Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
FINN
Whoever is ringing my doorbell like a fucking asshole at seven in the goddamn morning better be in desperate need of assistance or they’re gonna be in for a rude greeting.
“Ring that bell one more time and see what happ—”
Oakleigh stands on the other side of my now open door, wide-eyed.
Her hair is up in a ponytail, a red bow hiding the hair tie holding it all together.
She’s wearing one of those dresses that makes me want to cry—a milkmaid dress, I think it’s called—and red heels.
And the most painful part? The stark red lipstick that is beckoning me like a vampire craves blood.
She doesn’t even wait for me to move to the side and let her in, she simply pushes past me and storms inside like a woman on a mission.
“Come on in?” I say to the vacant doorway.
I close the front door and follow her into the kitchen where she sifts through the fridge like she owns the place.
“I would say make yourself at home, but…”
She still says nothing, choosing to instead take out a bottle of water and down it in ten seconds flat.
She seems … flustered. Like she doesn’t know what to do. As if she only thought as far as getting here and didn’t think past it. Maybe that’s why she was ringing the doorbell so many times so I’d answer before she could back out?
“Cherry?”
She busies herself with crushing up the bottle and even going as far as pretending she doesn’t know where the bin is, pulling open random cupboards until she finds it.
“Cherry.”
She doesn’t even notice me moving closer to her.
“Cherry.”
Nothing.
I grab her by the shoulders, but she keeps trying to move. “Cherry, Cherry, Cherry, hey, hey, hey. Settle down for a second, will you?”
With a huff she finally stands still and I can take in her beauty, even with the frustration on her face and the fire in her eyes. It’s comforting, actually, because to me this is her. This is Cherry.
I move my hands up to frame her face. “You’ve come in here like a hurricane. Is everything okay?”
Her face moves through multiple emotions before landing on feigned nonchalance. “I’m fine.”
“Cherry,” I warn.
She looks up at me, eyebrow raised. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Southwick. I just knew it would be weird to people if we went any longer without seeing one another, so I came over.”
“Uh-huh, sure.” I know she’s hating the smirk that pulls at my lips.
She pushes at my chest, which forces a laugh from me, then she moves around me to the other side of the island, putting some space between us.
I feel the loss of her warmth more now than I have while we’ve been apart.
Possibly because she’s still close enough that I can see the lines of her nose as she scrunches it.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dare.” I lean on the island and watch her.
I take in everything I’ve missed about her in the past week—the way she bites her bottom lip aggressively to stop her saying whatever thoughts pass through her mind; the way she replaces an unwanted smile with a glare in the hopes that it’ll keep that smile at bay.
When I see her become serious, I do the same and decide to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
“I’m really sorry I’ve been away for a while,” I start.
Oakleigh’s head whips up. “You’re sorry?”
“Yeah,” I say with a nod. “You didn’t deserve that kind of behavior from me.”
She scoffs and shakes her head. “Finley, you don’t have to—”
“But I do.” I move around the island, still keeping the space between us that she clearly wants, but simply needing to be nearer to her, nonetheless.
“I didn’t communicate what I needed. I acted rashly and completely flipped out when I should have simply taken the time to think about how you would have meant what you said.
Because once I did, I realized that you could never have been trying to imply what I thought. ”
She watches me with disbelief, her mouth left gaping.
I grab her hand and tug her closer, until her body is flush with mine and I can smell the sweet perfume on her skin.
I hold her in place with a hand on her lower back, but it’s not necessary because she grabs my bicep as if she needs something to keep her close.
Her nails dig into my arm and I welcome the subtle sting.
“Tell me how I can make it better, Cherry.” I lean down and nuzzle my nose against her cheek. My hand slides from her back to her hip and I squeeze. “Just tell me and I’ll do it.” Oakleigh’s breath hitches against my ear and it’s such a sweet sound. “I’ll do anything.”
Her hand whips up to my shoulder and I let my forehead fall against hers, our short breaths mingling. I don’t think she even realizes that she’s nudging her nose against mine. She seems unaware of her feet inching closer.
My blood pumps around my body so quickly that I can hear the buzzing it leaves behind in my ears, the silence around us making it sound twice as loud.
I’ve never felt this way with another woman before. No one has my skin tingling, or electricity thundering down my spine the way she does.
I let my lips get dangerously close to hers. “Tell me, Cherry.”
In a daze, she opens her mouth to tell me, but whatever it is that she’s about to say gets trapped in her mouth the moment Gus walks into the kitchen.
“You guys are coming tomorrow night, right?” he asks, completely unaware of the moment he’s just ruined.
I let my forehead fall against Oakleigh’s once more as a grunt of frustration fills the room.
“For fuck’s sake,” I growl. I place a quick kiss on her forehead before stepping away from her.
I quickly walk around to the other side of the island in the hopes of hiding my growing erection from both of them.
Oakleigh snaps out of it quicker than I do, a quick shake of her head and her usual smile is back on her face as she turns to Gus. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, to the Locke and Key. We’re all going to get drinks. Didn’t Wren tell you?”
I may or may not have a text from my sister that’s remained unread for three days. It might have said something about the Locke.
“Oh, um … yeah, I forgot, sorry. We’ll be there.” The flush on Oakleigh’s cheeks has my chest swelling with pride. She licks her lips and takes a seat on one of the counter stools.
“Cool.” Gus heads to Wren’s room where he roots around for something before leaving the house once more.
“Did you even hear him come in?” I ask.
“He hasn’t been home the whole time?”
“Nope. I’ve been here alone all week.”
Oakleigh winces and I immediately adjust my sentence. “I just mean that Wren’s been away all week so I’ve had the house to myself.”
“Ah.”
“You want a drink?” I open the fridge and pull out a jug of lemonade.
Oakleigh eyes the jug. “Is that Simone’s lemonade?”
“You’re damn right it is.”
“Then do you even need to ask?”
I laugh as I grab two glasses, filling each one with lemonade before passing one to her. She takes a big gulp and groans. “How does she make it so good?”
“I think she adds in a tiny bit of mandarin.”
“She told you?”
I wave my hands in front of me. “Hell no, she likes me, but not that much. That recipe is a close-guarded secret that I don’t even think Nigel knows.”
For a while now, ever since our friendship group pretty much migrated over to Eaglewood, even Oakleigh has gotten in touch with who is who and what is what.
She visits Nigel regularly whenever she’s in town and even stops by the bakery for a lemon and elderflower tart which I think is one of the key ingredients to happiness.
So, she knows that if Simone makes you a jug of her famous lemonade, you better enjoy that shit while it lasts.
We drink our lemonades in silence, the quiet actually kind of therapeutic. A part of me wants to ask Oakleigh why she was so surprised by my apology. She’d looked as if the expression of regret was so misplaced that it had thrown her off completely.
At the same time, however, another part of me wants to just savor the moment; avoid large conversations and just go back to the kind of atmosphere we had during our date before I blew it. If we had a do-over button, I would press it.
“Why did you apologize to me?” Oakleigh asks as she places her empty glass on the kitchen island.
So much for avoiding heavy conversations.
“Why wouldn’t I apologize?” I ask.
She twirls the empty glass around. “I don’t know. Maybe, let’s say, hypothetically, you didn’t do anything wrong. Why would you apologize?”
“Hold on,” I lean forward. “Are you really struggling to simply say that you think I was in the right?”
“I’m not struggling to say shit!”
“Really? So then try and ask me that whole thing without using the word, ‘hypothetically.’”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I will ask my questions how I damn well please!”
God, I’ve missed this woman’s stubbornness.
“You seriously hate the idea of you needing to apologize to me, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t!”
I cross my arms across my chest and a sense of satisfaction weaves its way into my veins as I see her follow the action with a heated gaze.
“Then do it.”
Her head snaps up. “What?”
“Do it.” I take a satisfying sip of my drink. “If you think you’re in the wrong—which I’m sensing you do—then apologize.”
She sends me her meanest glare. “You’re going the right way for an ass-kicking.”
“I wouldn’t. Since we started dating, I just see that as foreplay.”
She reacts perfectly—thrown off-guard by my impromptu flirting, her mouth remains open, any words that were to, I think, be cutting in some way, dying before they can even leave her mouth. The only time she closes it is to swallow the words.
“This feels right,” I say as I reach across and grab her glass, refilling it and placing it back in front of her. “This feels like us.”
She surprises me by laughing; a light sound that fills the room and makes it brighter.
I’ve only ever heard Oakleigh’s laugh when it’s directed at those around me.
Usually, my presence or acknowledgment cuts it off there and then.
Hearing it float my way knowing it was caused by me is something entirely indescribable.
It’s the fruition of years of dreaming and yearning and wanting, and for once it is mine.
“Do that again,” I say.
She smiles softly while playing with the ends of her hair.
“Laugh again.” I sound demanding, desperate.
“Why?”
“Because it’s one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard.”
Okay, Finn, good job coming on strong. There’s a gradual stream and then there’s me—a burst of water that comes from a broken dam. Fifteen years of keeping my feelings in check and suddenly one week without her and I’m an open book.
In a hopeless attempt to gain back some control, I try to revert back to our old ways.
“Try not to screw it up tomorrow, will you, Michaels?”
It’s exactly what is needed, because almost on instinct, Oakleigh’s spine straightens and that defiant eyebrow raises. “Me? Why don’t you try not blubbering the truth to everyone like you did about the tennis incident.”
“Why do you always bring that up?”
“Because you…”
We argue like this for ages, the two of us back in our natural swing of things, and while it is nothing but disputes and petty provocations, the entire thing has a new foundation of innuendos and lighthearted teasing.