field…with the students kicking.”
Callie looks to the sky for a moment, but returns her gaze to me and nods. “You’re on, Finnegan.”
“Let’s do this, Stavree…St?—”
“Seriously, please don’t.”
“We’re sitting this one out,” one of the other bacon bobbers says.
“Yeah, we don’t want to interfere,” another grins.
The countdown begins, and by the word “go,” I am face first in a bowl of lukewarm scrambled eggs, searching for bacon with my tongue. I know it sounds sexy, but my thoughts are mostly about how long I’ll have eggs in my nose after this. I give it my all, biting out as many bacon slices as I can and dropping them on the plate next to me. When the whistle blows, I look up and see Callie laughing, pieces of egg hanging from her nose stud, her cheeks, and her eyebrows. I’m sure I look equally ridiculous, but her happiness is infectious and the only thing I can do is laugh with her.
“Dad, that was awesome!” Lexie clutches both my shoulders from behind and hands me a stack of napkins.
Did she…did my kid just tell me I’m awesome?
As I wipe down, the announcer counts each slice of bacon on both of our plates. The crowd joins in. In fact, I think everyone in town is around us.
“All right, that’s Coach Finnegan with an impressive ten slices of bacon!”
Lex is still next to me and actually raises up my arm as a champion and starts cheering. I think this might be the real prize.
“Now on to Miss Stavropoulos !”
“Show-off,” I mutter.
As the count gets closer to ten, I can tell by the bacon still left that I’ve lost. And not by a narrow margin.
“Sixteen…seventeen!”
Everyone. Loses. Their. Minds.
You’d think Callie had just won the Super Bowl and the Stanley Cup.
Not one to shrink from victory, she stands on the picnic table and bows to her subjects, giving me a spectacular view of her ass (again). The announcer hands her the microphone and helps her step down onto the grass. “Thank you, everyone,” she says. “I’d like to thank you all for your unending support tonight and to let you know that Monday, the coach will be sporting some pretty sweet new duds, so be sure you come to the field at Eagle View K-12 with your cameras ready!”
She looks over her shoulder and winks at me again. My cheeks hurt from smiling so much. How long has it been since that happened?
“Dad, guess what? Asher is part of the school newsletter with Ms. Longspur and he said they’re looking for some other kids to help out. Is it okay if I join?”
I have a trillion questions about details, expense, and time commitment, but I wipe all of them away for now. Lexie wants to do something besides yell at me, so I’ll pay whatever it costs. “Yeah, sure,” is all I can manage to say.
“Thanks, Dad!” Lexie gives me a quick hug, turns her nose up a little as she brushes off the bits of egg that transferred over to her from my shirt, and then spins to run towards Piper.
Before I got here, I had an angry daughter and an active need to stay away from Callie Sarcophagus. I also had sinus cavities that weren’t packed with brunch food.
But my kid is happy. And I’m happy.
I know better than to give in to my inner caveman; I won’t be sleeping with the Greek goddess. But there’s no reason I can’t be friends with her, right?
My heart sinks a little at the word “friends,” but it’s probably from all the bacon.