“Wait!” I go after him. “You can’t… I mean, I don’t…”
Finn looks up at me from the bottom of the steps. “Sorry, but I’m all out of gifts. You’ll just have to wait until tonight.”
I shake my head in frustration. I hate to show him that he’s getting under my skin, but I can’t play along any more. Every charming grin, every casual smile, it’s like a knife wound to my heart. “You have to stop this. Please, Finn.” My voice cracks. “This isn’t funny.”
Finn’s smile fades. “I know, sweetheart. Like I said, see you at eight.”
And then he’s gone, leaving me fuming on the front porch until I realize that for all my protests, I never actually turned him down.
Eight.
I agonize all afternoon over what to do. A date is impossible. Unthinkable after everything that’s happened. Haven’t I been telling myself all day, no more games?
But he promised it was different this time.
I groan out loud. Why does he have to be so damn charming? I shouldn’t even be here when he comes back to pick me up. I could go to Lottie’s, and have dinner there and hang out? and leave Finn stranded on the front porch not knowing where the hell I am. That would teach him to be so arrogant, just assuming I’m going to drop everything because he strolls on by to say ‘hi’. Maybe I’d get to wipe that knowing smile off his face, the one that says he sees right through me and knows every last one of my secret thoughts.
Or maybe I should give up, and fall headlong into those baby blues, to hell with the consequences.
It’s six thirty by the time I give up trying to make a rational decision for myself. I call Delilah. “Help,” I beg her.
“What’s up?” I can hear her chewing on something on the other end of the line.
“I’m having a meltdown. Serious category-five-storm-warning-everything’s-going-to-hell kind of a meltdown.”
“Is this about the vet?”
“No!” I yelp, then feel guilty that I haven’t given Sawyer a second thought. I’ve been too busy getting tied up in knots over my ex to think about the man I should be dating. “It’s… Finn,” I admit. Delilah gasps.
“I knew it!”
She hangs up, but I know she won’t be long. Sure enough, it’s barely four minutes and counting before her VW bug races up the driveway and parks at an angle, slung across the front lawn. She climbs out, holding an open pizza box in one hand, and her curling iron in the other. “I brought supplies,” she announces. “Now you better sit your pretty ass down and tell me everything.”
I do. Between stress-eating mouthfuls of pepperoni pizza, and half a pint of rocky road (to calm my nerves), I tell Delilah the whole story – at least, the edited version.
“You sneaky girl,” she gasps when I’m finally done. “I had no idea. We all thought you were so shy and quiet in high school. All that time, you were having a wild, torrid affair with him?”
I flush. “It wasn’t torrid.”
Delilah snorts. “Sure it wasn’t.” She pauses thoughtfully. “Now it all makes sense, the way he looks at you. Like he’s gone vegetarian for the past five years, and you’re a juicy steak. He wants you baaaad.”
“Well, he’s not getting me.” I wish again that we’d been closer friends back then, that she’d seen first-hand the damage his leaving did to me. Telling someone about a broken heart can never capture the true pain those simple words represent. To Delilah, it’s ancient history, but the heart doesn’t work that way. It can hurt and ache for a hundred years. Or just five long, lonely ones. “I’m serious,” I add, not sure who I’m trying to convince. “I can’t do this again. I just can’t.”
“But you want to, right?” Delilah studies me. “I mean, just look at him. The eyes… the body… the voice…”
“OK!” I cry. “I admit it. He’s hot. And the chemistry… it’s still there. Even stronger this time around.” I sigh mournfully. “What can I do about that?”
“Short of locking yourself away in a dungeon, not much.” Delilah looks sympathetic. “Hormones are a bitch.”
“So you agree I can’t go out with him.” I nod, determined. “Or even be alone with him. Or in the same public space. Is it too late to move to Alabama for the month?”
“Now wait a minute, I didn’t say that.” Delilah takes another bite of pizza. “In fact, I’d say the opposite. You should bang that boy the first chance you get.”
“What?”
My shriek is loud enough to echo across the bay. Delilah laughs. “Oh my god, your face right now.”
“Dee! This isn’t funny!”
“I know, honeybuns. That’s why I say go for it. He’s in town a month, right? So make the most of it.” She grins. “Give it up, get it on, and with any luck, you’ll fuck him right out of your system.”
Her words make me flush, not from embarrassment but pure danger. Even a split-second imagining it is too much. The weight of him pressing me into the mattress, the damp swirl of his tongue on my thighs…