The eldest Mr. Roberts leans over, kisses my temple, and murmurs, “Keep at him, sweetheart.”
My hands are shaking, my pulse racing, and Finn walks along the deck to the narrow ladder leading to the dock. Turning, he climbs down and slowly approaches me as if I’m either going to vanish or punch him.
He seems even more massive in his heavy waders, his muscles bunched from hours of exertion. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I can imagine,” I say. “I didn’t expect you to leave so unexpectedly.”
“It wasn’t that unexpected, was it? You knew I was heading up soon.”
I wince, looking away, and he takes a step closer to me before stopping.
I want so much to reach forward and put my hands on his face and kiss him. I miss him, and despite how angry I am that he left the way he did, I love him. I feel awful for betraying him and talking to Salvatore alone.
“I heard about the show.”
He nods, pulling his cap off his head and scratching his scalp. “Yep.”
“You okay about it?” I ask. Because yeah, I’m still angry, and yeah, I still want to hit him with something that will leave his voice about two octaves higher but, fuck, I love him and I want him to be okay.
Shrugging, he murmurs, “I suppose. Everyone else felt pretty strongly in favor. Made the most sense.” He looks up at the boat and then back to me. “Had some news people out here earlier today.”
“That must have been wild.”
He lets a smile flicker across his lips. “Yeah.”
Seagulls call in the distance and the moment feels so eerily familiar though I know it’s never happened. I just feel calm here with him. I like seeing him like this: near his boat, filthy, probably hungry. I ache with how much I want to take care of him.
“Finn?” I start, and he looks up from where he’s wiping a spot off the back of his hand to meet my eyes.
“Hm?”
“I came here because the way you left town was really hard on me. I think I needed to tell you that.” Swallowing, I say, “But the main thing I had wanted to tell you is that I feel really horrible for what I did.”
His eyebrows slowly inch up but he doesn’t say anything.
“I should never have gone to Sal without talking to you first. I should never have offered your boat up to anyone. It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
Nodding slowly, he says, “Okay, then.”
I close my eyes, wincing at the sharp pain in my chest. He’s so closed off. He’s so finished with me.
“I just want you to know that I didn’t do that because I thought you needed my help. I did it because that’s what we do in my family when we love someone. It wasn’t about trying to save you, it was about trying to find a way to save us.”
He swallows thickly, his eyes dipping to my lips for a beat. “Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
I was hoping there would be more said. I was hoping he would give me more than this, more than a handful of words that leave me nowhere to go. He’s standing like a brick wall at a dead end, his posture telling me there’s no emotion to be found here.
As we stand in silence, he looks me over, from head to toe, and under his inspection I realize how my outfit must look to him: cream jeans, navy sweater, red scarf. I must look like a WASP portrait of Out for a Day on the Boat. And I know I’m right when his lips curl into a sharp smirk and he says, “You look so out of place here, Snap.”
Fire ignites in my belly and I suck in a breath, so wounded by his tone and his complete one-eighty and his ability to shut off his feelings like a switch. My problem? He was capital-I It for me. I don’t know where to go from here.
“I might have thought the same thing once about you, in my town,” I tell him, “but I never would have said it. I liked seeing you there too much. I liked the way you stood out.”
“Harlow—”
I wrap my arms around my middle, turning to leave. But then I stop, and look back at him. “Before I forget,” I say, “I’m not pregnant. Thanks for checking in.”
Chapter SIXTEEN
Finn
“SHE DIDN’T EXACTLY look happy when she left,” Levi notes, leaning back against the wall of the wheelhouse and studying me as I climb up the ladder.
I let out a little noncommittal grunt and hop over the railing. My stomach feels like it’s been pumped full of battery acid. What the fuck just happened back there? Did I really let Harlow walk away?
Did I really forget she could have been pregnant? Even at the time it didn’t seem like a real possibility, maybe because that fear was quickly overshadowed by our declarations, the party, and then the fights that followed.
I am the biggest, most self-absorbed asshole of all time. And just the memory of that night, of her climbing over me, my hands pushing aside her tiny scrap of lace and how easily I slid into her, how quickly we both unraveled . . . it rocks me. We hadn’t been just fucking in the car. Already I loved that girl so much it made me reckless.
My little brother grabs his sweatshirt and keys from the deck. “You got everything you need done?”
I nearly laugh. Every day feels like it just creates more things on my list of worries. I’m still reeling from Harlow’s appearance at my boat and now she’s gone. The boat’s getting fixed, Levi, Colton, and Dad are all thrilled with our plan, but do they have any idea how our lives are going to look in four months when the film crew descends and starts taking stock footage of the area, of us?
When they start following us into our favorite haunts? What happens when they set me up on dates with women and the only woman I want has just disappeared down the dock?
I’m the only one who hasn’t signed every page of the contract. I’ve agreed to the show, sure. I signed my name on every page but one: I didn’t agree to the relationship clause. I owe Salvatore for that one, too. Apparently it wasn’t enough to break the deal, because after talking with him the network was happy to send the press release to Variety without it.
Tomorrow, the repair crews begin their full-boat makeover. I could leave town, leave them to it, and take another mental breather, but I won’t. I’ll be here every day, backseat driving, driving the crew crazy. A lot of the guys they’ve hired are local guys, guys I would have called myself if I had the money to fix the boat.
“Finn?”
I look up at Levi as he reaches the ladder.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot. That woman was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and she came here looking for you.”
I scrub my face, waving him away with my other hand. She did look beautiful, but Harlow’s beauty isn’t the only thing that knocks me sideways. It’s her ferocity, her emotional honesty, it’s that she’s ten years younger than I am—younger even than Levi—and although I always scoff at what she considers life experience, she’s still better at fixing her shit than I am.
I SIT DOWN on my bed, the water from the shower still dripping out of my hair and onto my comforter. It’s nearly midnight, but I don’t think I’ll be able to calm down until I fix this. A phone rings somewhere in San Diego and after an eternity, Lorelei answers.
“This is a Canadian number,” she says by way of greeting.
If she’s cutting to the chase, then so am I. “Harlow’s even more pissed at me now, isn’t she?”
After a little pause, she says, “The short answer is yes.”
Hope spreads thick and warm beneath my ribs. “What’s the long answer?”
“The long answer? Yes, she is.”
Laughing dryly, I say, “Thanks, Lola. That’s helpful.”
“You want me to be helpful? It took a lot for her to come see you today. Harlow doesn’t stick her neck out for people she doesn’t love—some people think she’s selfish, but it’s the opposite of that.
She’ll go to the end of the earth for you if she loves you. I’m pretty sure she loves you, and from what she said, you spoke about five words to her.”
“That’s pretty accurate.”
Letting out a little huff, she growls, “You’re a prick.”
I laugh again, moving my phone to my other ear to drag my towel down my chest. “Yeah, that’s probably accurate, too. It’s a bad habit.”
“I think she enjoys it, usually. But not when she’s putting herself out there. I’ve literally never seen Harlow spend more than five minutes thinking about a guy. And I also don’t think I’ve ever seen her so sad.”
My stomach clenches and I feel nauseous. “Where’s she staying?”
“No way. She’s sleeping.”
“I’m not going tonight. I’m going tomorrow.” Somehow, I don’t expect our business lunch with Sal will be the time for Harlow and me to kiss and make up.
“If you go there, and make this worse, you know I will cut your balls off when you sleep.”
“Lola.”
Silence rings through the line for ten seconds. Twenty.
“Lola, I swear I’m not going to make this worse. I fucking love her.”
“The Magnolia Hotel in Victoria. Room 408.”
SALVATORE AND HARLOW have already been seated when the hostess leads me back to the table.