3. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Finnley
The alarm for my glucose monitor beeps obnoxiously into the silent kitchen. I scowl at my phone from where I’m sitting at the island, head in my hands. I’ve been sitting in this position for the last fifteen minutes, staring at my bank account. Either I have royally miscalculated my spending for the month, or I’m a business owner in the first months of operation. It’s absolutely both.
My glucometer beeps again.
“Shut up,” I say and silence the alert. I know the numbers on the readout are an accurate reflection of what my body needs, but I’ve been diabetic for what seems like one-hundred years, and even though I have been rationing my insulin—hello, minuscule bank balance and shit insurance—I know I’m fine. At least for a while longer.
With a sigh I feel all the way to my toes, I shut the lid on my laptop a little more forcefully than necessary and stand. Crossing the kitchen, I open the fridge and pull out the plastic container I use to store my insulin pens.
There was never a worry about rationing insulin when I was married. I’m not bitter, and I’m not sad we’re divorced. But Jeff had great insurance, and between his trust fund and his position with his father’s steel manufacturing empire, he had more money than God.
One divorce, a busted insulin pump that is out of warranty, and one horrible insurance policy later, every single month is a concerted effort to make sure I balance everything just right, so that I don’t put myself into a coma and drop dead from ketoacidosis.
I’m being dramatic. Mostly.
I can’t afford the premiums for anything better right now. So, I carry my shitty insurance like a chump and pray I never have to use it. But unless I need major surgery or lose a limb, it isn’t much use to me anyway.
I know rationing insulin isn’t ideal—dangerous, even—but in an ideal world, my body would function properly on its own and I wouldn’t be a mid-thirties divorcée. I would also be a five-foot-nine millionaire with a full C cup and legs for literal days.
After adding the needle to the pen, I twist the dial to two-thirds of my typical dose and check my phone one more time. I wait a few minutes before injecting myself, so the cold insulin doesn’t burn like a bitch.
There’s the rumble of a truck outside, and then a soft knock at the door as I push the needle into my abdomen and inject the insulin.
“Come in!” I call. I remove the needle and recap the pen, tossing it back into the container on the counter. I throw away the alcohol wipe and put the insulin back into the fridge just as my friend Wrenley comes waddling into the kitchen, preceded by her pregnant belly.
“I have to pee so bad!” she exclaims, setting her purse on the counter and rushing past me and down the hall to the bathroom.
“Two babies taking up residence on your bladder will do that to a girl,” I call after her.
Her answering, “ That ain’t no shit , ” is muffled by the sound of the bathroom door closing behind her .
I load my dinner dishes into the dishwasher and turn to slide the pizza box across the counter just as Wren comes into the kitchen.
“You hungry?” I ask, knowing Wren has suffered from some horrible morning sickness with her pregnancy and has to eat small meals more frequently.
She swears she’s hungry all the time. And apparently, mamas carrying multiples are more susceptible to morning sickness. So, every time she’s over, I make it a point to try and feed her.
She shakes her head no, though. After putting the pizza into the fridge, I motion for her to follow me upstairs.
Crossing the open loft area to the other side of the house, I almost trip over the pile of laundry in the hallway. Wren snickers behind me.
“Shut up,” I say on a snort and flip on the light in the small office space turned bedroom for my best friend's daughter, Paige.
“Ohhh, that bed is perfect.” Wrenley breathes reverently, rubbing a hand over her swollen belly, while taking in the wood, A-frame style bed against the wall.
I nod. “Right? Hutch did such a good job with it. Paige is gonna flip.” I grin and unfold the new set of sheets I bought with little, pink daisies on them. They perfectly match the coat of light pink paint Wren and I added to the walls last weekend.
Hutch, Hudson’s brother, has his own carpentry business, as well as his general contractor license, and is crazy talented. Hudson asked him to make something special for Paige, hoping it might boost her spirits on the off chance she’ll struggle with the move. Until yesterday, the bed had been sitting unassembled in my garage, but Hutch came last night and put it together for me.
“Did I tell you he’s making bassinets for the girls?” she asks, lowering herself on the folding chair in the corner of the room .
“I can’t wait to see them. If I know Hutch, they’ll be perfect,” I say. “Gonna be a tight fit in the cabin for a minute, though.” I chuckle, tucking the fitted sheet under the edge of the mattress.
“Just for a few months, until the house is done.” She blows out a breath as she stretches her long legs out in front of her and leans back so her messy, blond bun smooshes against the wall behind her. “I’m going to miss it once we move.” A faraway look glazes over her eyes, and I’m pretty sure she’s thinking about her fiancé Hank.
Their cabin in the woods is tiny. It can’t be more than seven-hundred square feet—half the size of this place—but they’ve lived there comfortably together for the last eight months. If the babies weren’t coming, I’m pretty sure they would be content to live there forever.
When Wren moved back to Timber Forge after her granddad’s death, she sold her grandparents’ house. With Hudson’s help, I bought it and opened my bed-and-breakfast, Timber Haven.
My brows draw together when I hear the front door open and footsteps on the stairs a couple of seconds later.
“Expecting someone else?” Wren asks.
I shake my head. “Hudson said he’ll text when they’re close, and I don’t expect them ‘til after ten.”
I move to poke my head out the bedroom door, but as I do, Hank strides into the room, nearly bowling me over.
“Sorry, Finn,” he says, with a hand out to steady me so I don’t fall over. Then, his eyes land on his fiancée propped up in the chair. Her eyes meet his, and I swear I see hearts in them. “You left your water in the truck, Wrennie Girl.” Hank crosses the small room in three long strides and hands her the water bottle. He bends to kiss her forehead and runs a hand over her belly.
“You didn’t have to come all the way back.” She smirks at him. “Finn has water. ”
“I do. A whole tap full. Bottled water, too,” I say from across the room, with a sassy tip to my lips.
“There’s also this thing on the front of the fridge that dispenses it. All you gotta do is stick a cup under there. Push a little button…et voilà!” Wren jokes.
He rolls his eyes. “You two are fucking hilarious.”
Wren and I dissolve into laughter.
“I love you. And thank you, baby,” she says. She tips her head back and offers up her lips for a lingering kiss. He holds his lips against hers so long, she starts to laugh.
I swear they are the sappiest couple I know. They’ve loved one another for half of their lives, and they’ve been completely obsessed with each other since Wren’s move back home last summer. It’s been amazing having my childhood friend living back in Timber Forge. Even if her baby daddy dominates most of her free time.
She wraps a hand around his neck, pulls him in close, and presses her lips to his ear, whispering something. He lets out a long groan.
“You’re gonna kill me, woman.” He kisses her again and she chuckles.
“Get a room, you two,” I tease and turn away, my cheeks turning pink. I love the way they love each other, but they are constantly touching and whispering things to one another, and damn, if I’m not envious sometimes. Ok, all the time.
“Love you. I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Hank says, straightening. He turns his attention to me. “Don’t let this one get on the ladder. No step stools either.”
I throw up a salute. “Yes, sir.”
A giggle escapes Wren. Hank shakes his head before planting another kiss to the top of her head and striding from the room. I’m pretty sure I saw the hint of a smile, though .
“He’s so paranoid,” Wren says once we hear the click of the front door closing behind Hank.
I glance over at her as I jostle a pillow into a pillowcase. I swipe the other pillow off the bed and grab another pillowcase, then toss them to her.
“He’s sweet,” I say, and then screw up my face with a little laugh. “Never thought I would say that about Hank Hayes.”
Wren laughs, too, working the pillow into the case. It wasn’t that long ago that Hank was on the short list to win grouch of the year. His brothers even nicknamed him a ‘grumpy motherfucker.’ But now that Wren is back in his life, he’s seldom grumpy.
“He’s protective. I get it. But sometimes, he drives me crazy.” She laughs. “Yesterday, I was in the bathroom, and I had my earbuds in. So, when he came into the cabin, I didn’t hear him calling out to me. I swear he almost had a heart attack when he couldn’t find me.”
“He didn’t think to check the bathroom? Your cabin is literally the size of a shoebox.”
“Hey!” She chucks the pillow at my head with another laugh. “I guess he didn’t think to, since we have an actual bathroom door now. Just assumed I was missing. I swear he was about to send out a search party.”
“You love how much he dotes on you, though.” I fluff the pillows and shoot my friend a wry smile.
A grin breaks out across Wren’s face. “I totally do.” She looks around and pushes to her feet. “What else can I do?”
“Want to iron the curtains?” I ask. With a nod, she leaves the room to grab the iron and small ironing board from the laundry area in the hall.
I look around the room I’ve painstakingly put together for Paige. I want everything to be perfect.
Hudson’s parents have plenty of room for them, but Hudson was dead set against moving back in with his parents, Duke and Emily. I can’t blame him. He said seeing his dad in his boxers every morning at six a.m. wasn’t something he thought he’d ever recover from.
To have him coming home after all these years is amazing, and truth be told, I wouldn’t mind if they stayed with me forever. We’ve been friends a long time, and I miss him. Sure, living alone has its perks, but I’ve been lonely with a capital ‘L’ since my divorce almost three years ago, and my dating life is pretty much a disaster. Having Hudson around all the time will be a major plus. We just get one another, and my life is better with him in it.
We all grew up together, but after Wren left for college, Hudson and I started hanging out more and have been best friends ever since. In the summers, we’d take one of Duke’s old ranch trucks and just drive, music cranked all the way up. It didn’t matter where we were going or what we were doing, so long as there was music and the wind in our hair, we were content.
Hudson took a gap year after high school, and we were inseparable until he went off to NYU just after his nineteenth birthday. Having him leave all those years ago had been a big change. We’d gone from spending almost every waking moment together to only talking on the phone whenever we could find time. He’d come back home every summer and at Christmas. It was always so nice having him back for a couple of months or even weeks, and it was like no time had passed between us.
After Wren finishes up ironing the curtains, she settles into the couch with a piece of cold pizza, while I vacuum Paige’s new room. When I’m satisfied with how everything looks, I grab myself a slice and sit next to her on the couch. She has her feet propped on a pillow on the coffee table. Her ankles are swollen from being on her feet at the ranch all morning and helping me the last few hours.
“Those are some sweet cankles you got there, babe.” I laugh when she smacks me on the arm .
I take a pull of my beer and a big bite of my pizza. Wren’s eye’s track the movement.
“God, I’d kill for a beer right now.” She sighs and uncaps her water bottle, taking a drink with a grimace.
“Soon, sister,” I tell her. “Finish cooking those babies, and the second they’re out, Hank can get you blitzed, and you guys can have drunken sex on the porch.”
She scrunches her nose up. “The porch?” she asks around a mouthful of pizza.
I swallow a swig of beer and nod. “Yeah, you can’t have sex in front of babies. That’s gotta scar a kid.”
She laughs. “There will be no drunken sex on porches, or otherwise, for at least six weeks.”
I screw up my face. “Oh, that’s right.” I turn and look at her. “Well, that sucks for you.”
“It’s ok. I’m sure I’ll be too tired, anyway,” she says with a shrug.
“Well, you’ve got four more months to fuck like rabbits, then.”
She huffs a laugh through her nose and shakes her head, nearly spitting out her water.
“What? You have more sex than anyone I know.”
“My baby daddy’s hot.” She shrugs again and then grins. “Sooo…are you excited for Hudson to be back?”
A little flutter dances across my belly. The same one I got the night he kissed me. Dammit. I plaster a smile on my face and nod. “So excited. I can’t wait to squeeze him.”
She sets her slice of pizza on her knee and cocks a brow at me with a smirk.
I point a finger at her. “Don’t start.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and huffs. “I’ll stop when you admit there’s something there. ”
My breath rushes out on a groan. “Seriously, it was one kiss. A really good freaking kiss, but it didn’t mean anything,” I say, mostly to convince myself. I tip up my beer, needing to occupy my mouth before I say something else to out myself.
Wren gives me a cynical look. “I’m just saying. Friends don’t kiss on the mouth. Or dry hump.”
I elbow her lightly. “We did not dry hump. And I told you, he was upset. And it was barely a peck.”
Lies. That kiss nearly melted my panties. I was lucky he didn’t use tongue. My ovaries would have dropped right out, while wearing sombreros and dancing the Macarena on the parquet flooring right there in Hudson’s apartment. If he’d used tongue, I absolutely would have dry humped him. But the little wiggle I did on his lap was hardly a dry hump. I barely felt how hard he was.
She eyes me for a second, and I swear she can see right through me. She’s known me for years, and even though she’s only been back in Timber Forge a year, she damn well knows my twitchy eyebrow gives away any half-truth I tell. I reach up to scratch my eyebrow, willing it not to twitch.
My glance flicks to hers. Throat dry, I croak out, “What?”
She scoffs. “You two are the only two people I know who are in a relationship but don’t know it.”
I shake my head in denial. “We are not in a relationship.”
She snorts, shooting me a look. “Maybe not, but you’re always touching each other and picking on each other. You steal his clothes, and you both talk about sex like you’re talking about the weather. It’s like me and Hank, without the actual sex.”
I force nonchalance into my voice and shrug. “We just have a really close friendship.”
Sculpted brows tug down over skeptical brown eyes, then she bites into her pizza. “Ok, whatever you say. ”
My stomach swoops as I think back to that night. I’d been so turned on that when I got back to my room, it took everything in my power to stop thinking about it. I thought about having a little battery-assisted fun, but that just seemed wrong. I could not get into the habit of flicking the bean to thoughts of my best friend’s tongue—or other things—in my mouth.
When we came back to Timber Forge for the holiday two days later, I told Wren about it. I wasn’t going to, but when I saw her, it kind of just slipped out. It was an emotional time, and it happened. Even as small as it was, it was amazing, and I won’t lie and say I don't think about it often, but there is nothing to say. We’re friends. Hudson and I never discussed it again.
Wren’s phone vibrates on the table. She lets out a half whine, half laugh and rolls her head along the back of the couch to look at me. “Wanna get that for me?”
I laugh and lean forward, swiping her phone off the table. “Ginger,” I say and hand it to her.
Settling back against the cushions, she accepts the FaceTime call and Ginger’s face fills the screen. Her shock of curly, auburn hair is pulled up into a perfectly coiffed messy bun. She lets out a low whistle when the video on our end connects.
“Giiiirl, you look beat,” she says.
“Gee, thanks,” Wren says and tilts the phone so I fill the screen, too. “Insult Finn, too.”
“Hey, Ginger,” I say around another big bite of my pizza.
“Hey, Finn. Did you see the changes I made this morning? It should make it easier for you to see any new bookings from the mobile site.”
“I did. Thank you. It looks awesome.”
Ginger is Wrenley’s college best friend from California. She recently quit her longtime position with a big marketing firm in Napa to run her own social media and web design business. She’s extremely talented and she has an exceptional eye for detail.
When she found out I was looking for someone to build a website for Timber Haven, she immediately jumped in to design it for me, and even set up social media accounts, complete with the most beautiful branding. We’ve spent a lot of time on FaceTime the last few months working out all the details. With all the upgrades she built in, it would have cost me a fortune. So, I’m grateful to her.
“What are my two favorite women up to?” she says.
“I came over to help Finn put the finishing touches on the room for Paige. They’ll be here tonight.”
“Oh, shiiiit.” She wiggles her eyebrows up and down, grinning like a psycho. “First time you’ve seen him since he had his tongue in your mouth. You gonna return the favor? Maybe let him get to second base this time?”
I let out a groan, and Wren and Ginger bust up into a fit of giggles. “There was no tongue, and you two suck.” I whack Wren with a throw pillow.
Once they’ve finally composed themselves, Ginger asks, “Where’s that man of yours?” Only her head and shoulders are visible on the screen. She clicks her tongue and calls to her dog, Baxter, and then the sound of kibble hitting a steel bowl fills my ears.
“He’s out running errands,” Wren says.
“I’m surprised he let you out of his sight,” she jokes.
“Oh, trust me, he left me with strict instructions to not let her get on a ladder or breathe wrong,” I say.
Wren elbows me lightly. “Be nice.” I snicker. “The boys with Peter?” Wren asks, biting into her half-eaten piece of pizza.
Ginger’s twin boys, Tate and Jordan, are almost five, and are the cutest little guys I’ve ever met. Well, technically, I haven’t met them in person yet, but they’re coming to visit this summer, and they’ll all be staying at Timber Haven. Paige will absolutely adore hanging out with them.
Ginger rolls her eyes and huffs. “No. He canceled at the last minute. Again .” She’s irritated, but the look on Wren’s face tells me there is more to it.
“Aw, I’m sorry, Ginger. Have you talked to him about it?”
“Not since the last time. I will, though. Something is going on with him. I’m just not sure what,” she says and shakes her head.
I lean in so that my face fills the screen again. I don’t know much about Ginger and her ex, except that they split amicably. But something about this conversation feels private. “I’ll let you know if I have any problems with the website. I gotta go get the guest bed made up.”
Ginger waves goodbye, and I leave Wren on the couch to finish her conversation.