Chapter 22 LOOK ON THE SUNFLOWER SIDE #2
‘I’ve been remiss,’ I teased, trying not to react as I caught a hint of seawater and sweat, all mixed with bonfire smoke – the perfect Summerween scent.
The flirting came easily, almost joyfully. But with Finn pressed up close to me, on that tiny bench seat in the dark, the blinking light of the photo-booth camera staring at us, I was suddenly shy.
But Finn played the fool, as he always did, breaking me out of my self-conscious bubble.
‘Well, hi there,’ said Finn, like a vintage film star. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
He wrapped his arms around me, giving me a squeeze that made me shriek. The camera flashed as we cackled and laughed, pulling faces and messing up each other’s hair. I was so lost in the joy of it that I barely even registered when he swooped in to give me a kiss on the cheek.
Well, not until the photos developed and that was the last, perfect, shot.
‘Show me the photos,’ said Finn, peering over my shoulder as I flipped through them: a few of Lara and me posing dramatically, the barely-safe-for-work set with Lara and Jack, and the ones of Finn and me.
He held them up, nodding approvingly. His gaze lingered on the last one, and I averted my eyes.
It hadn’t been an actual kiss. Although I knew he wanted for it to be.
And perhaps I did, too. Even so, I hadn’t quite got my head around the idea that maybe I could be Finn’s girlfriend.
That anyone could be Finn’s girlfriend, really.
‘You look cute in that one,’ said Finn, tapping a photo where I was looking shyly off to one side, my hair tousled and my lips slightly parted.
‘I look like I just stepped out of a retro music video.’
‘A siren from another era.’ He considered. ‘I’m going to have to write that song.’
‘I’ll be in the front row when you perform it,’ I teased. ‘Tossing roses at you.’
‘Just roses?’ He grinned, and I flushed.
‘C’mon, let’s hit this maze,’ I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. ‘Lara and Jack have probably made it all the way through by now.’
‘Somehow I suspect they’re off in a corner somewhere waiting to get busted by security,’ he said. ‘Which I wouldn’t object to, personally. I’m easily swayed by peer pressure.’
‘Wow,’ I said, grinning. ‘What do you take me for? Lara?’
‘Lara’s a peach,’ said Finn. ‘It’s hardly a bad thing to be compared with her.’
‘Our high-school principal would disagree.’
I didn’t have Lara’s throw-caution-to-the-wind personality, so dragging him off into the bushes wasn’t on the cards.
But I didn’t let go of his hand. The two of us meandered through the Sunflower Maze until we reached a clearing decorated with benches and tables and strung with fairy lights.
Terry, one of the owners, was pouring drinks and serving up slices of apple pie.
He had his plaid shirt-sleeves rolled up and a hat angled jauntily on his head.
A beaded sunflower was pinned to one side of it. It glimmered in the sun.
‘That smells so good,’ I said as a guy pushed past me, digging into a giant slice of pie.
‘Want one?’
Finn didn’t wait for an answer. He was already by the cart, wallet at the ready. At least he’d remembered to bring it this time. I joined him, although mostly to see how many pie flavours were on offer. Just in case.
Thankfully, there was just the one: apple and peach, with an incredible amount of butter and brown sugar. Well, that made the decision easy.
‘Both the Tucker boys are with us today, I see,’ said Terry amiably. ‘It’s always good to see the two of you.’
Finn frowned. He pointed over to Jack, who’d just reappeared with Lara. They made a cute couple. I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping that she wouldn’t throw him to the kerb the way she had historically done.
‘Are you thinking of that guy?’ asked Finn. ‘We showed up together, but we’re not related.’
Terry shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Although I am terrible with faces. So, what’ll it be?’
‘Definitely some pie,’ said Finn, bending to get a better look at the stacks on display. ‘That one, with the pastry sunflowers. And two glasses of sparkling wine.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked Finn, as Terry generously filled two stemless plastic cups for us.
‘It’s just one,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Besides, if I’m not okay to drive, we can always catch a ride back. I’ll come back for the Jeep tomorrow.’
I frowned. ‘Sure. I guess.’
He toasted his glass against mine. ‘Come on, we’re on vacation. Worries get checked at the door.’
‘You’re right,’ I said, sipping my drink. The bubbles went straight to my head, as they always did, and I giggled.
Finn chugged his glass, then held it out to Terry for a top-up.
Seeing my eyes on him, he sipped this one a tad more measuredly, but I found myself doing the math.
Were two glasses in a couple of hours okay?
Did it really matter, given that we could grab a lift back or try the shuttle parked out front?
I bit my lip. It wasn’t that, really. What was niggling at me was more than a question of logistics.
Finn had always been the carefree one of the Tucker boys.
But this time around there was something else going on.
It wasn’t just being all footloose and fancy-free, as my gran might say. He was being reckless.
Was I as well?
‘C’mon, hot stuff,’ Finn said, slipping a hand around my waist. The touch broke me out of my reverie. ‘Let’s go check out these sunflowers. I definitely want a photo of you sticking your head through one of those novelty photo frames.’
‘You like that in a girl, huh?’ I teased back, sipping my wine. ‘Just a pretty face and a wooden frame for a body?’
‘I’m attracted to all body types.’ With a grin, Finn finished his wine and set the glass down on a table. ‘C’mon.’
He led me back off into the maze, getting us lost between the sunny walls of sunflowers, all green stalks and yellow-and-black nodding faces. I couldn’t help but smile. They were so beautiful – easily as tall as me, and stretching off as far as I could see.
‘Ooh, a chair swing,’ said Finn, plonking down into it and pulling me down on his lap. We swung awkwardly back and forth, our trajectory minute so that the swing wouldn’t topple under our combined weight.
‘This is nice,’ he said momentarily.
I couldn’t respond. I was so focused on not responding, on not letting my body react the way it wanted to, that I was frozen.
But all that tension made its way into my ring, which crackled like a party popper. Finn blinked. Then he pulled my hand up to his ear, listening.
‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.
I nodded.
‘I think your ring is possessed.’
He wasn’t far off. Possessed by the spirit of, from what I knew of Josephine’s love life, not quite a hopeless romantic. A useless romantic.
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ I said.
‘What’s its power?’ he asked curiously, squinting at the darkened moonstones.
Zapping me every time I go near you or your brother, I thought, before it did just that.
I swallowed. ‘I think … it wants me to choose the love of my life.’
Finn chuckled. ‘Wow, pressure’s on, huh?’ He leaned towards the ring. ‘Not to be all “pick me”, but pick me, ring.’
For once, the ring was silent.
‘I think it’s having performance anxiety,’ I said.
‘Fair. This is all kind of high stakes, huh.’ He scrunched up his face, then grinned.
‘But are we really taking love advice from a piece of jewellery that someone threw out? And we don’t even know who, right?
It could be someone playing a prank. Or someone who married ten times.
Or a life-long virgin incapable of making eye contact.
Or a nun who wants you to choose a spiritual life or something. ’
‘Sure,’ I said, deciding against sharing the fact that Josephine and I were basically pen pals at this point.
Just then, Lara and Jack turned a corner and appeared in front of us.
‘Hey, babe,’ said Lara, with a look that indicated that she was very impressed that I was sitting in Finn Tucker’s lap. ‘We found you guys. We’ve been looking for you for …’
‘Not that long,’ said Jack, with a wink.
Lara pulled some straw from her hair. ‘But it’s polite to pretend.’
I climbed down from my somewhat compromising position and fixed my hair. Not that my hair really needed fixing, but my mind did. I was all out of sorts. ‘Shall we check out the rest of this maze before we turn into pumpkins or something?’
‘Probably watermelons,’ suggested Finn. ‘Given that we’re between seasons and all.’
‘How about a cantaloupe?’ said Jack.
‘Absolutely not,’ said the rest of us in unison.
Finn challenged everyone to a bet over who could find the most prototypical sunflower, and we wandered off, trying to solve the maze while spotting the most sunflower-y sunflower we could.
‘So, you and Finn, huh?’ murmured Lara as she and I broke off from the boys, pretending to examine a planter filled with sunflowers.
I sighed. ‘I don’t know. He’s hot, and he makes me laugh …’
‘Which is better than most guys. The ones who expect you to laugh when you’re actually the funny one? The worst.’
‘You’re always the funny one, now that I think of it.’
‘Thank you.’ She said it with a smirk.
‘And you’re right. But …’
Lara reapplied her lipstick using her front-facing camera as a mirror. ‘You need more than good looks and good laughs?’
I nodded.
‘I admire your ambition,’ said Lara. ‘Please tell me the other thing is money, because that’s so much easier to find than chemistry. Or an approach to texting that isn’t completely unhinged.’
She was right; men these days were unhinged texters. (As I’d tried to explain to Josephine.)
‘It’s not money,’ I said sadly. ‘I just want someone who’s going to make my life better, I guess.’
My phone dinged: it was Eddie, asking where my Sandy Balls article was.
‘You mean by not dragging you away from your deadlines?’ said Lara, twirling a sunflower between her fingers.