Chapter 24
I definitely messed up
Finn
The fire had burned down to glowing embers and Dom was dozing in his chair, mug balanced precariously on his knee.
The peaceful quiet of the mountains settled around us—no city noise, no obligations, just the distant sound of wind through the trees and the occasional lowing of cattle in the far pastures.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I reached in and silenced it, not willing to interrupt the sleepy peace between us.
It buzzed again, immediately. I pulled it out, wondering what could be so urgent at—I checked the screen—eleven-thirty at night.
“Why is Enzo calling me?” I asked as his picture popped up—silly and happy and perfectly Enzo.
Dom glanced at me and shrugged. “Wedding stuff, maybe? Did you make the appointment for the final tuxedo fittings?”
I accepted the call. “Hey Enz, what’s—”
“What the fuck did you do to my sister, Finnegan Walker?” His voice was loud enough that I winced, and Dom raised an eyebrow, turning toward me with sudden alertness.
“What do you mean?” I rubbed my forehead, trying to think of what he was talking about.
“She’s broken and I know it’s your fault! You need to come back here and fix it!”
The alcohol haze evaporated instantly, replaced by sharp awareness. “Enzo, slow down. What’s wrong with Alex?”
“She had a complete breakdown at work! Tabitha had to drive her to her psychiatrist because she lost it over a printer! A printer, Finn!”
Worry flared through me. “Is she okay?”
“No, she’s not okay! She hasn’t been sleeping, she’s not eating, she’s working herself into the ground, and every time I try to talk to her about it, she just says she can’t let herself think about the way you left or that you stopped texting!
” His voice cracked slightly. “So I’m asking you again—what did you do? ”
Dom was watching me now, fully awake and clearly picking up on the crisis unfolding through the phone.
“I didn’t—I haven’t done anything.” But even as the words came out, I knew how hollow they sounded. I’d been pulling back, being careful, protecting her from things she didn’t even know existed. “I’ve just been processing some things.”
“Well, while you’ve been processing, she’s been spiraling worse than when Graham cheated! And don’t you dare tell me this isn’t your fault, because I don’t believe that for a second. I told you that if you ever hurt her, I would make your life very unpleasant.”
The accusation hit like a punch to my gut. I’d been so focused on protecting Alex from my current situation that I’d never considered how my withdrawal might affect her. How someone who’d been hurt before might interpret cowardly distance as rejection.
“Enzo, I—”
“Fix it,” his voice grew hoarse. “I don’t care what you think you’re protecting her from. She’s my sister and she’s in pain and you’re going to fix it. Tonight.”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone, Enzo’s words echoing in the sudden silence. Alex was broken—because I’d pushed her away to protect myself. Because I’d been so focused on my own fears that I’d forgotten she might have her own.
“What the hell was that about?” Dom asked quietly.
“Alex,” my voice came out rough. “She’s... apparently she’s had a... mental breakdown.”
“And Enzo thinks it’s your fault.”
“Enzo’s probably right,” I stood up abruptly, the camp chair scraping against the ground. “I need to call her. I need to—fuck, Dom, what if I’ve completely screwed this up?”
“Hey,” Dom was on his feet too, steadying me with a hand on my shoulder. “Breathe. You can fix this.”
“Can I? I’ve been pulling away for days, making her think I don’t want to talk to her, while she’s been—” I stopped, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes. “Shit. She probably thinks I’m done with her.”
“Then you call her and tell her the truth. All of it. Everything we just talked about.”
I looked at my phone, then at the dying fire, then at my brother who was watching me with the same steady confidence I used to have in myself.
“What if it’s too late?”
“Only one way to find out.”
The mountain air felt thin in my lungs as I pulled up Alex’s number—her name on the screen, the profile picture from our hike where she looked happy and relaxed and completely unaware that I was already falling for her.
“You’ve got this,” Dom nodded once. “And if you don’t, we’ll figure out Plan B.”
I hit call and listened to it ring, my heart hammering against my ribs as I waited to find out whether I’d already lost the best thing that had happened to me since I’d learned to fly.
It rang four times. Five. I expected it to go to voicemail—figured she might be asleep, or worse, that she’d see my name and decide she didn’t want to talk.
“Finn?” Her voice was cautious when she picked up, surprised. Alert in a way that meant she clearly hadn’t been sleeping.
“Hey.” Relief washed over me. “Sorry for calling so late. I know it’s—”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “I was up anyway. Working on some stuff for tomorrow.”
Working. At midnight. That alone told me Enzo hadn’t been exaggerating.
“Alex,” I stepped away from the fire, lowering my voice even though Dom was giving me privacy by poking at the embers. “It’s not fine. Enzo called and yelled at me because you are very much not fine.”
Silence. Long enough that I checked to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“Enzo has a big mouth,” her voice sounded thin—tired in a way that went deeper than just staying up late.
“He’s worried about you. Said you had a breakdown at work.”
Another pause. Then: “It wasn’t a breakdown. It was a... strategic disagreement with office equipment. The printer and I had a misunderstanding, and it forgot who was in charge.”
“Alex…” I rubbed my forehead, trying to find the right words. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I pulled away. I’m sorry I made you think I didn’t want to talk to you, and I’m sorry it got to the point where your brother had to call and tear me a new one.”
The silence stretched longer this time. When she spoke again, her voice was smaller. Rougher.
“It’s not—” She stopped. “It’s not fine.”
“No,” I whispered. “It’s not.”
That seemed to break something in her. I heard her take a shaky breath and then another.
“Enzo said Tabitha had to drive you to your psychiatrist,” I pressed gently. “How did that go?”
“Dr. Stewart thinks my medication isn’t working properly because I’m not sleeping or eating right,” the words came out in a rush, like she was relieved to tell someone.
“She wants to take me off my meds until I get my shit together. Which is terrifying because I can barely function as it is, and without them I’m afraid I’ll be completely useless. ”
The raw honesty in her voice made my chest tight.
“Sweetheart—”
“I don’t know what I did wrong,” her voice cracked slightly.
“Everything was good, and then suddenly you were... different. Distant. And then you left without really explaining why. And I kept trying to figure out what I’d done, what I’d said, but I couldn’t—” Another shaky breath.
“I thought maybe you’d figured out this whole thing was a mistake. I was a mistake.”
“Oh, darlin’, you weren’t a mistake.” My vision blurred slightly. “Alex, you didn’t do anything wrong. This is all on me.”
“Then what—” Her voice broke completely. “Finn, what happened? Because one day we were fine and the next you were packing up and leaving. And I know you had to go take care of family stuff, but I don’t understand why you shut me out—”
I could hear her trying not to cry—trying to hold it together even on a phone call at midnight. I swallowed.
“I got some medical test results back. During the recital. And instead of talking to you about it, I got scared and used the family trip as an excuse to run away.”
“What kind of medical results?”
I looked up at the stars, trying to find words for something I’d barely been able to say to Dom. “The kind that affects more than just my future.”
“Finn,” her voice was steadier now. “Like what?”
“I miss you,” I said instead of answering directly. “And I need to tell you what’s been going on with me—and I think I might chicken out if I don’t tell you to your face.”
Another pause. “You want to come down here?”
“If you’ll let me. I know I’ve been an ass, but—”
“Yes,” the word came out fast. “Yes, come down here. I want to see you.”
The relief I felt was immediate and overwhelming. “I can drive down tonight. Be there by morning.”
“Finn, it’s already midnight. You’ll be driving all night.”
“I’ve done longer drives on less sleep,” I was already mentally calculating route and timing. “I need to see you, Alex. Not just tell you things. I need to see you.”
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger. “I need to see you too. But not if it means you driving through the night when you’re tired. I couldn’t stand the thought of you—”
“Alex—”
“No, listen. I have to deal with work stuff tomorrow anyway. I have to fire Jordan. He’s been stealing from the company and giving our tech to Titan in exchange for a position with them.”
I was going to kill Jordan.
“Come down in the morning. I’ll take the afternoon off and we can talk properly.”
She was right. Driving six hours at night after everything that had happened wasn’t smart.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay.”
Her voice was soft, and for the first time since I’d left Wyoming, she sounded like herself. “Okay. I’ll... I’ll be here.”
“Alexandra?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to figure this out. Whatever’s going on, we’re going to figure it out.”
“Promise?”
The single word carried so much vulnerability that my throat went tight. “Promise. We’re partners.”
After we hung up, I stood in the silence for a moment, looking at the dying fire and the star-filled sky. Dom was watching me with a knowing expression.
“Road trip?” he asked, pushing himself up from his chair.
“Yeah. I need to get back down there.”
“Want company for the drive?”
I considered it—having Dom there for moral support versus needing time to think through what I was going to tell Alex when I saw her.
“Thanks, but I think I need to do this one solo.”
Dom rested his hands on his hips and looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Except you can’t actually drive down there, genius. Six hours? With the exhaustion limit you’ve already hit? With your depth perception? ‘Sides, I texted Enzo. He’s been with her since yesterday.”
Great. Enzo was going to kill me before I could kill Jordan. “So we leave first thing in the morning?”
“First thing,” Dom confirmed. “I’ll drive. You can spend the time figuring out what you’re going to tell her.”
“Dom,” I watched my brother, who was calmly folding camp chairs like he hadn’t just agreed to a six-hour trip. “You sure about this?”
“Finn,” he gave me a look. “She’s family. Of course I’m sure.”
We loaded the truck quickly.
“Hey,” Dom held my mug out to me—filling it with one more swallow of whiskey. He was lucky he could afford to replace the nearly-empty bottle. I took my mug and looked at him as he filled his own. “To the people who become family.”
“To the family we can’t live without.”
Tomorrow. I’d be there tomorrow, and we’d figure out how to fix whatever damage my fear had caused. I had a mission now. Get to Alex. Tell her the truth. Deal with whatever came after.
For the first time since reading those test results, the path forward felt clear.