7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Finley
“I wish we could do something for them,” Lou says while looking toward the shore.
“It’s kind of strange, but there’s nothing to do except what your mom and dad wanted. For us to enjoy the night.”
A couple hours before our departure, Cass said she felt ill. By late afternoon, she, Melissa, and both of the parents had gotten sick to their stomachs—all of them having enjoyed the shrimp, which must have been left out too long in the sun. Good thing I’m allergic and steered clear. The resort had done everything to get everyone any meds or comforts they needed. Carmen stayed back since all the sunshine wiped her out, and Dr. Aaron wanted to monitor everyone. They were in safe, capable hands.
Which left me and Lou with this nonrefundable sunset boat ride that we couldn’t reschedule for any other time during our stay. Lou came up with every excuse to remain at the resort, but her parents insisted we go. “At least some of us should get to have an enjoyable evening,” they’d said. But Lou’s right—we shouldn’t be alone, not after last night.
The boat, dubbed the Chrissy, has multiple staff members, including a captain, navigator, and a couple of servers. Plenty of other people, so Lou and I won’t technically be on our own together.
She claims a spot on the bow of the ship—a padded area at the front with a prime view. Lou hasn’t sprawled out. Instead, she sits rigid, upright, evidently uninterested in relaxing in the main deck’s seating area or investigating the well-stocked minibar. Every surface appears spotless, which is no doubt the meticulous work of the resort’s employees. The crisp white of the deck shines against splashes of marine blue, accented by dolphin imagery stitched on the seats.
One of the crew brings us each a glass of champagne and ushers me to where Lou is. “Photo?” he offers.
“Uh. Sure.” I dig my phone out of my pocket and hand it to him. When I sit next to Lou, she remains stiff.
“Nice!” the crewman says, flashing an enthusiastic smile. “Beautiful couple.”
Of course the staff thinks we’re together. We’re two people taking a romantic boat ride into the setting sun. If I lured Lou back onto my lap and crashed my mouth into hers, they wouldn’t bat an eye.
“Cheers,” she says, and we clink glasses.
“To not eating shrimp.”
“Mmm. Sea bugs.” She does a full-body shiver to shake the imaginary critters off her, making me laugh.
After a beat, I say, “I can go down below if you’d like.”
“I don’t mind. Do you want to?”
“No. Don’t want to make you uncomfortable, though.”
“Why would I be?”
I turn to cock a brow at her, but she’s sipping her sparkling wine, eyes closed and avoiding my gaze. Is she being a pain in the ass on purpose? I should tell Lou how she made me uncomfortable in all the right ways this afternoon at the pool. I had to wait until my hard-on dropped to half-mast before I could fathom getting up. The way she dragged her nails across my back had me praying the lines would still be visible when I climbed upstairs to hop into an ice-cold shower.
“Look,” I say, my voice low. “Everything from last night aside, a sunset boat ride and everybody on board treating us like we’re dating…I doubt your boyfriend would appreciate this.”
“Would you stop mentioning him, please?”
“If he doesn’t like the two of us hanging out, then…” I can’t bring myself to speak the possibilities. He might prevent us from seeing each other, and I’d get less and less of Lou all the time. What would I do then? I couldn’t handle that. “Is he okay with this?” I go on. “You and me. Here?”
“Yes.”
“And last night?”
She shrugs.
“Lou, I admire the hell out of you, but if you care so little about cheating on your boyfriend, you’re not—”
“I did not cheat,” she snaps.
“You were—” I lower my voice, not that the staff would hear us over the wind and waves. “You were on top of me. How far would we have gone?”
“Tanner and I broke up, okay?” she hisses, taking another hefty gulp of her sparkling wine.
“What?” My brain trips over what she said. “When?”
“End of January. Couple weeks after Aaron’s party.”
“Geez, I’m…Lou, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she says, running her thumb along the base of her glass. “We hadn’t been working out for a long time.”
Her hair breezes behind her as the boat sails toward the cotton candy clouds of pink and orange on the horizon. Her chest rises and falls, and she leans back onto her elbows with her legs straight out.
“You think that little of me?” she asks.
I lean on one elbow to level with her. “I think the world of you. That’s why I was confused.”
She fiddles with some of the beading on her beach cover-up. The flimsy, sheer fabric allows me to trace the outline of her bikini with my eyes. “I wouldn’t ever do something like that. He’s the one who cheated.”
“You’re kidding.” I blink, processing what she’s revealed. “He slept around on you?”
“Lots of times. It’s a miracle I tested clean after the fun he had.”
“Shit.” I drag my hand down my face. What a moron. How does he end up with the most magnificent woman and then treat her like trash?
“Things with me and him weren’t going great for a while. Not that it’s an excuse for what he did. But when I found the dating app on his phone and the messages, the first thing that came to mind was I’m free .”
“Free?”
“I…I’d wanted me and him to work out so badly, especially at the beginning. I didn’t want to admit we weren’t such a perfect couple after all. If I did enough, I hoped maybe we could turn things around.”
“He’s a piece of shit.”
“Agreed.” She taps her champagne glass against mine. “Feels good to tell someone. To tell you.”
“No one knows?”
“It happened right after Dad was declared cancer-free. Whenever I called them or saw them, I just…I can’t explain it.” She picks at the cuticle of her thumb with her forefinger. “I didn’t want to have sad memories with my mom and dad anymore. I wanted some good stuff to tip the scales back. We spent so much time scared and uncertain of the future, and I wanted them to be happy, to be healthy, and to see that I’m living up to their expectations. Besides, Tanner’s a charmer. My parents like him.”
When Lou first brought Tanner to an Easter brunch her folks organized, no one else had any reason to hate the guy like me. He’d upset Lou when she approached me at the bar that one night, so I didn’t need to know anything more. Before we kissed, I’d told her to promise me she’d reflect on all the ways she’s amazing, to know some guys would give everything to spend a Friday evening with her, and to reconsider what a worthy partner meant to her. She’d agreed in the moment. Based on the timeline she described over deviled eggs at her parent’s place, though, she and Tanner started going out officially that weekend. I’d figured Lou didn’t remember a thing about our kiss. She only ever mentioned it again on the evening of Aaron’s birthday party after consuming way too much gin.
I’ve thought about both those nights a lot.
“It’s so humiliating,” she says, pulling me away from my thoughts. “I couldn’t keep him interested. I don’t want my family to see this failed relationship with a person they probably expected me to marry at some point, considering we dated for so long.”
“Hey,” I say, stern enough to get her to look right at me. “You didn’t fail at anything.”
“I’m twenty-nine. At this age, Cass had married Carmen, and they’d gotten investors for their nonprofit. Aaron had finished his residency and proposed to Mel.”
“So? You’ve ditched a scumbag guy who wasn’t worth your time, and you have your own business.”
“Which isn’t a tremendous success at the moment, either.”
The start of any company involves some struggles—I would know—but I wanted to let her vent too.
“They’re a couple of perfect older siblings,” she goes on. “Healthy relationships, incredible careers. Then there’s me. It’s impossible to live up to them.”
“Being perfect’s impossible.”
“Not for them. Or for you.”
“I’m not, trust me.” As I sit up, a rueful laugh escapes my lips. “No clue what my next work move will be. I’ve tried for weeks to come up with something that excites me, but I might have run out of good ideas. I’m wondering if this job in San Jose is what I should do. I want to put my skills to use. Help people like I did with the last one, you know? But nothing’s struck me yet. And there’s the love life. Single, going on two years.”
“Dana must have really messed you up, huh?”
“No, that’s the crazy thing. I liked Dana a lot, but we both knew we weren’t right together.”
To distract myself from the fact that Lou was attached to a douchebag and I would always have to watch, I started seeing Dana, a woman I’d met through a friend of a friend. I’d done casual dating and relationships that lasted a few weeks or months, but I decided that my late twenties meant having a more serious relationship. Dana and I were both pleasant, safe distractions for each other, and we dated for way too long, even though neither of us was what the other wanted. After we broke up, I vowed not to get involved with someone I didn’t burn for, and I haven’t been with anyone long-term since.
“She and I,” I go on, “we weren’t a good fit. And there’s all the stuff with my brother.”
“What about him?”
“He…Blake’s reached out again.”
“What?” Lou sits up so fast she spills some champagne from her glass. “You’re kidding.”
Almost a year ago, with support from my therapist and all the Moores, I went no contact with Blake. As a kid, I didn’t understand that the things he did were abuse. All brothers acted like that, I thought, and I got used to him pushing me around and calling me “Fuck-up Finley.” But when I was twelve and Blake was fourteen, he broke my arm in the basement because I wouldn’t hand over the remote, and he threatened me if I told our mom.
After that, I spent as much time at the Moores’ as possible.
“He reached out once before, right?” Lou asks, searching my face.
“Guess him contacting me will be a biannual event.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, he only wants to put me in my place.”
“What’d he say?”
Pulling out my phone, I bring up some texts from the unknown number and hand my device to her. Weren’t even gonna tell your big bro the news about your fancy app deal, dipshit? And most recently, Luxury vacation with your other family, must be fuckin nice. Can’t wait to let Mom know.
“The announcement about the deal piqued his interest, I bet, and like a true narcissist, he couldn’t resist.”
“But the trip?”
I shrug. “Mel shared it on social media. She posted that pic from the plane, and my brother had nothing better to do.”
“Shit. I’ll ask her to take it down.”
“She’s allowed to live her life. If Blake hadn’t found me that way, he’d have found me some other way instead.”
“What’re you gonna do?”
I down the rest of my glass and stare out at the expanse of crystalline ocean in front of us. Blake will try his hardest to suck the pleasure out of this trip, and I shouldn’t bring down the mood with discussion over my jerk of a brother. But something about Lou’s sincere concern makes me want to talk.
“I’ll do the only things I can do,” I say. “Ignore him for now, and send a firm text to not contact me if he keeps messaging. Last resort, block him.”
“You should tell your mom what’s up.”
“Maybe.” I sigh. “I don’t like roping her into this shit.”
It makes the situation more complicated that my brother and I have separate relationships with her. As kids, Blake made sure she didn’t know how he treated me behind closed doors, and my mother still doesn’t fully understand the scope of what he did during our childhood. He’s not above using her to exert power over me. I have to keep a distance from her too—she enables his behavior and refuses to see a therapist for anything. But I still care.
“They get so caught up in me going no contact and tell me I’m tearing the family apart, and I’m like, what family? I’ve tried hard with them, and I’m not good enough.”
“Finn.” Lou looks at me with a pained expression and rests a hand on my forearm. The touch is gentle, comforting. “You’re such a wonderful person. The best. And even if you weren’t, you shouldn’t have to earn their love. They’re missing out big-time.”
I push down a lump in my chest as the captain shouts something, though the words get lost in the breeze. When Lou and I turn to him, he’s pointing toward the left side of the boat. We whip our heads in that direction to find five, no six, then seven glistening gray creatures leaping out of the water.
“Dolphins!” Lou cries, racing to the railing.
I follow, bracketing her with one hand on each side, her back near enough that her body heat radiates against my chest.
There’s that floral scent again. A hint of sweetness but paired with something woodsy.
The setting sun sends orange streaks across the water, and the jumping dolphins cast shimmering splashes next to the boat. They’re pure joy, and that joy translates onto Lou’s face as she watches them with delight.
When her head turns toward me, her focus drops to my lips for a millisecond. I want to kiss her, and I bet she’d let me. Last night proves the attraction is there. Plus, she’s not dating anyone, so I could.
But Luna has been single in the past, and that’s not the ultimate reason I haven’t tried for anything more than friendship with her. My relationship with her, her brother, and all the Moores—they’re my family, so I’d be more alone than ever if any of them decided I wasn’t worth their love and affection anymore.
And if Lou thought that? I might break.
When I avert my eyes back to the animals putting on a show in front of us, she says, “I like talking to you.”
“We talk all the time.”
“Hardly. You’re not exactly Mr. Talkative.”
Because when I’m around her, my brain goes haywire. Because I have to bite my tongue whenever we’re together and she’s got someone else draped over her shoulders.
“We talk,” I say with finality, hoping to convince her.
“You know what I mean. Sharing stuff. I like when you share stuff with me.”
We follow the pod for miles, her eyes lighting up every time one of them breaks the surface or does something cute. I don’t know—I don’t really watch the dolphins.