Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
I don't move for a long time.
My brain tries to compute what I’m looking at.
Somebody built a wooden fence with a gate on top of a cruise ship.
Somebody who knows exactly what that fence looked like.
And climbing up the wood, blooming out of florist buckets zip-tied along the side rail, is a green vine with bright coral trumpet flowers.
So much of it the wind carries the scent to me across the deck, soft and sweet.
And on the other side—
“Hey.” Finn’s head pops up.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I close it and try again, and end up with “There's a fence on the boat.”
“There is.”
“You built a fence?”
“Technically, it’s our fence.” He rests his arms on the top of the vertical planks. “Pam and I have agreed to call it 'an installation.'”
The wind catches the loose tendrils of hair that fell out of my twist hours ago. I step closer, my mind still reeling, then laugh when I see duct tape on the bottom corner of the fence. “My dad put that there.”
He grins. “I know. It was still there when Dahlia went to help your mom pack up.”
I shake my head. “How? How did you do this?”
“Which part?”
I walk closer until the fence is the only thing between us. It’s eerie how familiar it feels. “Is this why you disappeared after the wedding? I looked up, and you were gone, and I spent the whole reception wondering if what I said—”
“This is why,” he says, his eyes soft.
“I bribed Garrett with an early piece of cake to check the men’s room.”
Finn laughs. “You had me surveilled?”
“Tried! Didn’t work because you weren’t there. And then you gave that toast, and disappeared again, and . . .” I drop my eyes.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
I laugh. “Well, success.” Tears brim in my eyes again, and I wonder if I’m ever going to go back to not needing waterproof mascara every day of my life.
Both of us jump as the speakers crackle beside us, then laugh as music starts to play. We look at each other and say, “Pam,” at the same time.
There wasn’t any ice to break, but as the strains of “You’ll Always Be My Girl” by Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors starts to play, we sink into ourselves. Just Finn and Harper.
Finn tells me how he came off the beach half out of his mind.
“You, in that dress and Theo and Dahlia’s vows.
” How he grabbed a rideshare to the closest thing to a hardware store on the island and, after finding what he needed, went on to a plant nursery to find whatever looked most like honeysuckle.
I walk over and smell it. “Honestly, it’s similar.”
He explains how he had to bring Theo into the plot so he could get Pam’s number from Dahlia—
“So they knew?” My jaw drops.
He grins and goes on, telling me how Pam met him at the crew gangway with a flatbed cart, cleared the aft sun deck, and stood security at the stairwell during the reception. And how her price was a dance floor for her niece's quinceanera in March. In Fort Lauderdale. Which he would be building.
I’m laughing so hard, my cheeks hurt.
He drops his head, resting it on his arms. “Did you like my speech?”
I lean against the fence, refusing to answer.
“Did I make you cry?”
I roll my eyes and turn my head. “It’s not fair, you know.”
“What?” he laughs.
“That you can withhold all of this information, then pull it out in moments like this and turn us all inside out.”
“Well, emotional constipation has to have some perks.”
I snort.
Finn reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. The hairs rise on my neck. “That's actually the part I came up here to finish. With you. I only told half the story down there.”
My heart picks up speed.
“That night you came over for my birthday, I went to bed scared.”
I frown. “Why?”
His eyes trace the edges of my face. “Because I knew what I had. And I also knew I loved you.” He lets that sit for barely a second before continuing on with, “I didn’t know what it was, but I just knew that my heart fell a little whenever Dahlia or Theo came over without you, and anytime I saw you in the backyard, I’d find every excuse to be out there or at a window. ”
I look at him in disbelief. “I didn’t notice that.”
“Because I was so sneaky.”
There’s a soft click, and the gate in the fence pushes open.
Finn walks through, standing in front of me.
“So if you run the tape forward three years, to a creek in July, when I finally get to kiss the girl I’ve been thinking about nonstop, and it's the single best moment of my life to that point.” His jaw works.
“And then I’m doing the math on the way home.
How many relationships last when they start in middle school or high school?
What happens if I keep kissing her and then something goes wrong?
I was fifteen and the odds of me fumbling were, in my mind, close to ninety percent. ”
I laugh. “You seemed so confident.”
Finn steps closer, caging me in against the fence with his arms. “The idea of hurting you—of losing our friendship—made me sick. So I thought if I pretended it didn’t happen, then we could go back to normal.
I’d still get to see you every day, and even though I very much wanted to kiss you again . . .”
I nod, lifting my hands to his hips and pulling him closer.
“I knew I loved you. But I got so scared of ruining the only family I had.”
“But what about me, Finn? You didn’t tell me any of that. So when I saw—”
“I know. It was stupid then and stupid now. Melanie was my deciding I wasn’t going to blow up our foursome, but then I still wanted you to . . .” He purses his lips. “To want me.”
It’s hilarious, really. That we were both on opposite sides of the fence, wishing we could be with each other. For years.
“But the tragedy is that our foursome broke up anyway,” Finn says. “I didn’t understand then how people go different directions when you get older. I thought we’d all be on Larkspur forever.”
I brush my nose against his. “I’m sorry I didn’t say something.”
“No. We were teenagers dealing with a lot. We both did the best we could.”
I nod, but I’m not sure I fully believe it. There are a lot of things I wish I could go back and fix during that time.
“But what I regret is not calling or texting. I’ve been gathering tidbits about your life from Theo and Dahlia, and my choices weren’t any better than Theo’s.
I was too scared to tell the truth. I didn’t want to get hurt if all of that didn’t mean as much to you as it did to me. Especially after . . .”
“Yeah. Those were rough years.” I still can’t believe how self-centered I was. How I didn’t even consider what Finn was going through before he graduated.
Finn lifts his hands to cup both sides of my face. “This is me telling you that I love you, Harper. Present tense. I loved you when you were eleven and ran a lemonade cartel. I loved you at that creek, and I wish I would’ve had the courage to cross the fence.”
I push up and kiss him. Just a light peck on the lips, and Finn follows me back to the ground, pulling my face back to his.
He brushes his lips over mine, kissing the corner of my mouth.
When I make a sound in my throat, his hand slides into my hair, his other arm gathering me into him.
The years between us collapse so fast, it makes me dizzy.
Kissing Finn Gallagher isn't fireworks. It’s better.
Like a door that’s been closed your whole life opening for the first time.
Like coming into a warm house with the lights on and the fireplace lit. It’s peace, comfort, and home.
When we finally break apart just far enough to breathe, I whisper against his mouth, “Does it worry you that we haven’t been a part of each other’s lives now? That we live in two different places?”
Saying it out loud makes me nervous. I’m admitting for a second time that I’m not looking up a block. I’m looking to the end of the road.
Finn shakes his head. “I'll do whatever we need to. It doesn't have to happen all at once. I don't want it to happen all at once. We've got fifteen years to catch up on. But for the record: it's a short flight to California. It's nothing. I've driven farther for good tacos.”
“You mean, taquitos?”
Finn laughs. “Exactly. I've got a crew that can run a job site without me for a week at a time, and a reliable truck.” He kisses me again.
“I called my dad today, by the way. I told him what I was doing, and he asked what for.” His mouth goes crooked.
“I told him. He got quiet, and then he said, 'About damn time.’”
“Well, he’s not wrong.”
Finn presses me up against the fence and picks up where we left off. His mouth leaves mine and trails over my jaw, the line of my throat. My bare shoulder where the blush dress strap starts and ends.
“I have a cabin,” he murmurs.
I laugh, curling my fingers in his hair. “You don’t have a roommate?”
“Mm. I do, but she won’t mind. I’ll put a sock on the door.”
“She?”
“Trust me. She’s cool.” He nips at my skin, and I yelp.
“Wait.” Finn grips my waist. “Is this the one?”
“One, what?”
He stares at my chest. “I can’t remember if Dahlia said it was your right or left. Where you had the lump removed.”
“That’s what you’re asking me about right now?” I smack him, and he pins my arms.
“I just want to see the scar.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to show you the scar.”
He kisses my neck. “Dahlia said it was gnarly.”
“Dahlia told you about my scar?”
“Yeah.” Kiss. “I told her to ask you for a picture.” Kiss.
“She did ask me for a picture.”
Finn’s head shoots up. “Are you serious?”
I nod. “I sent one.”
His eyes widen. “Your sister is dead to me.” Then, without warning, he picks me up, hoists me to his shoulder, and starts toward the stairs.
“Finn, those stairs are, like, a foot wide. You’re going to kill us both.”
“If you stop squirming . . .”
He makes it halfway down the stairs before he gives in and sets me down.
But as soon as we make it past the pool, he’s got me in his arms again until the hall ceilings are too low that he’s forced to let me walk.
When we pass through our cabin door, Finn’s bed isn’t against the wall where it was when I left that morning.
“Uh . . .” And then I see it. Pushed together. “Did you—?” I turn to find Finn already down to his underwear.