Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Somehow, Finn properly communicated our location and predicament to whoever he talked with on the landline, and the three of us are now sitting in the back of a very unsafe pickup truck. We gave Dahlia shotgun because, bride.
“Miguel's truck has a chicken crate bungee-corded to the hood, Harper. It does not do the speed limit,” Theo says.
I scoff. “I’m just saying, there’s technically still time.”
Finn stifles a smile and looks in the opposite direction. Theo’s about to have a meltdown, and neither of us wants him to know how funny Finn finds it.
Theo runs a hand through his hair. “The bachelor and bachelorette parties are tomorrow. If we don’t make it back . . .” He mutters something under his breath.
I want to say that missing two parties would have done a lot less damage to the wedding than his stupid pride, but hold my tongue. Mostly because I don’t want to get chicken poop in my mouth.
At 4:42, we’re just down the street, but the traffic is gridlocked. Miguel looks back and shrugs. The universal sign for a man who’s done all he can do.
So Finn hands him cash, and we bail. Then we’re four sunburned adults pounding down a cruise-port sidewalk. Dahlia loses a sandal and hops to retrieve it. Finn grabs my hand, pulling me so fast, I think I might faceplant on the concrete.
We make it by ninety seconds, arriving at the top of the gangway soaked in sweat, sunscreen, and ocean salt.
Dahlia hugs me at the elevator bank, fierce and sudden. “Best day since, I don't even know.”
And that’s Dahlia for you. Half an hour ago we were bouncing around in a chicken truck not knowing whether we’d make it back to our ship, and all she remembers is the beach, the adventure, and the tacos.
I kiss her face and shove her down the opposite hall with Theo, telling her to get her beauty rest for the party tomorrow, and I almost forget that Theo still hasn’t told her the truth. When I turn to walk down the hall with Finn, I catch him watching me in the mirror.
“What?”
He takes a step closer and leans in. My pulse gallops, a flush rising to the surface of my skin, when he says, “Last one to the room showers second,” and bolts toward the hallway.
I shriek and run after him. “Finn! That’s not fair. My skin is sensitive!”
We tumble into 6042 laughing. I grab onto any part of Finn that I can to climb over him and get through the door first. He bars the entrance with his legs, so I parkour off the doorframe and nearly fall face-first onto the carpet.
The woman across the hall swings her door open and gives us both a dirty look. We stand there like we were caught smoking weed behind the school, then burst out laughing as soon as our door is shut.
I'm wheezing. My legs hurt. I have salt and sand in places that have never seen the sunlight, and somewhere between the door and the beds I reach up to pull the elastic out of my matted hair and can't. Because the string of my swimsuit top has welded itself into the salt-knot at the back of my head.
I pull and yelp, then turn in a circle like a dog after its own tail.
“Stop, stop!” Finn laughs. “You're making it worse.” He bats my hands away. “Hold still. Let me—”
Heat from his body warms my back as his fingers go into my hair, working the knot. His knuckles brush the back of my neck, and I’m suddenly finding it hard to breathe. “I can’t believe you get robbed by a raccoon.”
“Hey, Theo got robbed, okay?”
I'm laughing again, head tipped forward, and he says, “Hold still. Jeez.”
I stand straight, trying to be obedient, but every inch of me either feels itchy or incredibly turned on.
As I search for some kind of distraction, the raccoon makes me think of our conversation the other night.
About the nickname he gave me based on what I assumed was another strange, small mammal.
“Why did you call me Perry?” I ask. Finn’s hands are still, and I shift on my feet. “You told me to ask.”
“I told you that you should’ve asked.” He’s working the knot again.
“Well. I’m asking now.”
He makes a sound and clears his throat. “What do you remember about Perry? The actual character.”
Dahlia and I watched almost every episode of Phineas and Ferb as kids. I still have the theme song memorized. “He's teal. He wears a hat. He makes a sound like a broken kazoo.”
“Okay, but what happens every single episode.” He tugs, and I wince. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Ummm, the brothers come up with some insane plan,” I start.
“Right.”
“And Candice tries to bust them.”
Finn blows out an annoyed breath. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“We’re talking about Perry, Harp. The weird pet that nobody looks at twice.”
“Thank you. We’ve established that you thought I was weird.”
He spins me around and looks me in the eye.
“Who saves everybody. He stands up, puts on the hat, and runs the entire operation.
He fights the guy, defuses the thing, gets home before anyone notices the couch is on fire.
And nobody ever finds out it was him. That's the whole joke of the show. The most capable one in the family is the one nobody pays attention to.”
His fingers have gone still in my hair, arms still looped around my neck and resting warm against my skin.
“You were thirteen,” he says. “And everybody was always watching Dahlia. She was the show, and you were the one behind her cleaning up all her messes.”
“Finn—”
“You won the lemonade war with a supply-chain blockade. You got Theo's bike back with a three-way trade I still don't fully understand. You wrote every single one of us an essay in Mr. Hart’s class, and . . .” He pauses, measuring his next words. “You saved her after your dad left.”
“That was way after you gave me the nickname,” I whisper, in a daze as his words sink in.
“Yeah, well. It held up, didn’t it.”
I grimace, my shoulders slumping. “Finn, I don’t understand!
You act like—like you adored me as a kid, and you had to know how I felt about you, but then you were with all those girls, and that time at the creek .
. .” I stare up at him, waiting, but he doesn’t answer. “You know that time at the creek?”
By his expression, I start to doubt whether he remembers that day as poignantly as I do.
Finally he says, “When we kissed?”
“What did you think I meant?”
He chuckles. “Not reading each other’s minds well tonight, are we?”
I huff and start to turn, but as soon as I move my shoulders, the string of my swimsuit tugs and releases. The strings slither over my skin and fall.
And so does my entire bikini top.
* * *
Dahlia claps a hand over her mouth. “Wait, it what?”
We’re in the comedy club hours before the first show, sitting in velvet chairs, waiting for the rest of the bachelorette guests to arrive. “Off. It fell off, Dahlia.”
“Off-off?” Priya asks.
“Yes! The tie was knotted into my hair from the wind, and he was helping me get it out—”
“So he was behind you?” Dahlia reaches for the glass of champagne we were each handed when we walked in.
“Well . . .” I wince, and they squeal.
Dahlia slides halfway down her chair, laughing in the silence with her shoulders heaving. “What did—okay—what did HE do,” she wheezes. “What did Finn do? I need it exactly.”
This is the part that keeps replaying in my head. “Uh, he looked down and—”
“Full on looked?” Dahlia interjects.
I nod. “It was kind of impossible not to.”
“Ha! Such a grand reveal!” Priya leans in, and I swear she’s about to fall off her chair.
“And?” Dahlia eggs me on.
I wet my lips, drawing out the next part for as long as possible. “He looked and said, ‘Well, if there was any doubt that you had nipples . . .’”
Dahlia’s eyes bug out of her head, and she nearly inhales her champagne.
“He commented on your nipples?” Priya’s horrified. “What an ass!”
“No.” Dahlia tries to compose herself. “No, it’s so funny. Ohmygosh.” She straightens in her chair and swipes at the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Harper talked about constantly—”
“Not constantly. I brought it up a couple of times.” Like, possibly a couple of days ago in our stateroom. I leave that part out.
Dahlia explains how Finn used to call me Perry, and how I was offended that he’d compare me to an ugly mammal, “ . . . without nipples,” she finishes.
Priya laughs and looks at me. “Wait, you were worried about the no nipples part? What about the duck bill—”
“Yeah, I was concerned with that, too, but I was a pre-teen. And—”
“She had the hots for Finn.” Dahlia holds out her glass to me, but I don’t clink it.
“I may have been a little preoccupied.”
Priya sets her glass on the table. “With Finn. And nipples.”
“Both. Yes.” I groan and lean back in my chair. “And now he’s seen them.”
“Kay, but after the nipple comment, then what?” Priya asks.
Then what.
I reach for my glass. “Well, I cupped my boobs with my hands and said, ‘I get first shower.’”
They gape at me.
“You just walked away?” Dahlia asks.
“Ran is a more accurate description.”
Priya grips my freshly shaven thigh. “Girl. Why in the hell didn’t you just kiss him?”
Because that already happened.
Dahlia watches me like a hawk, and I pretend to have something caught in my throat. I’ve been asking myself that question all day. When I avoided him in the morning, when I found any reason to not be in the room for the past twelve hours.
“Because what would that even accomplish? Finn has his business in Denver, I’m on the West Coast. What, we’re supposed to just sleep together this week, and then each go our separate ways?”
“Yes!” Priya shouts.
Dahlia knows better than to suggest that. Neither of us has ever been one to have any interest in flings. Sure, it sounds exciting for a second, but we’ve both learned from a young age how important it is to be careful with our hearts.
“But what would that accomplish?” I say. “Then I’d go home sad and alone and heartbroken—”
“Well, only if it’s more than physical.” Priya lifts her glass to her lips.
I scoff and take a gulp just as Marisol calls out from the entryway. The girls have arrived.
* * *