33. Finn
FINN
“ W here are you?” Jillian asked. I pressed my phone to my ear as I hurried down the hall. “The interviewer is ready for you. We finished with X a few minutes ago.”
“On my way to you now. Just got out of an investor meeting.” Oscar nominations were due out at the end of the week, and Jillian wanted us to have a response prepared. Well, two responses.
One thanking the Academy for Every Day ’s nominations and another graciously thanking the cast and crew for their hard work and reaffirming our belief in the project in the event that not a single nomination rolled our way.
I didn’t know how that could be possible judging by the response to the film—I hadn’t felt pride in my work like this in years—but I appreciated Jillian wanting to be prepared.
“We shouldn’t need you for more than a half hour,” Jillian was saying.
“Can you cut it down to twenty minutes?”
“Can you get it right on the first take?” she challenged .
I smirked, hanging up, but slowing as I heard a familiar voice. That sounded like…No, it couldn’t be. I inched toward the conference room, spying through the crack where the door had been left open, my eyes narrowing.
“I never stopped caring about you,” X said, reaching for someone. “I thought going our separate ways was the best decision for us given the circumstances, but I was wrong. And I think we owe it to ourselves to give this another shot. We can go as slow as you want.”
“Slow sounds perfect. I’d like to rebuild this and see where we go.”
I barged into the room. “Mom?” I said, the word coming out harsher than I’d intended. I was just shocked—and a little frustrated—to find her holding hands with X, hearing him go on about his feelings . “What are you doing here?”
She released X, turning to me, a soft smile on her face. “Hello, love,” she said. “I meant to surprise you later. Liam thought it would be nice to have the whole family in town for the Oscar nominations this week.”
“But what are you doing here ? At the studio? With X…Is he bothering you?” My eyes narrowed in X’s direction, a surge of protectiveness washing through me. I lifted my finger, pointing straight at him. “She doesn’t need you wasting her time, trying to justify why you dumped her.”
“No, no, no,” Mom hurried to say as she stepped in between me and X. “Sweetheart, I came to meet X for lunch. I wanted to talk to you before now, to tell you that?—”
“Tell me what?” I grumbled. I didn’t like where this was headed.
Mom licked her lips, but X stepped forward to take her hand. “Your mother and I are…we’re…well?— ”
“We’re getting back together,” Mom interrupted, her words spoken with a surprising amount of conviction.
“You’re…what?” I demanded, feeling like I’d just walked into an alternate reality.
X looked a little stunned himself. “You’re sure this is what you want, Cathleen?”
Mom nodded, chuckling as she touched his cheek. “I guess I figured we’d iron out the details over lunch first, but the truth is…Yes, this is what I want. Like you said, we owe it to ourselves to see where this goes.”
I rubbed my eyes. In what universe did that make sense? “Mom…Why?”
“X apologized,” Mom said, dropping her hand from X’s cheek and wrapping it around his forearm. “We’ve talked… been talking for a few weeks now.”
“A few weeks?”
“Since just before Christmas,” Mom said, “when we saw each other again at the?—”
“Premiere,” I finished for her, all the pieces clicking together.
“We didn’t know where we stood, but we decided to see if we could find a way back to each other, and I think we have.” Mom looked into X’s eyes, her gaze softening. “X has committed to doing better this time. We’re both going to do better.”
“We are,” X agreed. “No more sneaking around. No more secrets.”
I shook my head. “This is a bad idea?—”
Mom released X and held her hand up, silencing me.
“I understand your concerns, Finn. And please don’t think I’m taking them lightly.
I love you, honey. But this is my decision.
” Her voice was calm, steady, as she straightened up beside X.
“And this might be harder for you to understand, but at my age, I don’t want to waste any more time.
I don’t want to have regrets about all the chances I didn’t take. ”
“I…” What more could I say? Mom was an adult. Her own person. I couldn’t dictate who she was with, whether I approved of X or not. At most, all I could do was say it was him or me, and I had no guarantee I’d come out the winner in that contest.
So if I wanted to be a part of my mom’s life, if I wanted to hold on to what little relationship we’d started to rebuild, I was going to have to accept her decision. Because that’s what my job was, wasn’t it? To love her through all the mess.
I sucked in a hard breath, releasing it slowly as I glared at X. “I promise not to interfere in this ,” I said. “Actually, I’d mostly like to not think about it.”
My mother chuckled.
“But,” I said firmly, focusing on X, “if you hurt her again, I swear to?—”
“I understand,” X said, interrupting me. “But you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I’m always going to worry about that.” Because that’s what my family did. “But it would be nice to not want to punch you in the face every time I see you on set for our next movie.”
“So that’s still on?” X asked.
“There’s a pile of scripts on my desk waiting for you to review.” I reached my hand out to shake his. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.
X smiled a bit, releasing my hand. “Guess I’ll see you on Monday. ”
“Guess you will.” I glanced at Mom. “I’ll see you later at Liam’s. Can’t wait to see the look on his and Connor’s face when you tell them.”
Mom rolled her eyes but beamed. “They’ll get on board.”
And they would, because not everything needed to be perfect. “I should get over to my interview before Jillian sends her assistants after me.”
X nodded. “And we’ve got lunch reservations.” He took Mom’s hand, leading her from the room, and the two of them walked off down the hall together. Staring after their retreating forms, I suddenly missed Sierra so viscerally that tightness pulled across my chest.
I knuckled the space between my ribs, willing it away. But I couldn’t. There were so many little reminders of the ways my life was emptier and less colorful now that Sierra wasn’t in it.
I wished she was here now, just down the hall at the costume shop, where I could meet her to steal a kiss in between meetings or tell her about Mom and X.
I wanted to whisk her away for a romantic dinner to celebrate how well Every Day was doing at the box office and ask her opinion on what Hart of Gold should work on next and show her the silly meme Grace had sent me this morning from Connor’s phone.
I wanted to share all these little things with her. But right now, more than anything, I just wished I could hold her hand.
And if I was going to have any shot at that, I needed to repair things between us. My brothers were right. Mom was right.
If I wanted Sierra—and I did—then I needed to embrace the mess and uncertainty that came from loving someone.
I needed to try again.