Chapter 22
Finn
He didn’t even know how Henry found out about his back. But he woke up to half a dozen texts about a massage therapist and acupuncturist scheduled for later that morning.
The campaign trail didn’t stop for a busted back. And he and Iris had that damn late-night show to film that day.
He’d been hoping in those few, perfect moments after they’d both found their release, surrounded by sea, sand, and sky—all their walls and masks forgotten—that things had changed between them.
Until he felt her tense, felt the air shift with her.
Back were all her defenses, the anger he didn’t quite understand. All he knew was it was directed at him. That when she looked at him, there was something that not only bothered her but pissed her off, too.
He wanted to know what it was.
He wanted to tell her he would work on it, that he thought what was growing between them was worth fighting for.
The problem was, he’d spent his entire life since his parents passed pushing down his real feelings when they pushed up, covering them up with a smile and a quip and some surface-level charm.
He barely knew how to acknowledge his true feelings, let alone how to discuss them with someone else.
When he turned his head on the pillow, he found Iris turned toward him, her cheek resting on her hand. Her pale hair was spilled across the pillow, the morning light making it glow. The pretty pastel scales up near her scalp seemed a little more prominent in sleep.
He couldn’t seem to stop himself from reaching out to touch them.
But as his hand lifted, his back spasmed.
And he promptly slapped his hand right down on her face.
She came awake with a start, bleary-eyed and confused.
“I’m sorry. Iris, I’m so sorry,” he said. He pulled his arm back, no matter how much his back screamed at the motion.
Iris’s hand rose, rubbing her sore face.
“I was reaching out to … tuck your hair behind your ear,” he lied. “And my back seized up. My hand just fell.”
He didn’t know what he expected in response to that, but it wasn’t the way her eyes warmed and her lips tipped up.
“Not any better, huh?”
“Oh, it will be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Henry.”
“I’m sure Henry is great at a lot of things: making interns cry in the supply closet, memorizing weaknesses and weaponizing them, choking on his own smugness …” The bite of her words was softened a bit by the humor in her eyes. “But I’m pretty sure he’s not a doctor.”
“No. But we’ve been here before. Massage therapy and acupuncture usually help. If not, I can get a steroid injection that should provide some short-term relief. In extreme situations, magic will fix it temporarily.”
“Why can’t you just rest for one day? Do you really think your whole career will go up in smoke if you take a single day off to take care of yourself?”
It was a valid question.
Finn knew she didn’t want the real answer.
“Unfortunately, we have an engagement today,” he said.
“Ugh.” Iris threw herself onto her back. Her arm went dramatically over her eyes. “What now?” she grumbled.
That was possibly what he liked best about her: her willingness to openly display every emotion. She was just so fully … herself all the time. Frustration and annoyance included.
“The late-night show,” he reminded her.
“Already? But I haven’t had my fifty thousand hours of media training. I was so looking forward to that.”
A little chuckle escaped Finn. “It wasn’t supposed to be so soon. But according to Henry, we are ‘trending,’ so the talk show wanted to ride that momentum.”
“And if massage, acupuncture, and a shot don’t work?”
“We’ll be seated the whole time. I can fake it.”
“Yes, I guess you can,” she said, her tone getting a little colder as she climbed out of bed. “I’ll make coffee.”
And just like that, she was gone. Literally and figuratively.
Finn sighed, frustrated that she was beginning to take some of her training to heart, that she was becoming less genuine because that was what he, Henry, and the polit-ical sphere demanded of her.
He managed to slowly get himself into a seated position by the time he heard a knock at the door.
“Where is he?” Henry’s voice asked, already moving through the house to look for him. “Oh, great,” he sighed when he got a look at Finn, sweaty and pale, face contorted in pain from the movement.
“It’s been this bad before.”
“Not when you had an engagement the same day.”
“It’s a seated engagement.”
“You’re seated now and look like you’re on day two of the flu.”
“Always a ray of sunshine, Henry,” Iris said, moving into the room to bring Finn a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” Finn said, frustrated with how his back spasmed just from raising his arm.
“Why is your face red?” Henry asked, zeroing in on Iris.
“Oh, Finn slapped me.”
“He what?” Henry asked, eyes widening.
Finn hated that he couldn’t tell if Henry’s gaze went serious because he was horrified that his friend was cap-able of slapping someone … or if he was trying to figure out how to minimize the blowback politically.
“Accidentally,” she added.
“Thank God,” Henry sighed, visibly relaxing. “A little ice or makeup should hide that from the cameras.”
“It doesn’t hurt, by the way,” Iris said, never willing to let Henry’s callousness slide. “I know you were very concerned about it.”
“Is that the massage therapist?” Finn asked when there was a knock at the door.
“Arden. To get Iris ready for tonight. Between him and the bird, they should be able to shape her up.”
“Like a piece of clay,” Iris grumbled under her breath.
“Which allows me to focus on you and your talking points,” Henry said, ignoring her.
“Looks like a miserable day for both of us,” Iris said, moving out of the room. “But at least my teachers aren’t you,” she added. She shot Henry a saccharine smile. “It’s always good to look on the bright side.”
“Huh,” Henry said as she walked out. “She was snarkier than usual.”
“She overheard what you said last night,” Finn told him.
“And was upset enough to go to her family. She’d left her ring behind.
” Even just the memory of seeing it there had his heart twisting.
All over a few careless words from a man who knew how much weight words carried.
Henry’s career relied on knowing the right things to say, the right way to say them.
It was frustrating that he so rarely thought to use that insight to mind his own words.
“I know you don’t intend to hurt her, Hen.
But that doesn’t stop it from happening when you’re so careless. ”
That managed to get through to his campaign manager. Was it because he was having a truly human moment of regret? Not likely. But a broken engagement this far into his campaign would be a nightmare.
“I forgot how emotional mermaids can be.”
Finn sighed. “I don’t think she is being emotional. I think you’re being an ass. And it needs to stop. I don’t want to lose her.”
Henry’s head tipped to the side, watching him with eyes that Finn knew saw him all too well.
“Are you catching feelings for your fiancée?”
“Isn’t that the goal of a relationship?”
“I guess. But it complicates things.”
“How?”
“Because if you’re falling for your fiancée, your focus will be more on her.”
“This far into the campaign, Henry, I don’t think we have that much to worry about.”
“My polls don’t suggest you should feel so confident about that.”
Henry handed him his tablet, letting him look through the polls as well as the compiled document of social media comments one of the interns had put together.
Henry excused himself for a phone call as Finn scrolled.
The thing was, this time, Finn wasn’t convinced that Henry was right. The more he read, the more he saw things that he’d heard Iris grumble about: him coming off as fake, as surface-level, as a PR shell.
The people didn’t relate to Finn on a personal level, even if they did agree with his politics.
The deeper he dug, the more he saw what Henry had been hiding from him when it came to issues with his image.
In fact, the only gushing comments he could find had been on the pictures that had been posted of him and Iris at the parade.
He actually looks relaxed and happy was the most liked comment beneath the article.
All during his massage and acupuncture, all he could focus on were the comments saying that they’d seen him a hundred times and still couldn’t get a feel for who he was as a person.
The scariest part was that Finn himself was starting to lose those genuine, human sides of himself as well.
He didn’t have time for hobbies, for leisure, for nurturing the side of him that was a person, not just a politician.
He was able to move without excruciating pain by the time the acupuncturist—who used magic-infused needles for an extra oomph—left, but Henry still insisted on the shot before he headed out with Arden and Monty to pick out an outfit for Finn that would make him seem casual and approachable while still trustworthy.
He imagined Iris was spending her few stolen moments reading, so he went into the bathroom, took a shower, then stood in front of the mirror in his towel, practicing answers to the questions Henry thought would be most likely to come up at the studio.
He didn’t realize he wasn’t alone until Iris sighed.
Turning, he saw her leaning in the doorway.
“What?” he asked.
“You say all the right things, and it still feels wrong.”
“Is it my tone?” he asked, stomach clenching.
“Do you actually believe what you’re saying?”
“Of course. It’s my platform.”
“Do you believe it? Not politically. As a man?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t feel like you do.”
“I … I don’t know what to do with that.”
“It feels like you’ve practiced that answer a thousand times.”
“I have.”
“That’s the problem. People don’t want to hear the right words. They want something real.”
Finn sighed, shaking his head. “I am real. This is real. This is who I am.”
“Okay,” she said, turning and walking away.