Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
I wake up warm.
Not cruise-cabin-thermostat-too-high warm. Cozy warm.
There's an arm over my ribs and a slow heartbeat against my back and breath moving the hair at my neck in a rhythm my body synced to at some point during the night, and for three full seconds I can’t remember a single problem in my life.
Then I hear a tap.
My eyes open. Across the cabin, sitting cross-legged on my bed in Finn's T-shirt with her hair like a dandelion gone to seed, my sister is holding her phone horizontally. For better composition.
“Dahlia,” I hiss.
“Shh.” She taps again. “You'll wake him.”
“Delete that!”
“Mm.” She examines the screen. Tilts her head. “No, I don't think I will. The light's really good.”
“There’s barely any light.” I gesture to the bathroom, the door cracks open.
She ignores me and crawls over. “I'm getting married today. You can't yell at me. It's my special day.”
The words punch through me as the night before comes into focus. “Wait—”
Behind me, without moving a single other muscle, Finn says, “You’re getting married?” in a voice still eighty percent asleep.
Exactly my question. I extract myself with Finn’s limbs still heavy and sit, my legs dangling off the bed.
Finn shifts and rests against the headboard, flicking on the light, and Dahlia crawls onto the end of the bed. “Okay. Family meeting.”
I shoot him a glance, and he smirks.
“I'm marrying Theo,” Dahlia says. No preamble. No takebacks.
I open my mouth, but she holds up a hand.
“Let me say the whole thing. I woke up early and had a lot of time to think. I went through all the thoughts. Can I trust him? Does he love me if he can’t be honest with me?
Is he going to do it again? All of that.
But somewhere around six a.m. I realized I was focusing on the wrong thing.
” Her eyes come up, clear as the water in Cozumel.
“He told me, Harper. Before the vows. Scared, drunk, and broke, with every opportunity to wait.”
She looks at Finn. “He told me that you gave him an ultimatum, by the way, and that’s another part of it.
He has good friends, and he listens to them.
” Dahlia drops her eyes, picking at the comforter.
“Dad had twenty-two years of chances to tell Mom. He had years to listen to his friends, and instead, he chose to alienate them. He never once—” Her voice catches.
“He just dug himself deeper. So no, I'm not marrying Theo despite the worst thing I know about him. I'm kind of marrying him because of it. Because now I know what he does with a secret when it's killing him. He didn’t do it perfectly, but even if you hadn’t said anything, Finn, I don’t think he would’ve stood at the end of that aisle without coming clean. ”
Finn nods. He moves, and his leg rubs against mine. “He thought he could fix it.”
“I know.” Dahlia gives a small smile. “And he needs to know that from here on out, we fix things together.” She sniffs and hops off the bed. “Plus, this gives me one huge screw-up that he can’t be mad about. I’m already thinking—”
“Dahlia!” I laugh, standing and pulling her into a hug.
When we break, she looks between the two of us. “That’s my whole speech. Questions? Comments?”
Finn clears his throat. “No questions. Comment.”
Dahlia puts out a hand. “Proceed.”
“I was going to say . . . that you should make him suffer a little. But I’ve watched him for the last few months, and—” Finn’s voice breaks, his jaw working. “Pretty sure he’s done enough of that himself. He loves you, Dahl. He just wants to do everything right.”
She grins through new tears. “What, Theo?”
We all laugh.
Dahlia leans down and gives Finn a hug. “Thank you. For being willing to narc on your friend.”
“I’ll narc on anyone. I have no loyalties.”
My heart swells as I watch her smooth her hair and start toward the door. Dahlia points to the T-shirt. “Do you think—?”
“Wear it,” Finn says. “It’ll give him a fit.”
She laughs and heads out the door. And just like that, the dynamics in the Quinn hierarchy have shifted.
I don’t need to take care of Dahlia anymore. She may have needed me for a time, but she’s figured it out. Even if the roses are the wrong color or the room assignment changes, she can handle it. Probably better than I can.
“Ooh, Harp?” She leans back in before shutting the door.
“Yeah?” I sniff.
“I was thinking about what you said. About the slideshow. I think there's one more person we need to talk to before we get off this boat.”
Sister telepathy.
She smiles. “Meet me there after breakfast?”
I nod.
The door clicks. The cabin goes quiet.
And it's just the two of us.
Finn slides out of bed and heads to the bathroom. I find my pants, throw them in my suitcase, and pull on clothes for breakfast. We have appointments with the stylist in an hour and the wedding beach itself is close to the port on Grand Cayman.
It’ll all go smoothly, I tell myself, trying to breathe.
The bathroom door slides, and Finn enters the room. He stops next to me, his hand grazing my elbow. “Harp—”
“You fell asleep last night.” I turn, my hands straight at my sides.
“I—yeah. I think we both did?”
“Before I could tell you something,” I clarify.
His brows pinch, and I have his undivided attention. Watching Dahlia ignited something in me, and it doesn’t feel so scary to say what I need to.
“I've had feelings for you my whole life.” It comes out steady.”Not a crush, Finn.
The real thing. I’ve loved you . . . probably my whole life.
Even when I didn’t understand what it was.
And hearing about you—seeing you—undoes me because I still have no idea what that means to you.
So I flip back and forth between hating you and wanting you, and it’s confusing as hell.
Sitting here in this room with you . . . ”
He wets his lips. “Confusing as hell?”
I run a hand through my hair. “You have no idea.” When I’m brave enough, I lift my eyes to his.
“And here's what I need you to understand. When it's just us. When it’s this?” I motion to the room around us.
“You feel like the safest place. But then I'd blink and you'd be over the fence with Melanie Fisher, or flirting with some sophomore at school, or you know, vanishing for fifteen years, and I could never figure it out. It hurt. Over and over again. It still hurts. It’s like—”
I search for the words. “Like I only know this one version of you, and I don’t get to keep it.”
He opens his mouth, but I'm not done.
“I know what I was after Dad. I didn’t see it then, but I get it. I wasn't available. I wasn't even kind. But after . . . why didn’t you try again?”
The quiet stretches long enough that I start to feel sick.
“Why didn't you?” he says.
The question cuts, but not because he intended it to.
My eyes well. “I don’t know,” I whisper. “Because I was still hurting. Maybe I still am.”
I think of Dahlia talking about the Dad-shaped hole that was going to eat away at her wedding either way, and I know that I’ve been walking through life half empty. Learning to be satisfied with it because acknowledging what I wanted hurt too much when I couldn’t have it.
And it wasn’t just Dad. I've been walking through my entire life with a Finn-shaped hole in my heart.
I put a hand on his chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t.
I’m sorry I treated you that way and never told you how I felt.
But . . . I can't be confused anymore, Finn. I can’t mess around with you and then fly back to California and pretend it was just fun at my sister’s wedding. Because it’s not that for me.”
I step back and pick up my key card. Finn stands there by the bathroom door, watching me. I could wait for him to say something, but I don’t want to. I don’t want him to say something to make me feel better, and surprisingly, I don’t need him to.
“I'm going to breakfast,” I say. “Then I’ll meet with Dahlia and get ready.”
He nods, his throat bobbing. “Do you need—”
“No, I’m good.” I smile. “See you on the beach.”