39. Finny
Finny
I’ve been sitting at the table for twenty minutes, staring at a box of dry cereal and the light coming through the kitchen window. The refrigerator gives a long, low hum, clicks off, and leaves nothing but the sound of my own breathing.
It’s been eight days since we got off the plane.
Everything is back in the boxes where it belongs.
My hockey bags are stacked by the front door. The mail is piled on the counter—mostly bills and promotional flyers from businesses three thousand miles away that don’t know I’ve been gone.
My dad is back at Riverview, sitting in the green armchair by the nurse’s station in a new pair of brown slippers my mom bought him at the mall.
His lungs are clear. The fever’s gone.
When I went to see him yesterday, he called me Bobby twice—which was my grandpa’s name—but he ate three chocolate donuts and didn’t try to leave the floor, so the doctor said the baseline is as stable as it’s ever going to get.
The Reign medical staff cleared me for full contact on Thursday. The season starts in a few weeks. The training camp rosters are printed. My name is on the top line of the depth chart, right where it’s supposed to be.
And I haven’t seen Scottie since Tuesday morning in the lobby at the office.
We haven’t really talked to one another since the world cracked open at the hospital.
I miss her stupid voice.
When Cal and Ivy showed up at St. Elizabeth’s, they walked right into the room and saw us basically cuddling, stripped of any professional boundaries, but no one had said a single word about it.
Because of my dad’s situation—because of the tubes, the green lines rising and falling, and the quiet panic of that night—they just let it be.
Then, once the crisis passed and we got back to the real world, the conversation somehow fell away, the silence swallowing the whole thing before anyone had to explain what we were doing.
I reach into the pocket of my sweatshirt—the one she didn’t steal—and pull out the rubber band. It’s thick and blue, the kind they use to hold flowers together at the supermarket.
Underneath it is the stack.
Our postcards, packed tight against each other like a deck of cards.
The edges are soft from being shoved into the glove box, some of them smelling of the pine air freshener we bought, others carrying a faint, greasy ring from where a coffee cup sat on the dashboard while we argued about the navigation.
We never opened the envelope.
I don’t even think about it. I just grab my keys off the counter, pick up my phone, and find her name.
I press dial.
She answers on the fourth ring.
***
“You’re late.”
My shoulder bumps against hers as she stops beside me, and for a second, my lungs feel like they’re actually working again.
She doesn’t look at me. She looks at her boots, her toes tapping against a crack in the pavement near the office entrance.
“Dean called me this morning,” she says. “The Reign is offering four years. No-movement clause on the back two, but the salary is weighted so the escrow doesn’t hit the cap for 3 years. It’s a clean deal, Finn.”
“I don’t care about that, Scottie,” I say quietly.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the stack, the blue rubber band snapping against my thumb as I slide it off. I hold them out between us, the cardboard white and yellow against the gray light of the city morning.
“We didn’t finish the deal.”
Scottie looks at the cards. Her lower lip gives one very small, very brief twitch before she bites down on it.
“We shouldn’t,” she says, shaking her head. “The trip is over, Cash. We’re back in the city. You have ice time at one o’clock.”
“We finished the miles,” I say. “We read them out loud. That was the deal.”
She looks at me for three long seconds. When she realizes I’m not going to put them back in my pocket, she lets out a sigh.
“Fine.”
She reaches out and takes the top card from the stack, her thumb catching on the edge where the postmark is stamped.
“Philadelphia,” she starts reading, her voice tight.
“‘The radiator sounds like it’ll explode any second and your driving skills are legally actionable. You sang three verses of that country song about a tractor and you somehow got every single lyric wrong. I had forgotten what the sky looked like without a skyscraper in front of it. Not sick of you yet.’”
I smile, the ache in my chest loosening just a fraction. I turn over my first card—a picture of a diner in Philly.
“‘Your hair is doing that thing where it sticks up over your ear because you slept against the window. You bought trail mix, beef jerky, gummy worms, and three energy drinks and somehow called it lunch. If you die of nutritional negligence, I am not explaining this to Ivy. Also, please don’t eat the gas station egg salad.’”
Scottie laughs.
I close my eyes for half a second. God, I missed that.
“You told me the egg salad was fine.”
“I lied,” I say. “I just wanted to see if you’d actually eat it. Your turn.”
“Washington,” she reads. “‘You fell asleep holding a french fry. I took a picture. Your future political career is over. The motel coffee was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted, the mattress felt rotten, and it rained all afternoon. Still one of my favorite days. Funny how that works.’”
I chuckle, the sound low against the brick wall, and flip over a card. It’s the one from the edge of Charlotte.
“‘You were reading beside the window this morning and the sun kept catching in your hair. I missed three exits staring at you. I keep trying to remember the exact wording of the no-dating clause of our contract, but all I can think about is how much I want to pull over by the creek and see if your skin smells like the wind out here. You’re ruining my focus, Sharky.’”
Scottie’s cheeks turn a deeper shade of pink, her fingers tightening on the edges of her remaining cards until the paper bows slightly.
She clears her throat, looking down. “‘I watched the shadow of the dashboard move across your mouth for an hour. I like who I am when I’m with you and I think we’d be very good at annoying each other for the rest of our lives.
I think I’m in trouble, Finnian. I think the boundaries aren’t working anymore. ’”
We move through them like that, one by one, our voices dropping lower as the stack gets smaller.
“Atlanta,” I say, looking at the blue ink that had smeared when I spilled water.
“‘Every gas station cashier falls a little bit in love with you. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop creating competition.
If someone asked me where my favorite place is right now, I’d probably point at the seat beside me.
Home used to be a location. Lately, it feels more like a person. ’”
She doesn’t answer for a long time, so I take another card.
“Nashville,” I read. “‘You were asleep in the passenger seat when we crossed the state line. I almost woke you up. Then I realized there will be other state lines. Other roads. Other mornings with your shoes on the dashboard and your terrible snacks in the cup holder. I’ve spent a long time being afraid of tomorrow. But sitting beside you, for once, I want to know what comes next. I think that’s what you’ve done to me, Sharky.
I think you’ve made tomorrow seem friendly. ’”
I flip the next one. My thumb covers part of the text, but I know the words by heart anyway.
“Memphis,” I say. “‘You were making coffee this morning and humming under your breath. I don’t know why that moment got stuck in my chest. Maybe because nobody was watching. Maybe because it was just you being yourself. Maybe because I’ve started loving the versions of you that don’t know they’re being loved. ’”
She exhales a shaky breath and picks up a card from her pile.
“Little Rock,” she reads. “‘I keep waiting to get tired of you. Instead, every day I find a new thing to miss when you leave the van. I don’t think I can go back to the office, Finny. I really don’t.’”
My throat feels tight.
We read the notes until I have the last card in my hand. It’s the one from the long-term parking lot at the Denver airport—the one I wrote against the steering wheel while she was inside the terminal. The cardboard is bent at the corner where my palm pressed into it.
“The last one.”
“Read it,” she says.
I turn it over.
“Denver,” I read. “‘I love you, Scottie-girl.’”
Scottie doesn’t move. Her eyes stay fixed on the front of the card, her breath coming in short, uneven puffs.
“I love you,” she says.
The words come out fast, small, and sharp. Like she didn’t mean to let them go, like they just leaked out through the seams.
Then she blinks, her head snapping up, her eyes wide as she looks at my face.
“Wait,” she says immediately, her hands coming up to press against my chest. “No. Wait.”
“No?”
“Well, yes,” she frowns, her brow furrowing in that way that usually precedes a lecture.
“Yes, I love you, Finny—of course I do, don’t look at me like that—but I’m your agent.
I’m Scottie Reed. I represent four starting defensemen and the highest-paid goalie in the Eastern Conference.
We have a contract, Cash. We have a three-year representation agreement with a standard cancellation penalty. We have—”
“Scottie.”
“—we have an entire season starting in a few weeks! We can’t just… we can’t do this in the middle of a contract year! If the league finds out I’m sleeping with a client whose depth clause I personally negotiated—”
“Scottie, shut up,” I say, my voice rising just enough to cut through the panic. “You’re fired.”
She stares at me. Her mouth stays open, her hands still flat against my chest.
“What?”
“I’m firing you,” I repeat. “Effective immediately. As of three seconds ago, you no longer represent Finnian O’Connell.”
“Are you insane?” She takes a half-step back, her eyes flashing. “You can’t fire me! There’s a thirty-day notice period for termination without cause!”
“I have cause,” I say, stepping closer.
I’m a foot taller than she is, but when she’s this angry, it feels like I’m standing at the bottom of a slide.
“I can’t have an agent I’m in love with.
It’s a conflict of interest,” I say, closing the distance between us again until her boots are touching mine.
“Dean has been itching to take over my contract management anyway. He told me at the hospital. He’s got that quiet, terrifying lawyer energy that scares people in a different way than you do.
Let him handle the Reign. Let him deal with the GMs and the trade clauses. ”
“Dean doesn’t know your short-side recovery depth!” she says, her voice cracking. “Dean doesn’t know that you need the left pad shaved down a quarter-inch because of your hip flexor!”
“I don’t care about that, Scottie!”
“Well, I do!” She shoves my chest with both hands, hard enough that I actually have to take a step back to keep my balance. “Because that’s who I am! We couldn’t even live in a van for two months without fighting about the hotels and the radio station! How are we supposed to do this in real life?”
“Good.”
“What do you mean, good?”
“I want to fight with you,” I say, my hands reaching up to catch her face before she can step away again.
“I want to fight with you about the hotels. I want to fight with you about the music in the kitchen. I want to argue about the cap space and the groceries and the way you leave your shoes right in front of the door so I trip over them in the dark. I want to fight with you for sixty years, Scottie-girl.”
She goes completely still under my hands. Her breath catches in her throat, a little hiccuping sound that she tries to swallow.
“I don’t want easy,” I say. “I’ve never wanted easy with you.”
“It’s going to be a nightmare,” she whispers. Her eyelashes are wet. “You’re stubborn. You’re the most stubborn man in the entire world.”
“I know,” I say, my head dropping down until my forehead is resting against hers. “And you’re a pain in the ass most of the time.”
“I am,” she says, her voice thick. “I really am.”
I don’t wait for her to cite another clause. I don’t wait for her to tell me about the league bylaws or the agent certification board. I close the last inch between us, my mouth finding hers.
Her hands slide up my arms, her fingers bunching the fabric of my sweatshirt at the shoulders, pulling me down until there’s no space left between us at all. The cards are trapped between our chests, the stiff paper corners poking through the cotton, but neither of us cares.
When I pull back, her eyes are still closed, her nose a little red where it bumped against mine. She stays quiet for a long second, her fingers still holding onto my wrists, her breathing starting to level out.
But then she pulls her head back just an inch, her eyes opening, that familiar, sharp focus cutting right back through the soft look she just had on her face.
“I’m not a sweet girl, Cash,” she says. “I don’t do the whole domestic, gentle thing.
I’m difficult. I’m precise. I will say things that cut you straight to the bone when I’m tired, and I will absolutely hurt your feelings.
You’re going to look at me six months from now and regret ever wanting to be with a woman like me. ”
My thumbs trace the edge of her jaw. “Scottie, I spent two months in an orange box with a broken window while you re-organized my entire professional existence using a single highlighter. I’ve seen you when you haven’t slept in forty-eight hours and you’ve seen me crying in a hospital. You think your bad attitude scares me?”
“See?” she mutters, though her hands are still hooked into my collar. “We’re literally doing it right now. We’re standing here arguing about whether I’m too mean to love.”
A small, genuine laugh spills out of me.
“Yeah,” I say. “We are. And every single second we do it, I just love you more.”
She lets out a sharp, breathless sound—halfway between a scoff and a sob—and her head drops forward, her forehead thudding right against the center of my chest, exactly where it belonged the whole time.
Her shoulders shake, just once, before she starts to laugh too. The sound is small and wet against my shirt.
“You’re a moron, Finny,” she mumbles into my sweatshirt, her arms wrapping around my waist now.
“Probably,” I say, wrapping my arms all the way around her, holding her so tight her boots almost leave the ground. “But I’m your moron. Even if you’re not my agent anymore.”
“Don’t remind me,” she sighs, her face still hidden against my chest. “Dean is going to ruin your index bonuses. I’m going to have to text him just to make sure he doesn’t let them change the tier structure on the shutout multipliers.”
“Whatever you want, Scottie-girl,” I murmur, kissing the top of her head where her hair is cold from the wind. “Whatever you want.”