Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The room is pitch black when it goes off, and I’m sweating like a pig despite the fact that I did kick off my sweatpants at some point. They’re balled up at my feet, and when I drag them up, I can’t figure out which hole is which.
I give up and pull them up over my hips as-is, then tiptoe to the bathroom door. I’m starting to slide it open when I freeze. Is that water running?
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I lean closer, and yes. That is most definitely the shower. How did Finn beat me to it? It’s not like he has a wedding to run. Shouldn’t he be sleeping in or—
“Morning!” Finn calls, cheerful. “Went for a run and picked up coffee. It's on the desk.”
I fumble along the wall for the light switch. There is, in fact, coffee on the desk. Two travel cups. One with a letter “H” scrawled on it with blue hotel pen.
“How long have you been up?” I shout at the door.
“I'm a contractor. I've been up since five for ten years. My body doesn't know how to be on vacation,” he says with what sounds like water running over his face.
I’m embarrassed that I already knew that about him.
I know that he runs his own business in Denver, that he’s a licensed carpenter now, and that he makes more money doing that than using his software engineering degree.
I know he dated a woman he met in some hiking club for most of 2024 and that since then he’s been ‘too busy to date.’ Whatever that means.
For a guy like Finn, I can only imagine it equals a revolving bedroom door.
After a good night’s sleep, my brain pieces together other tidbits from months ago. One of which is what Dahlia told me. After she and Theo set a wedding date, Theo surprised Finn with the news when they were out in Denver, and he didn’t take it well. Kind of ruined the trip.
Thanks to my sister, I’ve had a steady stream of Finn updates over the past five years, whether I wanted them or not. It’s only right now that the potential for the opposite to be true occurs to me. Information may have been passing both ways.
My heart constricts. Had Dahlia and Theo kept Finn updated about me? Did they tell him about my breakup last summer? My job changes, or my breast lump removal?
“You can come in. The glass is frosted. Mostly,” Finn calls out.
I scoff. “I’d rather be launched off the top deck.”
Finn laughs. “Can I watch?”
I mutter to myself, then draw a deep breath and reach for my coffee. Which I can successfully do without moving my feet because this room is so damn small.
I should unpack my things while I wait for him to get out, but instead I retrieve my laptop and plop down at the desk. My sweatpants are inside out. Excellent.
I pull up the itinerary for the week and go through it like an OCD mantra. Seven days total. Two days at sea to start. The welcome dinner tonight, then the rehearsal tomorrow.
I never used to be this serious? What did Finn even mean by that? It’s not like I was a bundle of fun growing up. That was Dahlia’s job. Theo used to give her crap about it. Tell her she was always living in the clouds.
Come to think of it, that’s absolutely why he fell in love with her. He was always trying to study, and she could somehow get him to leave his books and come out for the night. They balance each other. Her, a ball of sunshine, and Theo, the voice of reason.
She’s a great sister. Always has been.
After everything went down with me and Finn, Dahlia and Theo didn’t hang out as much, even though I insisted I didn’t care.
As adults, she waited three months before telling me that she, Finn, and Theo met up for breakfast when she was back home helping Mom prep the house before they sold it.
Even though it had been years, and I was obviously over it.
Obviously.
Focus, Harp. Wedding. Plans. No time for slogging through my childhood.
We have a small ballroom booked out for reminiscing at the welcome dinner, then the rehearsal.
Next we stop at Cozumel, then another sea day with the bachelor and bachelorette parties.
Next is one long day on Grand Cayman, where seventy-three people will watch my sister marry Theo on a beach at four in the afternoon in hopefully good weather.
Then we have one full day at sea after the wedding with nothing on the calendar. No plans. A blank white square that I can’t wait to dip my toes into.
The water cuts off in the bathroom, and every one of my senses perks up.
I start working on purchasing internet access for the day so that I look busy when Finn steps out of the bathroom.
It’s a good thing I moved fast. In seconds, the door slides open and Finn emerges in a cloud of steam, the tiniest white towel I’ve ever seen wrapped around his waist.
I turn and blink. “Is that a hand towel?”
Finn makes a face. “I dunno. I just grabbed it. Didn’t want to assault your eyes.” He snaps the consonants on those last words.
I purse my lips. “Did you dry yourself off with that?”
“Why, you want it?” He moves like he’s going to rip it off and throw it at me, and I hold up a hand with a desperate, “NO!”
Finn’s laughing at the sheer terror on my face. “What the hell, Harp? You’ve already seen me naked.”
“Yeah! When we were, like, fourteen!”
“Same diff.”
“Is it?” It feels very much not the same. For one, I actually have boobs now. Well, one and a half.
“You know, most women would appreciate this view.” Finn walks closer, smelling like fresh rain, and I slam my laptop shut, sliding out of the chair like my skeleton dissolved so he can get past me to his drawer.
“I guess I’m not most women.”
“You never were.”
My face heats. I want to fight back with some dig, but everything in my head sounds juvenile, so I stand there, steaming.
“Looks like the whole party’s on Deck Six.” Finn holds the towel with one hand, reaching for what I can only assume is another pair of his Spandex boxers. “Feels like Larkspur. All of us stacked up on one street again.”
“It's nothing like Larkspur.”
“Little bit like Larkspur.” He turns with a grin.
I swallow hard. “Well, then I guess I won’t see you much.”
He frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrug. “When you got older, you were too cool to stick around long, Gallagher. You'd show up, do a lap, decide the Quinns were too boring for you, and vanish back over the fence.”
Something crosses his face, quick, like a muscle tick, and then he turns back to the drawer. “That's not . . . huh. Not how I remember it.”
I roll my eyes. I’m sure he barely remembers anything after he grew six inches and armpit hair. But I do. Easy to pay attention when you have a soul-aching, heart-breaking crush on someone.
Our yards backed up to each other, which was convenient when things weren’t weird.
But when he was fifteen and I was fourteen, there seemed to always be a girl laughing in his yard with Finn lying next to them on his trampoline, messing up their hair or tickling them.
And I would stand there wanting to be old enough and pretty enough to be a girl in that yard instead of the kid with a training bra on the wrong side of the fence.
Finn and I still talked even though he was seeing other girls. I cared, but not enough to blow up our friendship. A few years later, Finn took care of that all by himself.
“Anyway,” I say. “Are you done in there? I’m going to—”
“So what do you do these days? When you're not running weddings for free.” Finn starts to drop the towel, and I flip around so fast I almost give myself whiplash.
“I’m a recruiter for Amplify.” My heart races, knowing he’s naked back there. What is wrong with me?
“You like it?” he asks.
“I'm good at it.”
“Not the question.”
I set my laptop down on the bed. “Yeah. It’s great.
” It isn’t an untruthful answer. Amplify is a media streaming app with a strong commitment to creators.
Excellent company culture, paid time off and benefits, and I work 100% remotely, except for the two times a year we convene in New York as a whole group.
“Hm. Dahlia mentioned you might be looking for something different,” Finn says, and my jaw drops. There’s the answer to that question.
I turn back to find him pulling on a pair of khaki shorts. “Why did you ask, then? If you already knew the answer?”
“I wanted to hear it from you.”
My stomach flips. I muscle through my pounding pulse and narrow my eyes.
“Since when do you listen to Dahlia anyway?” They hang out because Theo and Finn are still good friends, but I have a hard time believing the two of them have any real relationship.
Except when he wants to weigh in on her relationship decisions.
He grins, reaching for his T-shirt. “I’ve always been a good listener.”
I open my mouth to refute that, but find I can’t. It’s true. Finn was the best listener. I always felt like I was the most important person in the world to him. Which is why it hurt so bad when I so obviously wasn’t.
I clear my throat and go in a different direction. “You’ve always thought Dahlia was a dumb blond.”
He scoffs, pulling the shirt over his head. “Is that a bad thing?”
I laugh. “Right, it’s a desirable character trait in your books. My mistake.” I sit down next to my laptop. “Why didn’t you and Dahlia ever get together, by the way? She was more your type than Theo’s in high school.”
Finn looks in the mirror, running a hand through his hair. “Didn’t want to make it weird.” His eyes meet mine through the glass.
“Why, because she was too young?”
He nods. “Isn’t weird now, but then, that was a big age gap.”
It’s true. I’m so used to Theo and Dahlia now, I forget how strange that would’ve been as kids.
He wets his lips, his hand stilling. “And she wasn’t my type.”
The air sucks from the room. When I remember to breathe, I jump up and rummage through my still unpacked bag.
“Right. Well, I need to get ready because . . .” I ramble about some commitment I don’t actually have with my family.
My Mom’s for sure still asleep, and Dahlia won't surface till nine. I’m praying our dad has the decency to hole up in his cabin until the actual ceremony, but there’s still the whole thing with the flowers and a couple of other problems I need to solve. Not a total lie.
I make myself presentable in the bathroom, then rush out the door with Finn relaxing on his bed, looking at something on his phone. When I’m alone in the hall, my shoulders finally drop, and I take my first full breath in twenty-four hours.
I find a quiet table in the back of the buffet area, fill a small plate with eggs, toast, and fruit, then open the vendor order for the flowers.
The internet’s better up here, and it loads in seconds.
I brace myself for a mistake on my end. Maybe I didn’t click a button, and there was variability in the expected delivery, or I gave the wrong port information, but when I scroll down the order form, I frown.
There's a revision stamped underneath my original selections. A change to the flower choice. Made after my order locked, from an account that isn't mine.
I didn't make this change. The only communication we had was a check-in two weeks ago to confirm my original designations.
I lean back in my chair and take a bite of watermelon.
Did an employee think they were helping by lowering the price?
Did the flowers go out of stock? Did Pam from guest services get involved?
She’s the only one who had the delivery information, as far as I know.
Well, besides Mom, Dahlia, and Theo. But why would any of them call the florist?
“Hey. Harper.” A voice sounds behind me, and I spin. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
My dad, standing in front of me with a plate full of breakfast casserole and a glass of orange juice.