Finny
Callie: Please act like an adult for five minutes.
Me: define adult
Callie: Not you.
***
The weekend starts as a terrible idea, which is how all the best things in my life usually begin.
It’s supposed to be “low-key.” That was Scottie’s word. Low-key bonding. No pressure. No expectations. Just a cabin, a lake, questionable cell service, and enough alcohol to sedate a small village.
Dean called it a “liability nightmare” before we even cleared the Boston city limits.
He spent the entire car ride calculating the distance to the nearest Level 1 trauma center, his brow furrowed as he tapped away at his phone.
Meanwhile, Jenna sat in the passenger seat applying glitter sunscreen to her collarbones.
Like, actual glitter.
“For safety,” she claimed.
I think she meant morale. Or maybe she just wanted to be visible from space in case we actually did get lost in the woods.
By the time we arrive at the cabin in the mountains, the sun is already dipping low over the water, turning the lake into something unreal.
The first drinks happen too early. The second happen because Dean “doesn’t trust the vibes” of the local wildlife and feels we need a chemical barrier against the elements. By the third, we’re all unhinged.
“I’m telling you,” Brick says, leaning over the edge of the dock, squinting at the water. “The fish are judgmental here. I saw a bass. He looked at me like I owed him money. Like he knew I didn’t tip the valet at the rink last Tuesday.”
“Fish don’t have a concept of currency, Brick,” Ivy sighs, leaning into Callahan’s side.
“This one did,” Brick insists. “He had a very corporate glare. He looked like Scottie when she’s about to tell a GM their offer is ‘cute but insulting.’”
Noah is sitting in one of the chairs with a notebook balanced on his knee because, apparently, some people bring field journals to weekend drinking trips. He watches Brick with the fascinated concentration of a biologist observing a particularly loud species in the wild.
“For the record,” he says carefully, adjusting his glasses, “bass don’t actually possess the neurological structures necessary to experience moral judgment.”
Brick blinks at him.
“Buddy,” he says solemnly, “that fish absolutely judged me.”
Noah opens his mouth, clearly intending to explain why that is scientifically impossible, then looks around the fire pit.
Scottie is already laughing. Ivy has hidden her smile behind her drink. Dean has pinched the bridge of his nose like he’s anticipating collateral damage.
After a long beat, Noah closes the notebook with an audible snap.
“…I’m beginning to understand that factual accuracy isn’t especially valued in this social circle.”
“Growth,” Jenna announces proudly, raising her glass toward him. “He’s adapting.”
“No,” Noah replies. “I’m documenting.”
“See?” Nico says, pointing at him. “He’s one of us now.”
Noah sighs with the weary resignation of a man realizing he’d somehow been adopted by absolute lunatics. “I continue to view that as an alarming development.”
The air turns cold as the stars begin to punch through the velvet sky, but the fire pit is roaring, fueled by Callahan’s quiet efficiency.
Jenna is currently narrating her own emotional arc like she’s the star of a documentary no one actually asked for.
“And here we see the publicist in her natural habitat,” she intones, swirling her drink. “Free from the shackles of her ex-husband’s ego. Observe the glitter. It is her armor. It is her truth.”
She says it casually, but the word ex-husband hangs in the air for a fraction of a second too long.
I catch the look Scottie and Ivy exchange—quick, sharp, and loaded with the kind of sisterhood secrets that could probably topple a small government.
Jenna doesn’t seem to notice; she’s too busy trying to show Brick how to take a ‘candid’ photo of her against the sunset. None of the guys notice either, or if they do, they’re smart enough to stay silent.
Then, the alcohol takes a sharp turn toward the chaotic.
“Skinny dipping,” Scottie says.
“Absolutely not,” Dean says. “The temperature of the water is currently hovering at ‘Instant Cardiac Arrest.’ Also, the liability of a group of professional athletes drowning in the nude is—”
“Oh, shut up, big guy,” Jenna squeals, already undoing her shoes and tossing them onto the grass. “I need a spiritual cleansing. I need to wash away the scent of the league’s PR department.”
Ten minutes later, I’m standing on the dock in nothing but my dignity—which is already compromised because I’m shivering so hard my teeth are playing a percussion solo.
Scottie looks at me like she knows exactly what she’s doing to my brain. She’s standing on the very edge, her silhouette sharp against the moonlit lake, looking like a literal siren before she dives in with a grace that makes my heart stop.
I follow her.
The cold shocks a sound out of me that I will deny under oath—a high-pitched yelp that definitely sounded like a trapped walrus.
“You okay, Finn?” Scottie shouts, surfacing and shaking her hair back.
“I am… experiencing… a very cold death!”
We swim in chaotic loops, the rest of the group a blur of splashes and shouting in the dark. Brick and Nico attempt a synchronized cannonball that results in a sound like a car crash and a lot of uncoordinated flailing.
Eventually, the cold wins.
We scramble back to the cabin, dripping and gasping, wrapped in oversized towels. The fire is still going, but the lure of the bedroom—and the localized tropical climate of our space heater—is stronger.
The door to our room clicks shut, and the noise of the house disappears, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic sound of our breathing.
Scottie is shivering, her skin pale and glowing in the moonlight filtering through the pines. She drops her towel, standing there in the middle of the room, completely unashamed, her eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burns hotter than the fire pit.
“You’re still staring, O’Connell,” she whispers, stepping into my space.
“I told you. I’m a goalie. I track the target.”
I reach out, my hands finding her waist. Her skin is ice-cold, but the heat between us is instantaneous. I pull her flush against me, my mouth finding the damp, sweet curve of her neck.
She lets out a low, needy moan, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her nails tracing the muscles of my back with a possessive, frantic hunger.
“I’m freezing,” she breathes against my ear, her teeth grazing my lobe. “Fix it, Finn.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
We collapse onto the thick sheets, a tangle of heat and desperate limbs. My hands roam over her, claiming every inch, from the curve of her hip to the small of her back.
I slide into her, the connection so intense it feels like the world outside the cabin has ceased to exist. We move together in the quiet, the only sound the rustle of the sheets and the ragged, beautiful noise of us finding our rhythm.
She pulls me closer, her legs tightening around me, her eyes fluttering shut as she loses herself in the friction and the flame. I bury my face in the crook of her neck, my breath coming in short, sharp bursts.
She lets out a sharp, breathless cry, her body trembling under mine as the tension snaps, sending us both spiraling into the dark.
We lie there for a long time afterward, tangled in the blankets, the silence of the woods wrapping around us.
“You’re a very good anchor, Finny,” she whispers into the darkness.
“And you,” I say, kissing the top of her damp head, “are a very dangerous siren.”
Outside, I can hear Brick trying to convince Nico that he can definitely catch a bat with a butterfly net. The chaos is still there, waiting for us. But here, in the quiet, with the smell of pine and Scottie Reed in my arms, the game is finally, perfectly won.
***
The peace lasts exactly six hours.
I am pulled from a dreamless sleep by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor in the kitchen, followed immediately by Brick’s voice booming through the thin wooden walls.
“IT’S AN EMULSION, NICO! YOU HAVE TO WHISK LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!”
I groan, burying my face in the crook of Scottie’s neck.
“Why is he screaming about chemistry at 7:00 AM?” she mutters, her voice a sleep-roughened rasp that is entirely too attractive.
“He’s not. He’s cooking,” I sigh, pulling the duvet over our heads. “Which, in Brick’s world, is a contact sport.”
A moment later, a sharp, distinct burning smell drifts under the door.
“If they burn down this cabin before I’ve had coffee, I will actually file for a restraining order against the entire roster,” Scottie says, sitting up and reaching for my discarded flannel shirt on the floor.
She tosses it on, the hem hitting her mid-thigh, and begins buttoning it with a grim, practiced efficiency. I tug on a pair of sweatpants before following her into the kitchen.
We emerge from the bedroom to find the kitchen transformed into a disaster zone.
There is flour on the ceiling. I don’t know how it got there, and honestly, I don’t want to know.
Brick is standing over a griddle, wearing nothing but his boxers and his snorkel mask—which is currently pushed up into his hair—while Nico is frantically beating a bowl of batter like it’s a personal enemy.
Dean is sitting at the small wooden table, hunched over his laptop with a look of profound suffering, a literal stack of napkins between him and the chaos.
“I’ve already looked up the cleaning deposit,” Dean says without looking up. “We’ve lost it. It’s gone.”
“MORNING, CASHY!” Brick bellows, flipping a pancake with so much force it hits the ceiling and stays there. He doesn’t even blink. “We’re making O’Connell-style flapjacks! High protein! High stakes!”
Jenna wanders in from the porch, looking reasonably refreshed in a silk robe, still sparkling with last night’s leftover glitter. She’s holding a carafe of orange juice and a bottle of champagne.
“I found the solution to the noise,” she announces, setting them down. “It’s called a mimosa.”
Ivy appears behind her, looking like the only adult in a five-mile radius. She is holding a canister of disinfectant and a pair of tongs. She looks at the pancake stuck to the range hood, then at Scottie.
“I’ve already called for a backup breakfast,” Ivy says calmly. “But until the delivery guy finds this God-forsaken coordinate, we are apparently at the mercy of the ‘Protein Brothers.’”
The chaos escalates when Nico tries to “improve” the pancake batter with a bag of frozen berries.
He rips the bag too hard, and a hail of frozen blueberries explodes across the floor.
Brick, in a misguided attempt to help, slips on a berry and goes down like a felled oak, his snorkel mask snapping and flying across the room into Dean’s lap.
“THAT’S IT,” Dean shouts, standing up.
He grabs a handful of flour—I’m not sure why it was within reach—and tosses it at Nico. It misses, hitting Brick square in the chest just as he’s trying to get up.
There is a heartbeat of absolute silence.
“Oh, it’s a war,” Brick whispers, his eyes widening.
What follows is the most unhinged ten minutes of my life.
Jenna is hiding behind the sofa, throwing blueberries like grenades while somehow still sipping champagne straight from the bottle.
Nico and Brick are using baking sheets as shields.
Even Ivy, the most composed woman ever, loses it when a stray bit of batter hits her cardigan and she returns fire with a spray bottle of cleaner.
I find myself pinned behind the kitchen island with Scottie. She’s laughing—actually, hysterically laughing—wiping flour off her forehead.
“This is the family, O’Connell!” she yells over the fray. “This is the life you wanted!”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I yell back, pulling her toward me.
She’s covered in white powder, her eyes bright and dancing with a joy that makes my chest ache. She leans in, kissing me right there in the middle of the crossfire.
We eventually surrender when the fire alarm finally does go off, triggered by a forgotten piece of bacon. We all stumble out onto the porch, coughing and covered in white dust, looking like a group of ghosts who just lost a fight with a bakery.
Callahan is already out there, sitting in a rocking chair with a cup of coffee he somehow made before the war started. He looks at us—Brick in his boxers, Dean covered in sugar, Scottie in my flannel—and slowly shakes his head.
“You guys are idiots,” he says simply.
“Yeah,” I say, wrapping my arm around Scottie and pulling her close. “Love you too, Callie.”
The lake is still, the air is cold, and somewhere inside, the smoke is clearing. I look at this group—this strange, loud, broken, beautiful family we’ve built—and I realize that the “safe” feeling from last night wasn’t a fluke. It was the new reality.
“So,” Scottie says, leaning her head against my shoulder. “About that breakfast delivery?”
“I think we’re eating granola bars and champagne, Scottie.”
“Fine,” she smiles, closing her eyes as the morning light hits the water. “As long as I don’t have to share your hoodie.”
“You’re wearing my shirt, baby.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Finny. Get used to it.”
I laugh, kissing the top of her head, knowing that for the rest of my life, the chaos will always be this loud, and the love will always be this certain.