15. Finn
fifteen
Finn
H ere’s what I expected on a cloudy Wednesday morning: a peaceful walk to the library, work as usual, and that’s about it. What I hadn’t anticipated was how being out with Vivian last night would sprinkle a layer of golden sunshine over my day.
Every single library staff member reciprocated my daily “good morning.” Patricia even invited me to join her and Greg for karaoke on Thursday. My voicemail was nearly full of messages offering suggestions for ways to raise money for the media room.
Had I thought of a shirtless car wash at the fire station?
No, but Carol Cook had. Complete with detailed descriptions on which firemen should do the washing and which should run the cash box. Receiving a non-vitriol voicemail from her was so refreshing that I even smiled at the stack of Regency romances left on my desk by the ninja librarian.
I’ve just finished clearing the messages when Brynn sails through my open door.
If I didn’t recognize her from our brief interaction at the Seabreeze Beans last week, her coffee ground-stained apron over her t-shirt and running shorts gives her away.
Unlike the other locals I’ve interacted with today, Brynn’s pinched gaze could cut glass.
“Did you go on a date with my sister last night?” Her raised voice draws the attention of Judith and Bonnie, two lovely patrons who offered to make me a book-themed quilt when they arrived a few moments ago with their bags of fabric.
My affable smile doesn’t waver as I stand. “No. Vivian kindly allowed me to accompany her to music trivia, but it wasn’t a date.” I move from behind my desk. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Finn Reynolds.”
Brynn stares at my outstretched hand for two beats before closing my office door. “Listen, Mainlander. My sister has been through a lot and—”
“You both lost your parents at a young age.” I barely keep the flaring irritation out of my voice. It’s clear that Brynn only wants to protect her sister, but it’s overly cautious responses like this that contribute to Vivian feeling so small. “Vivian told me. My condolences to you as well.”
Brynn takes a half step back, her brows crashing together. “She…she told you.”
“We’ve become friends,” I say, suppressing the memories from last night—of what happened right before I drew that line in the sand.
I’d been able to keep up my confident persona until Vivian had been inches from me.
Then, I’d completely forgotten who I was supposed to be.
Vivian’s soft scent dismantled the intricate layers I keep tight around myself until all I could do was trace my fingers up her warm skin and bring my mouth to hers.
It’d been the sweetest torture to pace myself, to give Vivian the gentle first kiss she’d needed.
Even when she’d demanded more, I held back out of self-preservation.
But then Vivian had touched my chest, and I’d been lost, structurally rearranged, and given a soul-satiating sense of belonging in the span of three seconds.
It’d taken all my willpower to step back when all I’d wanted was to possess her mouth with the same ferocity that her fingertips had captured my heart.
My fingers flex as my brain drags the rest of me back to my office.
“Friends?”
I nod, tucking my hands into my pockets.
“Vivian is helping me find ways to connect with patrons who want to improve this library. Dave—or Dr. Prescott, as Vivian calls him—has already offered to match the sum of donations brought in through a fundraising event. I’m working to determine what kind of event would best serve this community. ”
Her scrutinizing gaze slides from my Oxfords to the gloss of my hair. “You’re up to something.”
“Yes.” It’s been a while since I’ve needed to use this much effort to remain cheerfully neutral. “I’m trying to improve the media room. I’d also like to establish a preservation space for Wilks Beach’s historic books, but…”—I lift a casual shoulder—“one step at a time.”
Brynn shakes her head subtly, her right fingers fisting. “You held her hand.”
Vivian hadn’t been lying when she said that word travels fast in a small town. Though I silently curse myself for not thinking about what holding Vivian’s hand must have looked like from outside the conversation, I can’t seem to conjure a single speck of regret over the action.
“Briefly, yes, while she told me about your parents’ deaths.”
Brynn’s facial features soften.
“I don’t mean Vivian, or anyone in this town, harm. I’m simply here to do my job.”
I don’t add that, after last night, I’d reroute the ocean if it’d help Vivian achieve her goals.
The only thing I can’t do is kiss her again.
Brynn opens her mouth as if to retort, but I’m rescued by Trudy knocking and then cracking open the glass door. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s urgent.”
“You shouldn’t come to the library smelling like crab cakes and cigars,” a woman’s brassy voice drifts through my office door. It sounds like she’s shouting from downstairs.
Judith and Bonnie have abandoned their project and are leaning over the short half wall that separates the upstairs reading area from the first floor.
“Yeah, well at least I don’t smell like an overgrown hothouse,” a man’s voice retorts.
“People like flowers!”
“People like cigars!”
“You better get down there before they start throwing chairs,” Trudy says, worry etching the subtle lines that bracket her hazel eyes.
I slip past both women, thundering down the stairs and arriving on the main floor just in time to catch a fluttering hardback mid-flight.
A bleach-blonde woman—whose head was the book’s intended target—snatches up a corner-gnawed board book from a nearby reshelving cart and holds it aloft.
I stop her heavily perfumed forearm with my open palm, halting her throw.
“That’s enough! I don’t know what’s going on here, but it stops now.” My voice is entirely too loud for the library, but tossing books like they’re opened pudding cups in a cafeteria food fight is completely unacceptable.
Carol Cook snorts from beside the circulation desk. “It will now that you’ve acknowledged these idiots.” She leans heavily on the desktop to use her cane to point at the tank-top clad man. “These two just need to brawl it out publicly every few weeks or so.”
As if Carol’s words had been a switch, remorse floods the man’s face. He rubs a hand over his unkempt beard, stepping forward. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll ease up on the cigars.”
The woman crosses her arms over her mesh swimsuit cover, tucking the board book against her side and looking away with a defiant chin lift.
“Honey, angel. What I gotta do? I’ll do anything,” he pleads, moving forward.
“I’d kick them out before they get to the next part if I were you.” Carol’s tone is sharp with warning.
Not wanting to know what the next part entails, I extend my palm, pinning the woman with a stare. “Please exit the building.”
Her glittered fingernails slap The Very Hungry Caterpillar into my hand before she runs toward the man she’d just tried to maim. When she jumps and twines her legs around the man’s torso, I get an idea of what’s coming.
“Outside, please!”
They listen but while devouring each other like starving piranhas. A nearby mother attempts to cover the eyes of her two children while the amorous couple slams into the side of the automatic door before finally stumbling out.
I set the board book on the circulation desktop. “Who in the name of—”
“Karen and Todd,” Carol cuts me off with a disapproving huff.
“You’d think since they’re both pushing fifty, they’d know better.
Usually, they keep their antics tethered to the bar, but there must be some serious tumbleweeds in the romance department if they felt the need to have it out at the library. ”
Bile flicks the back of my throat at her colorful description, but Carol simply shrugs. “Marriage is long and hard. You’ve got to spice things up from time to time.”
When all I can manage is to blink, a slow smile curls her mouth, causing the hairs on my neck to stand on end. “I can’t believe I’ve bested Mr. Charm. What? No witty retort? No appeasing sentence to smooth things over?”
“Excuse me?” Even when I’m saying the words, I straighten my spine, even my facial expression, and mentally run through the last few seconds to see exactly where I let my veneer lapse.
Carol waves me off. “Never mind about that. What did you think about my fundraising idea?”
The rest of the day continues with the same strange trajectory.
A patron comes in looking for a lost wetsuit, which, oddly, Patricia had set aside for him last week.
Two misguided seagulls find their way into the stacks, and it requires the five of us on staff to coax them outside with croutons from my lunch.
A pair of teens decides to use the staircase as a rehearsal space for the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet , but I can’t bring myself to stop them because 1) it’s literary related, and 2) their portrayal is surprisingly moving.
By the time I’m wrapping my hands for my evening boxing class, I give myself a mental high-five for keeping it together, especially since, every three seconds, I’m distracted by the memory of Vivian’s breathy sigh against my mouth, or the feel of her curls draped over the back of my hand, or how her incredible magnolia-coffee scent seemed to seep into my skin.
“Dude.” A man with curly brown hair playfully knocks me in the shoulder with his gloved hand. “I heard you got our Vivian to laugh last night. Usually, I’m the only one who can make her laugh in public. I’m impressed.”
My exhausted brain can’t recall this man’s name. I’ve been memorizing the names of the other gym members when the owner yells at them—something she’s fond of doing. We’ve been partnered up before, but this is the first time he’s spoken to me. What’s his name? Nathan? Niel?
“Noah! Less chit-chat, more hitting. You should already be on your bag.” Geneva’s sleek pony-tail swings as she turns to harass two other attendees of the popular boxing class.
Noah chuckles. “She yells at me almost as much as my ex does when I try to buy a cup of coffee. It’s not my fault that Brynn’s is the only shop in town, and sometimes I want something nicer than the road tar they brew at the fire station.”
All the pieces fall into place. Noah. As in Brynn’s ex, the former flamed-out professional baseball player turned local firefighter whom Vivian affectionately calls her long-lost brother-in-law.
“That’s something we have in common.”
Noah’s eyebrows rise a second before his shoulders bounce in a casual shrug, lifting the WBFD logo on his ocean-blue t-shirt. “Makes sense she’d lay into you.” He begins to warm up on the bag. “She warned us you were one of those mainlanders weeks ago.”
A spiny black sea anemone pricks at my temple. “It was Brynn who told everyone to give me the cold shoulder?”
Noah nods to the bag, placing a few well-targeted hits dead center. “She’s incredibly protective not only of Vivian, but this town.”
I slip on my gloves, switching spots with Noah as he holds the bag. “You’d think she’d get to know me before making a judgment.”
Noah chuckles, bracing punches that are much too hard for a simple warm-up. “Brynn shoots first and apologizes later. Actually”—his gaze drifts to the exposed metal cross-beams above us—“she isn’t big on apologizing either.”
“Sounds like a real peach.”
“Careful.” Noah’s sharp tone draws my attention.
The fire in his gaze reminds me that I never speak ill of anyone in public, especially when I don’t know everyone’s alliances.
Suffice it to say, I might as well be an island here.
“Sorry, man.”
Noah’s jaw visibly loosens. “It’s fine.”
We’re quiet for a few punches before he adds, “I know what it’s like being at the receiving end of Brynn’s wrath. It isn’t an easy place to be.”
I stop. “How’d you get back on her good side?”
He twists his lips. “I wouldn’t say—
“Noah! My chickens cluck less than you do. Shut it!”
Noah surprises me by shaking his head at Geneva before sticking out his tongue. Geneva growls, low and animalistic, making the two women on the bag next to us shudder.
“Aren’t you worried that she’ll disembowel you?” I ask quietly once Geneva’s impaling gaze focuses elsewhere.
My first few weeks in class, the tough-as-steel gym owner put me through my paces, working me twice as hard until one night she simply nodded and treated me the same as everyone else.
Noah’s mouth tips at the corners. “Mom would never allow it.”
My clarifying question is cut off by Geneva calling out our strike patterns with the threat of weighted burpees upon anyone who utters a syllable until the end of class.
Wisely, Noah and I seal our lips. But as soon as we’re dismissed, I’m asking my new friend if he’d join me for a beer at Bayside Table.