So much for not over doing it.
She lifts her face, raising her brows. “Going out?” she asks.
I glance around like I’m confused. “Yeah. We can’t exactly make out here . . . unless you really want to.”
“What happened to being classy?” she asks, giggling.
“This place is classy.” I motion to the mini juke box perched at the end of the table. “Where else can you hear the Rolling Stones for fifty cents?”
“Good point.” It’s what she says, but then lifts her coat from where it’s lying beside her.
“Where you going?” I ask. “I thought we were having fun.”
She pauses in the middle of buttoning her wool coat. “Finn, I did have a good time―and please know I appreciate you keeping me company. This . . .” She purses her lips, cutting herself off. “I’m sorry. I have lot going on in my life right now. I’ll see you around, okay?”
“That’s it? You serious?” I ask, standing when she does.
Her smile softens, but when she looks at me, her gaze doesn’t pass along my form, doesn’t stop to take in my muscles, doesn’t invite me closer. She simply stares at me, as if trying to gather her words. “You’re really sweet,” she finally says. “But this is a bad time for me to get to know more of that sweetness.”
I frown when she slips a twenty out of her purse and places it on the table. Considering she only had coffee, that’s one hell of a tip. “You’re not paying for me,” I say. “I got this.”
She places her hand on my wrist when I reach for my wallet, the same way she touched my nose, barely grazing my skin, but having one hell of an effect. “Don’t,” she says. “It’s my way of thanking you.”
I cock my head. “For what? Keeping you company?”
“No,” she explains quietly. “For giving me a smile I didn’t know I had in me.”
It’s what she says. But as I watch her walk away, I realize she did the same damn thing for me.
CHAPTER 5
Finn
I reach into the back of Killian’s F-150 for a giant tray packed with what smells like stuffed peppers, but Sofia’s clasp to my arm holds me in place. “How are you doing?” she asks. “You were really quiet on the way over here.”
She waited for Killian to head into her brother’s house with another tray of food before asking. I haven’t talked to Kill about all the shit going on in my head lately, not like I used to. He’s noticed and probably told Sofia I’ve been pulling away. But I can’t seem to talk to anyone anymore, not about anything real. It’s probably one of the reasons I’ve been getting worse, but I don’t want to admit as much.
“Good,” I answer. Just tired. How you doing?”
“You know what I mean,” she says quietly.
I don’t want to worry her, or him, or hell, anyone. But somehow I always manage to screw that up. “I’m in counseling,” I answer like a dumbass, like she doesn’t already know.
Her long springy curls brush against her shoulder as she tilts her head. “Do you think it’s helping?”
Nope. I think it’s horseshit. “Sure.”
“Finn, I’m serious.”
“Me, too.” I say. I don’t add that as motivated as I was to get help, I totally shut down the moment I meet with my therapist. It’s not that Mason isn’t nice. He is. The court appointed psychiatrist even hand selected him thinking we’d be a good fit. But we’re not. Totally not.
Nothing personal, but the guy wears loafers―with tassels! And the first time I saw him, I swear to Christ he was in a sweater vest. He can’t be more than in his late thirties. What is he doing in a damn sweater vest?
Let me play out our first session: Mason sat in front of me, crossed his leg, and waited for me to speak. When a few moments passed and I didn’t say shit he said, “So, Finn. The way you’re looking at me makes me think you don’t like me.”
He wasn’t angry, just sort of smiled politely all the while calling me out. “I don’t know you,” I’d admitted. “Can’t say I do or don’t yet.”
“Fair enough,” he replied. “So let’s work on getting to know each other . . .”
Yeah. So far it hasn’t happened. Not the first time. Or the second. Not even this last time. I mostly talked sports, and he lets me. Get this, he likes chess and tennis.
Me and him, we just ain’t connecting.
“I want you to be okay,” Sofia says. She hooks her thin arms around mine and glances up at me. “We’re all worried about you, Finn.”
I nod like I’m listening, and I am. What she doesn’t know is I’m worried about me, too. Lately, I can’t get past what happened to me. It’s messing me up five ways from Sunday.