12. Finnian O’Connell
Finnian O’Connell
“Finnian, don’t start with the dramatic sighs. I am doing three things at once.”
“You’re doing nothing at once because your phone is dead,” I point out, gesturing toward the black, lifeless screen sitting in the center console.
“We’ve passed six motels in the last twenty miles that looked perfectly fine, Scottie.
Why didn’t you stop at that hotel by the highway?
It had a pool. It had a breakfast buffet. ”
“Because that hotel was booked solid!” she snaps, her knuckles white where she’s gripping the steering wheel.
“I had the reservations for the boutique place. I had them in the file. I don’t know if the cloud didn’t sync or if the system crashed, but they didn’t have our names. I’m trying my best to fix it.”
“Your best involves us driving blind through a dense forest in the middle of nowhere?” I glance out the side window, where the trees are pressing in close, casting long shadows across the road.
“You’re the one who prides yourself on being ten steps ahead of the entire league.
How do you miss an entire hotel booking?
Were you too busy color-coding your highlighters? ”
“Maybe I missed it because I’m doing the work of three people while you sit there and play air-drums!
Maybe I’m tired of being the only one with a functioning brain in this citrus-colored van.
If you’re so damn competent, go ahead. Take the wheel.
Find us a five-star suite in the middle of a tractor pull. I’ll wait.”
“I’m not driving because you snatched the keys out of my hand at the diner and refused to relinquish them!” I shout over the high-pitched, rhythmic rattle of the rear engine.
“To save our lives from your aggressive acceleration!”
“I’m an athlete, Scottie, my reflexes are literally my entire net worth!”
“Well, your reflexes aren’t finding us a bed!” She throws one hand up off the wheel briefly, turning her face toward the side window to hide the look of frustration in her eyes. Or maybe tears.
I let out a long, hard breath through my nose, forcing my hands to loosen where they’re gripping the armrest.
I’m an idiot. She’s stressed, she’s exhausted, and she’s trying to hold the world together with a dead phone and an old van.
Ahead of us, a flickering, weak yellow light appears through the trees. Scottie hits the brakes, the bus skidding on the damp asphalt before she steers it into a gravel lot.
It’s a wooden sign hanging crookedly from a post: The Sleepy Hollow Cabins.
She kills the ignition. The engine gives one last, metallic pop and hiss before dropping into heavy silence. The lot is empty except for an old pickup truck with a missing tailgate.
In front of cabin four, a large cow is tied to the porch railing, idly chewing on a piece of cardboard like it’s a gourmet meal.
“There is a literal livestock animal tied to the porch, Scottie. I have a spine that requires an actual mattress, not a pile of hay and a tetanus shot.”
“It’s a roof,” she says flatly, her voice tight. “I’m going inside.”
She pushes her door open and steps out into the damp, cool night before I can stop her. I sit in the dark cabin for five seconds, rubbing my palms over my face.
By the time I reach the small, cracked concrete porch of the office, Scottie is already walking out, clutching a brass key with a plastic red tag that has the number seven written in sharpie on it.
“One room,” she says before I can ask.
“Great.” I reach down, taking the heavy duffel bag from her left hand. She tries to hold onto the strap for a second, a stubborn, automatic reflex, but her fingers loosen when I give it a gentle tug. “Come on. Let’s just get it over with.”
The walk to Cabin 7 is short, the gravel shifting unevenly under our feet. Scottie stands back as I shove the brass key into the lock. It resists, grinding against the old tumbler, until I put my shoulder into the door and turn the key hard.
The door swings open, and I reach inside, groping along the wall until my fingers hit a plastic switch. A single, bare bulb hanging from the ceiling flickers twice before settling into a harsh, yellow glare.
The room is barely nine feet wide. There’s a laminate dresser with a missing bottom drawer, a small, boxy television from the nineties sitting on a plastic milk crate, and walls made of dark faux-wood paneling that has peeled away at the corners.
And in the center of the room is the bed.
It’s a standard, sagging mattress, draped in a thin, scratchy brown wool blanket that looks older than I am.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say, dropping the bags onto the floor.
Scottie doesn’t move from the doorway. She stays entirely still, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, her eyes wide as she stares at the mattress.
“He said two beds,” she whispers. “He told me it was a double. I asked him specifically.”
“Scottie?” I step closer to her, my brow furrowing. “Hey. You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She takes a sharp step backward, her heel catching on the metal threshold of the door. “I’m just cold. The AC is… it’s just cold in here.”
“The AC isn’t even turned on. It’s eighty degrees in here.” I reach out, my hands hovering just inches from her shoulders. “Whoa, stop moving back. I’m not going to corner you.”
“I’ll take the floor,” she says quickly, her gaze darting to the stained carpet. “I messed up the reservation. It’s my fault. I’ll take the chair. Or I can go sleep in the front of the bus—it’s fine, I can lock the doors—”
“Scottie, stop.” I step directly into her line of sight, keeping my posture loose and non-threatening.
“Look at me. I am not letting you sleep on a wooden chair, and I am sure as hell not letting you lock yourself in a hot van in a dark parking lot. And I’m not sleeping on this floor because I’m pretty sure that carpet is currently growing its own ecosystem. ”
She bites her lower lip, her fingers digging into the fabric of her sleeves.
“It’s one night,” I say, keeping my voice low. “We’ll just share. I will stay on my side, you stay on yours. I won’t even breathe in your direction if it helps.”
She looks from me to the bed, her jaw working as she calculates the distance.
“No funny business, O’Connell,” she says, her voice regaining a bit of its usual, sharp edge. “You stay on your side. If you even think about crossing the midline, I will use my shoe as a blunt instrument.”
“Duly noted. Your shoes are terrifying. I’ve seen what they do to marble floors.” I give her a small, brief smile, trying to clear the air. “Go on. Use the bathroom first. I’ll clear some space for the bags.”
She nods once, a quick, jerky movement, before grabbing her smaller tote bag and retreating into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her with a sharp click.
The second the door closes, I let out a long breath and sink down onto the edge of the bed. The springs give a loud, metallic whine under my weight, sinking down a good three inches in the middle. It’s going to be a disaster for my lower back, but right now, that’s the least of my problems.
The sound of pipes groaning and water running echoes through the thin wall behind my head.
I pull off my sneakers, kicking them into the corner by the dresser, and slide out of my jeans. I pull on a pair of gray athletic shorts, my chest bare against the stuffy heat of the room.
The bathroom door opens ten minutes later.
Scottie steps out, and I look up.
The shirt and jeans are gone, replaced by an oversized gray t-shirt that hangs halfway down her thighs and a pair of black leggings. Her face is clean, her skin pink from being scrubbed, her red hair damp around the edges of her forehead.
Without the makeup and the tailored clothes, she looks smaller. More exposed. Vulnerable.
Like the girl from the sixth-grade diary she was talking about in her speech.
She stops the second she sees me sitting there without a shirt. “Your turn.”
“Right.”
I go into the bathroom, quickly showering and brushing my teeth. The mirror is cracked across the center, splitting my reflection in two.
When I come back out, the room is dark except for the dull, gray light coming from the window unit’s plastic display screen.
Scottie is already in the bed.
She’s pushed herself so far to the left side of the mattress that her shoulder is literally pressed against the wooden wall of the cabin. The scratchy brown blanket is all the way up to her chin, her body perfectly rigid beneath the fabric.
I walk over to my side, the floorboards cold under my bare feet. I lift the edge of the blanket and climb in, the mattress instantly dipping toward the center under my weight.
“Jesus,” I mutter, rolling slightly to the right to keep myself from sliding directly into her.
“Stay on your side.”
“I’m trying, Scottie, but the bed has a literal crater in the middle.
If I relax for a second, I’m going to roll right into you.
” I wedge my right shoulder against the wooden frame on my side, bracing my hip against the edge of the mattress.
“See? I’m on the wood. If I move an inch, I’m on the floor. ”
“Good. Stay there.”
I lie on my back, staring up at the dark ceiling, listening to the rhythm of her breathing.
“You’re going to give yourself a muscle spasm if you don’t relax,” I say.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re holding your breath.”
She doesn’t answer for a long time.
“I don’t like small spaces,” she whispers. The words are so quiet I barely catch them over the drone of the fan.
I turn my head on the pillow, looking at the dark outline of her profile. She hasn’t moved an inch, her face still turned resolutely toward the wall.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I ask gently.
“Because it’s stupid.” She sighs. “And because I’m the one who was supposed to handle the hotel. I should have checked the confirmation twice. I should have known.”
“Scottie, it’s a broken system link. It happens. You don’t have to be perfect twenty-four hours a day. The world isn’t going to end because we have to sleep in a sketchy cabin for six hours.”