7. Finn
Chapter 7
Finn
I don’t know whether to laugh or curse at Uncle Fisher and his rationale. Who finds a young woman in a ditch and drops her off, unannounced, at a guy’s house? The girl is lucky that I’m not some creep. This could be a really bad situation—a deadly one. As it is, she’s safe here, looking disconcertingly adorable in my clothes, which are a few sizes too big.
I don’t know what it says about me that my first thought upon walking into the living room and seeing a total stranger standing there was not, What the hell are you doing in my house? For the first few shocked moments, all I could think about was how pale and scared she looked. Like a baby deer who’s been discovered and doesn’t know if it should run or remain still. It unsettled something deep within me.
I’m still unsettled.
I should have asked what kind of food she liked for breakfast. Or told her to help herself to the food in the refrigerator if she wakes up hungry.
This is why I don’t like having house guests, especially ones that stay the night. It requires planning. Consideration. And far more emotional energy than I care to expend.
Definitely not the night I was hoping for.
All I wanted after a long day of work was to shower and shut off my brain with some cold pizza and beer. Instead, I’m tiptoeing around my own house, cleaning up the remnants of our late-night snack. Rune is asleep on the couch, hugging that fluffy white blanket like it’s a stuffed animal. Even asleep, she looks exhausted and nervous. I hope she didn’t catch a chill, sitting in the ditch for so long. As soon as the thought registers, I push it away with a shudder. I’m not a worrying type of guy. And I don’t intend to start now, just because my routine has been shaken up by an intruder, no matter how captivating those big eyes are.
I check the locks one more time, making sure to bring the spare key inside. I don’t need any other uninvited guests coming in when Rune’s sleeping alone in the living room.
Since there’s very little chance of me falling asleep at the moment, I go into my office upstairs and turn on the desk lamp.
I’ve had a difficult time writing these past months, with almost all of my efforts turning out flat and uninspired. I’ve rewritten scenes from my novel repeatedly, with no success.
Tonight, I’m gong to try something different. Flipping open my laptop, I open a blank document, my fingers flying as I try to capture the vibrant image in my mind that Rune’s unexpected appearance conjured up. There was enough emotion in my house to power an entire novel, which is so atypical.
It takes a surprising amount of time before the words begin to slow from my fingertips. I lean back and scan through what I’ve written, my heart beating a bit faster than usual.
This is…good stuff. Far better than anything I’ve been able to come up with lately.
Eventually, it will all be taken apart and woven into the rich tapestry of inspiration that will ultimately become the final novel in my series.
The one that I haven’t written yet.
The one I’m afraid to write.
It’s one thing to write a book, thinking that a few hundred strangers will read it, maybe a few thousand, at most. But to sell over a million copies, to have my face recognized by complete strangers—I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Actually, I do: it’s terrifying.
Especially when the fanbase seems to have taken on a life of its own. There are fan theories on top of fan theories, each crazier than the next. All of them mess with my head, with the original vision I had for this series. I cut myself off from social media, but the damage has been done: my creativity is paralyzed.
Whenever I try to write, all I can think of are the thousands of fans who are bound to be disappointed by whatever I come up with. My ideas for the finale are nothing like theirs. I keep hoping that if I just take a little more time to plan it out, to think through the details, then it will be okay. I’ll somehow do my readers justice.
Instead, the longer I procrastinate, the more I realize that Liz Gilbert’s theory about muses rings true.
I’m kind of scared mine has abandoned me completely.
The worry makes me feel heavy, but—I glance through my writing from tonight again. There’s a glimmer of inspiration, a thread that connects to an idea I had about a subplot. I jot down a couple notes about a new twist, which would free up a character for a bigger role in the third beat, which I’ve intentionally left blank until this point.
Before I know it, it’s nearing midnight.
But I have something. Something that I can work with. I push away from the desk. It’s late and I still have a trip to pack for. Speaking of—I glance through my inbox, double checking that the reservations are in order for my upcoming trip. Plane ticket, hotel, transport—check. All meetings added to my calendar app, check. And a growing sense of dread just thinking about it.
I don’t mind traveling. It’s the coordination and planning that exhausts me. Especially when I remember that I’ll have to spend some time assisting my unexpected guest with the retrieval of her vehicle tomorrow. I feel a new twinge of concern when I remember how cold her hands were.
I turn up the thermostat a couple degrees.
I think she’ll be warm enough. I gave her the warmest blanket, the one that usually covers my own bed. But, just in case—I get one more from the hall closet and lay it across the arm of the couch, easy to see if she wakes up cold in the middle of the night.
And then I try not to think about the brown-eyed mystery girl on my couch, trying to clear my mind so that I can fall asleep. Slowly, eventually, it works.