35. Finny
Finny
We’re in Denver. The final stop.
“Turn right at the next light,” Scottie says. “It’s up in the hills. A residential street.”
“No motels?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the GPS, which is currently screaming at us to make a U-turn.
“No motels,” she says, looking straight ahead at the asphalt. “I used the agency card. We have a corporate apartment for thirty-six hours.”
When I kill the ignition, the silence that settles over the vintage van is heavy—suffocating, almost. No highway rumble, no rattling engine, no vibration from the rear deck.
Inside, the loft is a masterclass in modern minimalism. The floor is polished gray concrete that shows the white dust from our sneakers, and the kitchen is a vast expanse of marble and stainless steel appliances that look like they’ve never been touched by human hands.
It’s beautiful, it’s cold, and it looks like a stage set for a life neither of us actually owns.
Scottie drops her leather planner onto the kitchen island with a thud that echoes off the high ceilings. She stands there for a second, her hands flat against the stone, looking out the massive glass wall toward the hazy sprawl of the city below.
“It’s huge,” she whispers.
“It’s ridiculous,” I say, walking up behind her and dropping our duffel bags onto the floor near the edge of the bed. I look at the massive six-burner stove. “We don’t even know how to turn that thing on. I’m pretty sure if I touch it, an alarm goes off in Zurich.”
She turns around, a small, nervous smile breaking through her professional veneer. “The fridge is already stocked. The agency handles the concierge service for these places. We’re going to cook something that doesn’t come out of a microwave at a gas station.”
Without the physical barrier of the front seats or the separate rooms of the cheap highway motels, everything we do is exposed.
We start pulling things from the sub-zero refrigerator, our shoulders brushing every time we reach for a vegetable or a block of cheese.
We move around the small perimeter of the kitchen island, arguing over the ingredients—should we roast the peppers or sauté them?—like we’ve done this every Tuesday for five years.
It’s domestic. It’s cozy, it’s small, it’s stupid, and it terrifies me so deeply my fingers are actually sweating against the handle of the vegetable crisper.
I look down at her while she’s inspecting a bunch of basil, her thumb rubbing the green leaves to catch the scent, her brow furrowed in deep, unnecessary concentration.
I love her.
The thought hits me with the force of a body check into the boards.
I’ve loved her since the second week in the van, maybe since the moment I saw her all those years ago, but the word is too big for the space we’ve been living in.
If I say it now, everything we built on the highway might just evaporate.
Tomorrow, I tell myself, watching the way her mouth moves along to the song playing on her phone. Tomorrow. I’ll say it then.
She’s chopping tomatoes for a sauce, her face serious, her tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth the way it goes when she’s reading a three-page waiver.
The domesticity of the whole thing is pressing down on my chest until I can’t breathe.
We’re pretending. We’re playing house in a luxury room, and the sight of her standing there, working around my life like she belongs in it, makes something wild break loose behind my ribs.
I walk up behind her, my bare feet silent on the concrete floor. She doesn’t hear me until my chest presses against her back, the heat of my skin cutting through her white shirt.
She freezes, the knife hovering an inch above a tomato.
“Cash,” she whispers, her breath catching.
I don’t say anything. I reach around her, my large hand covering her small fingers on the handle of the knife. I take it out of her grip and set it down on the far side of the marble board.
Then, I take her by the hips and turn her around to face me.
Her green eyes are wide, dark with the same sudden heat that’s currently humming in my ears. Her hands come up to rest against my chest, her fingers digging into the cotton of my shirt.
I reach down, catch her under the thighs, and lift her straight up onto the cold marble countertop. She lets out a small gasp as the stone meets her through her jeans. Her back comes against the raised counter behind her, leaving her perched securely on the broad surface.
I step right into the space between her knees, my broad chest close to hers as my hands settle at her waist.
“Cash, the food,” she murmurs, her head tilting back against the high kitchen wall as my hands move to her waist. “The stove is…”
“The stove is off, Scottie.”
I slide my fingers under the waistband of her jeans, my thumbs hooking into the denim as I drag the metal zipper down. She gives a small, helpless jerk against the stone as I work the jeans completely free of her legs, leaving them crumpled on the floor beneath the island.
I stay right there, my hands resting on her bare hips, my thumbs tracing the line of her hip bones.
“You’re very quiet today, Sharky,” I murmur, leaning down so my breath brushes her ear. “No lectures on the itinerary? No schedules?”
Scottie swallows hard, her fingers instantly tangling deep into my hair, trying to pull my head up. “Cash, please. Don’t tease me. Don’t do this right now, I can’t—”
“Can’t what?” I whisper against her jaw, my lips dragging down to her throat. “Can’t focus? You looked very focused with the tomatoes.”
“You are horrible.”
I press my mouth to hers, tasting the faint trace of salt and sweetness. She whimpers into my mouth, her hips moving instinctively against mine, seeking the heat.
When I drop to my knees between her feet, she lets out a shaky breath, her hands leaving my hair to grip the edge of the marble island.
The first touch makes her back leave the counter entirely, her breath hitching into a high, broken sound. I keep my hands steady on her thighs, holding her still against the cold marble, letting the heat build between us.
“Oh god,” she gasps. “Cash, you’re—you’re doing that on purpose.”
“Doing what?”
“Being slow,” she cries out, her voice fraying. “Please. Just—please.”
I stay down there, my jaw aching, driving her higher and higher until her thighs are shaking violently against my shoulders.
She’s hiding her face in her hands now, her head shaking against the marble, her entire body locking into a tight wire before she breaks, her breath coming in gasps.
I stand up immediately, my own breath coming in hard lunges. I yank my belt free, pushing my jeans down just enough, my large body casting a shadow over her flushed face.
I catch her by the waist, lifting her slightly off the stone. I press against her first, waiting until she opens up for me. Then, slowly, I push into her.
Scottie lets out a choked, breathless sound, her eyes flying open, locked on mine. Her legs come up around me, her ankles locking behind my back to pull me deeper. The rhythm is unhurried but completely consuming, each push slow and deep, filling her until she’s gasping for air.
“See?” I rumble, my voice thick as I lean down, pressing my forehead against hers. “Still on schedule.”
She lets out a breathless, wet laugh, her hands clawing at my shoulders. “Shut up. Cash, shut up and—”
“And what, Scottie?” I taunt, pulling back until I’m almost out of her before thrusting all the way back in, making her hips lift off the counter. “Tell me what the agency protocol is for this.”
“I hate you,” she whispers, but she’s pulling me closer, her fingers digging into my back, leaving red streaks down my skin. “I hate you so much right now.”
The bottle of olive oil we’d left near the edge tips over with a clunk. A splash catches her bare stomach before the rest runs across the white stone in a widening pool, but neither of us looks at it.
“Cash,” she gasps. “Please, no more talk—”
I catch her mouth with mine, smothering the rest of the sound as the slow pace breaks into something heavy and hard. I give one last, deep thrust, my entire lower body locking as I come inside her.
She breaks a second later, her body shuddering in long, violent waves against mine, her forehead slamming into the hollow of my neck as she whimpers, her breath hot and wet against my collarbone.
I pull back and adjust my clothes. Scottie stays on the counter, her legs dangling over the edge, her hair a massive, knotted nest around her shoulders. Her jeans remain crumpled on the floor beneath the island.
She looks down at the pool of oil, then at the half-chopped tomatoes, and lets out a soft, tired laugh that sounds like a sigh.
“We ruined the dinner.”
“The dinner was too complicated for us anyway,” I say, reaching over to grab a dish towel from the handle of the oven. I gently drag the cloth across her bare stomach, wiping away the streak of oil before I help her slide down off the marble.
Her knees give out the second her feet hit the floor, and I have to catch her by the elbows to keep her upright.
“My legs don’t work,” she says, leaning her forehead against my chest.
I wiggle my eyebrows. “That’s because Gary Potts is a professional.”
***
Twenty minutes later, freshly showered and wearing my clothes, Scottie is sitting on the massive white sofa. She is curled against my side, her feet tucked beneath my thigh, her eyes fixed on some old black-and-white movie playing on the massive television screen against the wall.
“So,” I say, resting my arm along the back of the sofa and tugging a strand of her damp hair. “Where do they live?”
“Who?”
“Gary and Bernadette. Obviously.”
She hums. “Well. Bernadette definitely wants a townhouse in Boston. Somewhere with brick walls and a heater that doesn’t click every five minutes. She wants a little coffee shop on the corner that has those almond croissants she likes. The ones that taste like pure butter and sugar.”
“Sounds expensive,” I rumble, my thumb tracing the slope of her shoulder. “Gary doesn’t do townhouses. Gary lives in a vintage van down by the harbor. Free parking. No landlord.”
“Gary is a caveman,” she counters, looking up at me, her eyes bright with that familiar, mocking glint. “Bernadette refuses to live in a vehicle that smells permanently of old hockey gear and stale gas station coffee. She has standards, Cash.”
“Gary has standards too,” I say, nudging her shoulder with mine. “He has a very specific organizational system for his paper bags. And he likes the van. It comes with a very hot companion.”
Scottie’s smile softens, turning into something a little quieter, a little more tired. She reaches down, her fingers tangling into mine where my hand rests on her knee.
“Bernadette would compromise on a shared apartment. If there was a yard. Or at least a big window.”
“Does Gary get to keep his tools in the living room?”
“Absolutely not,” she laughs. “He gets a corner in the hallway. And he has to take a shower that stays hot for more than four minutes before he’s allowed on the furniture.”
“Sounds terrible,” I murmur, pulling her closer until her head rests under my chin. “He’d hate it.”
“He’d love it,” she whispers. “He’d get to see his companion every day.”
Both of us know the lines we aren’t supposed to cross.
We both know that by nine o’clock tomorrow morning, she is my representation and I am her client. The contract dictates the boundary, and Boston is where the boundary lives.
But right now, in the quiet of this room in Denver, the future feels like something we can actually touch.
I look at her face in the pale blue light of the window, her red hair spread out across my chest.
I love her.
The words are right there, right at the back of my teeth, solid enough to choke on.
I know the rules. I know exactly why we shouldn’t do this, why the agency would pull her off my account the second they found out. But looking at her now, none of those boundaries feel heavy enough to stop me.
Tomorrow, I think, closing my eyes as I pull the blanket over her shoulders, my fingers finding hers under the linen. Tomorrow morning, before the practice starts. I’ll say it then.