Chapter 29
Cassidy
Finn spends the entire next day acting like he can distract me from what’s going to happen this evening.
After coaxing me into the bathroom to shower, changing out all the bedding without complaint, and letting me fall asleep cuddled under his wing, Finn lets me sleep in until a ridiculous hour, then has breakfast ready in a sparkling clean house.
I eat my pancakes morosely. I feel bad—Finn clearly thought orgasms until I couldn’t remember my own name and plenty of sleep and sugary breakfast food would fix me. And it does help, I won’t lie. But nothing is going to erase knowing what’s coming tonight entirely from my brain.
The town meeting will take place in the school cafeteria at exactly six p.m. I’ve been to plenty of these before, so I know how they go. But this one is different. This one is a looming nightmare I can’t escape.
Caroline was kind to me last night, and said she thought I belonged here. The twins were kind to me a few days ago. People like me, I remind myself over and over. This isn’t hopeless.
But it’s a long-shot. They can like me and still think that humans don’t belong here.
“I have work in a bit,” I murmur, checking the clock as he watches me push around the last few bites of pancake.
“Call out.” I’m already shaking my head, but Finn continues, cajoling. “Everyone would understand you taking today of all days off. Call out. Let me help you relax.”
“Work will keep me distracted,” I say, although to tell the truth, that’s probably not true.
Busy days with customers consistently coming through keep me somewhat distracted.
I suppose today might be like that, considering the way people love to gawk at the center of gossip.
But most days, there’s plenty of room for me to be alone with my thoughts while at work.
“I can keep you distracted,“ he huffs.
I raise an eyebrow. “I genuinely enjoy having sex with you, Finn, but I am sore. You will not be keeping me distracted.”
Sore is an understatement. I feel fucked open still. I woke up and found his come on my thighs because it had trickled out of me during the night, even though he made me take a shower. I’ve never felt so used and cherished at the same time.
“I know ways to distract you besides with my dick,” he grumbles, then pauses, tilting his head. “Are you in pain?”
“Not pain. But I need a break,” I tell him, trying to reassure him. I don’t want him to think I don’t want sex anymore.
“The second bathroom has a bath, right?” he asks out of nowhere.
I blink. It does have one of those shower/tub combos. “Why?”
“Because I think you’ll feel better if you take a bath. A long one. I’ll bring you snacks. I can sit in there with you if you want. We can watch one of your rom-coms. Show me what’s next on the great list of movies I need to see.”
He’s teasing me, but he’s also being earnest. “You cleaned the whole house, made me breakfast, let me sleep in—not to mention made me come my brains out—and now you want to sit next to me on the hard floor while I take a bath and watch movies that I know full well you don’t enjoy as much as I do? Why?”
“Because it makes me happy to see you happy. I like when you feel good, Cassidy. It’s that simple.” He stands and clears our plates, apparently thinking that the conversation is done and there’s nothing more to add.
And really, is he wrong? I don’t get it.
No, that’s not true—I do get it. It makes me happy to see Georgia happy, so I’d watch TV shows she liked, play games she liked, eat food she liked.
It makes me happy when Finn is happy, so I’m sure I’ll find plenty of things to do to capitalize on that.
I’m just not used to people doing it for me.
But Finn is already going through the cabinets for snacks, so I take a deep breath and force myself to accept that it’s real.
“I’ll make the call,” I murmur, pulling out my cellphone as he makes a plate for me.
After my bath, Finn dries me off with gentle, adoring movements. Then he has me pull on my bathrobe and nothing else, and sets up another movie while we eat lunch in the living room.
But eventually, it’s time to get dressed. I stand in our bedroom, staring at my dresser drawer, and contemplate what to wear. Should I put on my khakis from work? Another dress?
No, I eventually decide. Town meetings have never been a formal event before and I’m not going to make today one just because I’m scared. I’m their neighbor, not a well-dressed stranger trying to audition for the role. They can see me as their neighbor or they can see me as nothing.
So, with jean shorts, a Hearthstone School District t-shirt I stole from Georgia last year, flip-flops, and my wedding ring, I head downstairs.
I take in Finn in the living room, examining my old mural on the wall until he hears me. He turns and smiles. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I quip, straightening my shirt as I walk up to him. I’ve done my best not to think about it all day, but it’s all coming back now. My chest feels too tight.
I’m not actually being thrown out of town, I remind myself. I’m married to Finn. Assuming he wants to stay married to me regardless of how this goes—and I do believe he does—then at worst we’ll move into his apartment above the workshop together. We’ll figure this out. This is not the end.
I look around my home. I know logically that it’s not like I’ll immediately be thrown out if the vote doesn’t go my way, but I get the sinking, horrifying feeling that I’ll never see this place again.
Where is Georgia going to come home to, if I lose this house? She’s so young; it’s not fair for her to lose her childhood home yet.
“Hey.” Finn takes my face in his huge hands, shutting out the world and tilting my head so I can only look at him.
“Cassidy. Wife. Look at me. Listen to me: tonight is going to be fine. We’ll be back here later tonight, secure and happy knowing that this house is yours forever.
No one will take this place, alright? I won’t let them. ”
“You can’t control everything, Finn.”
“This one I can,” he says enigmatically, stroking his thumbs over my cheeks before stepping back. “We need to go now, but I need you to say you believe me. This is your house. You will be back here. No one can take it from you.”
I force a deep breath. I always told Georgia you couldn’t go into things expecting to fail, because that only caused the failure. I have to treat this the same. “I believe it,” I tell him. Another deep breath. “I believe it.” There we go; now it sounds almost sincere.
He takes my hand and we walk outside. He lifts me up so we can fly, beating his wings and getting ready to go when a voice calls out, “Finny!”
I freeze. “Finny?” I murmur, testing the name.
“Not a sexy name for my wife to call me,” he returns, just as quiet as he turns us toward the two giant gargoyles lumbering toward us.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Delaney,” I say, mortified that I have to face the couple whose son married me without telling them first, without inviting them, and for nefarious reasons.
It doesn’t matter that the marriage wasn’t real then and is now; any way you slice it, I’m sure they’re not my biggest fan.
And it doesn’t help that I’m in Finn’s arms, being carried around like a child.
Mr. Delaney is as reclusive as his son is with everyone but me, but Mrs. Delaney is a social butterfly.
She loved to check in on Georgia when she was young and playing outside, and she gave me a lot of tips for caring for my plants in the garden beds before I knew what to do with them.
She also cooked us so much food during my first few months here.
Dishes would show up sometimes, left on our porch when we were busy.
Other times, she’d knock and talk to Georgia and give me a minute to breathe.
She always knew which one I needed without ever asking.
I’d hate for her to hate me now, but I can’t see what else she could think. It’s her son’s life I’ve messed with.
She smiles and stops a few feet from us, her husband coming up behind her. “Hello, dear. You look lovely, by the way. I keep telling my son that he’ll get nowhere hiding you from us. We should do dinner tonight.”
“Mom,” Finn groans, sounding much younger than his actual age for a moment.
“What? You don’t get to keep her to yourself forever, Finny. She’s your wife. She’s family now.”
Family. Fuck. I refuse to start crying before we even get to the bad parts of the town meeting, but Mrs. Delaney seems to be trying to make it happen anyway.
“I’d love to do dinner,” I murmur. There. Simple. We are going to have dinner because I married their son, and I’ll still be here tonight so I can have dinner. And if I keep acting like I believe it, maybe it’ll be true.
“Good. Do you have any allergies, dear?”
“You’re going to make us late, Mom,” Finn interrupts, squeezing me tighter.
“Are you coming to the meeting?” I ask.
“There’s an important vote today,” Mrs. Delaney says, nodding her head. “And I will not be letting them do anything to hurt my daughter-in-law.”
Daughter-in-law. I intellectually knew it was the right word, but it’s so weird to hear her say it. She’s so calm, so accepting about everything that’s gone down.
I’m a little choked up again. I swallow so I can tell her, “Thank you, Mrs. Delaney.”
She clucks her tongue. “You’re family now, dear. You and Georgia both. So it’s Sarah. And that’s Pat. And we’re so happy to have you.”
“We need to get moving,” Finn warns. “We’ll meet you there?”
Pat waves us off. “Don’t let us stop you,” he says. The man really does look like his son, just with hair gone gray. It’s like looking at Finn in thirty years.
I want that. I want thirty years—more—with Finn. I want to tease him as his hair turns gray and watch what he creates. I want to fight about who’s doing the chores and fly together. I want it all.
And it starts right now. Tonight. Once this is all behind us, then we can start for real.