Finny
We walk out of the church and find Jason and a few other members of security standing on the steps. He’s wearing a cast on his arm, but he looks fit and healthy.
I throw myself at him. “When did you get here?”
“Just arrived. Couldn’t let you go to church without me, could I?”
“I’m glad you’re back at work.” And I really am. He’s like family.
He picks up my hand and puts a wad of rolled up money in my palm, then closes my fist. “I never did give you the money you earned that night at the bar. For the homeless.”
I had completely forgotten about it. I see the donation box on the wall of the little church, and I shove the bundle of money inside.
Emilio winks at me and gives me a nod of approval.
“That was a beautiful service,” Marta says.
I nod. My heart is still in my throat over the way they all showed up at church for Tag. My family is awesome. And some day, I hope he’s going to become a even bigger part of it.
Star points off into the distance. “Look, there’s a carnival!” she cries. She squeezes Josh’s shoulder. “Can we go?”
I can see a roller coaster in the distance, and a Ferris wheel—and my heart stops.
“You guys go ahead,” Tag says. His hand squeezes mine. “We’ll go back to the bus.”
“Come with us, Finny,” Star says. She looks from me to Tag and back.
“We can go,” I say quietly. I step onto my tiptoes and pull Tag’s head down to mine. “I can handle it.”
“You don’t have to handle anything,” he tells me. “We can just go back to the bus.”
“I’ll take the babies if you all want to go,” Marta offers.
I shake my head. “We’ll take him with us.” I hold Benji close to me. “You guys can come too.” I hope they come.
No one but Tag knows about the fair incident with my mother.
He looks hard at me. “Are you sure?”
I nod. “I’m sure. I’ll be fine.”
We walk hand in hand toward the fairgrounds, and Emilio pays the entry fee for everyone. We buy cotton candy and walk through the fun house, taking time to look at ourselves in the big mirrors, wowing over the way our bodies get distorted. We look at the animals and laugh when Sam steps in cow manure. We ride a few rides, and then we get to the Ferris wheel.
“We’re going to skip this one,” Tag says. “You guys go ahead.”
I square my feet. “I’m riding this one,” I say. I will do this. I will not be stuck with a terrible memory for the rest of my life. “I can do this.”
Tag stares into my eyes. “You don’t have to.”
“I do,” I say firmly.
Tag passes over tickets for us, and we get into the little car.
I get in and Tag reaches to take Benji from me. “I want to hold him,” I say.
He doesn’t try to take him from me, but he looks worried.
“I’ll keep him safe,” I rush to say. “I promise not to let anything happen to him.”
The realization of the truth of this settles deep inside me. I have an instinctual need to protect him. I don’t know where it came from or how it started, but I would die to protect this kid that’s not even mine. My insides suddenly stop roiling quite as much.
The car moves and we go up a bit, stopping as Emilio and Marta get in the one below us. Our family takes up most of the ride, because there are so many of us. Then we start to move. I clutch Benji tightly to me and I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel his little shirt grow damp.
“You okay?” Tag asks.
I nod. The wind blows my hair back as we go around and around, and a sense of peace washes over me. “I think I get it now, Tag,” I say.
“What do you get?” He brushes wisps of my hair back from my face.
“This is what falling feels like,” I say.
He brushes the wetness from my cheeks. “I think I love you, Finny,” he says quietly.
“This is what falling feels like,” I say again. I lean back against the seat and I know that I would never let anything happen to Benji. I would never torment him or make him hurt, and I know that I could be a good mother to him. “I want to marry you,” I say. “Like, really soon.”
He grins and looks over the edge of the ride. I look over too. “Emilio,” he calls out. Emilio looks up. “Can I have your permission to ask Finny to marry me?”
Emilio looks at Marta and she just smiles at him and nods. He cups his hands around his mouth and calls back, “If you ask her and she doesn’t kick you in the nuts, you can take that as a yes!” He grins at me.
I sit back and look at Tag. His eyes are shiny with tears.
“So, are you going to kick me in the nuts if I ask you to marry me?” he says.
I grin at him. “Try me and see.”
“Will you marry me, Finny?” He looks down at Benji. “Well, us.” He smiles. “We’re kind of a package deal.”
“I wouldn’t have you any other way,” I say.
“So is that a yes?”
I feel like my heart is going to explode in my chest. I nod. “It’s a yes.”
“How are your nuts, boy?” Emilio calls from the bucket beneath us.
“She said yes!” Tag calls back.
Cheers erupt from all around us.
When we get off the ride, Emilio and Marta take the babies and go back to the hotel. We spend a few hours walking around the fairgrounds, with the security team following. There are a lot of curious people who follow us with cameras and I know it’s going to take some time for Tag to get used to this lifestyle. We’re under constant scrutiny, and even the smallest things are taken out of context.
I tug on Tag’s arm. “Can we ride the Ferris wheel again?”
He brushes hair back from my face. “I’ll give you just about anything you want,” he tells me.
I sigh. “I am pretty sure I’m in love with you.”
We kiss, and someone hoots and snaps a picture. “No privacy,” Tag grumbles. “Is it always like this?”
I nod and grimace. “Pretty much. You want to go back to the bus?” I silently groan at the thought of the cramped bus.
“Or we could get a hotel room,” Tag says. “You could let me hold you all night.”
“Would penises and vaginas be involved?”
He grins. “That’s totally up to you.”
I rest my forehead against his chest and breathe deeply. “I want a room,” I say, but I’ve never been quite so nervous before. I have had sex with a lot of men and never, not once, have I been this afraid.
***
My hands quiver as I unlock the hotel room door with the keycard. Tag follows me inside. Marta had taken Benji from us and wouldn’t take no for an answer when Tag protested. I’d slipped my hand into his and told him Benji would be fine for one more night. Tag took a deep breath and let him go.
His hand settles at the small of my back as I walk into the room, and he stops and looks around. “Nice room,” he says.
“Yes, it is,” I agree. I jerk my thumb toward the bathroom. “I’m going to go and take a shower. Will that be all right?”
He nods and grins. “You need some help?” His dark eyes dilate and grow even darker.
I hide my face by turning away from him. “I think I can manage.”
I start to close the bathroom door and he calls my name.
“Finny…”
I look back. “Yes?”
“Why did you take me to church today?” he asks softly.
I shrug. “I just though you needed it.”
“I did. I really did.” He scrubs his face with his hands and groans. “I haven’t had a family in a long time. I think I like yours.”
I nod. “They’re pretty awesome.”
“Can Benji and I be a part of it all?” he asks quietly. “We don’t really have anyone else.”
I step back out of the bathroom. “What about your uncle?”
“He died last year. Best day of my life.” Tag growls low in his throat. “He hated me with a passion.”
I sit down beside him. “Why do you say that?”
He shrugs. “I wasn’t his son. Since he was our uncle he was obligated to try, though, and he picked me. And through the years, all I could do was thank God that he picked me and not Jessica and Jenny.”
“Star and Wren,” I correct.
He smiles. “Whose idea was it to get new names?”
I think back. “It started with Peck. Emilio kept calling her the ‘fucking woodpecker’ because of all her tapping. And then she asked if she could legally change it when she changed her last name. Since she did, we all did. We all wanted brand new starts. Star is the Starling. Wren picked her name because it sounded so much like Jen. And Lark was the last one. Someone told her a lark was a joke and a bird, and she loved it. So it stuck.”
He turns to face me. “What was your real name?” he asks.
“It doesn’t matter. That name isn’t who I am anymore.”
“You don’t want to tell me?”
I heave a sigh. “It was Madelyn. Maddie is what my mom called me.”
He stares at me like he’s memorizing my features.
“I used to have nightmares about falling all the time. I would wake up in the middle of the night and call out for Emilio. He’d come and grouse around long enough to convince me that no one would dare harm one of his girls or they’d have to deal with him, and that I could go back to sleep because he would always protect me. So one night I told him how I dream about falling, and he said I needed to be a bird because birds don’t fall. We looked out the window and saw a finch, and I became Finch.”
“It suits you. Still hard getting used to calling my sisters by their new names, though. That might take me some time.”
“Secretly, I think they like knowing you’re here and that you know their pasts. They love you.”
“If I had known about Star and what happened to her…” His voice trails off as he clenches his fists.
I kiss his cheek. “You had no way of knowing.” I turn him to face me. “And she’s happy now. Really happy.”
“She’s going to be a mom,” he says on a slow exhale.
“Crazy, right?” I laugh. The room goes silent. “Can I ask you something?”
He brushes a lock of hair back from my face. “You can ask me anything.”
“How did you meet Julia?”
He scoots back on the bed and leans against the headboard, extending his legs down the length of the bed. He pats his lap, and I lay my head down across his legs with my face up, pointing toward the ceiling. He pulls my hair from beneath me and starts to drag his fingers down the length of it. I stifle a moan because it feels so good.
“When I was nineteen, I met a preacher in our community. He ran an after-school program for kids who didn’t have a lot of money or didn’t have a good home life or whatever. I knew Julia vaguely from school, and he was Julia’s father. Anyway, he offered me a lifeline and I took it.” He points to his chin. “When I showed up with a busted chin, he took me to get it stitched. And when I had a black eye, he gave me an ice pack. And he let me talk while he listened, really listened. And he taught me about religion and faith and redemption, and all the facets of religion that were as necessary to me as breathing by this time. When I had nothing else, I still had faith.”
“Where is he now?”
“He died right after Julia and I got married.”
I jerk upright. “You’re married?”
He shakes his head quickly. “Not anymore,” he rushes to say. “We divorced right before Benji was born.”
“Why did you divorce?”
He shrugs. “We were too young, and she wanted to go to college, so she didn’t want our baby.”
“But she’s his mother!”
“Yes.”
“But she gave him up…?”
“She did what she thought was in his best interests. She wasn’t ready to be a mom.”
“Were you ready to be a dad?” I ask.
He nods. “I was. I remember my dad. He was awesome. He tossed the ball with me, and made me put on ties to go to social events. He taught me what it means to be a husband and a father, which was why it was so hard living with my uncle. My uncle was the antithesis of my father. He was evil and mean and he couldn’t love anyone.”
“And you want to be the kind of dad your dad was?” I lay my head back down on his leg and I feel him go soft under me.
“Yeah, I hope so.”
“So what was the money for?”
“Before he was born, Julia had made arrangements with a family to adopt Benji. I was away on the mission trip I told you about, and she didn’t have anyone to turn to. The adoptive family promised to put her through college, which is pretty common in adoption situations, particularly when the parents are young. She had her head set on going to school, and she didn’t want to give that up. So I promised that I would get the money and give it to her in exchange for Benji. That’s why I came to find Star and Wren.”
I roll over to face him a little, propping my head on my upturned palm on his lap. “So all that was a setup?” That part still irks me.
“Not really. I mean, I did want to see them. But I also needed the money, and they were my only chance.”
“You are Benji’s father. You shouldn’t have had to pay for him!”
He winces. “I know. But I truly did want her to be happy. I loved her.”
My gut clenches. “Are you…still in love with her?”
He rocks his head back and forth like he’s deciding. “I think part of me will always have feelings for her, but it’s not…well…never mind.”
I sit up and face him. “It’s not what?”
“When Julia and I got married, I remember standing before the Justice of the Peace and thinking to myself, am I doing the right thing? But I did it anyway, because I loved her and I wanted to spend my life with her. But then once we were married, it wasn’t what I expected. She was often sullen, and no matter what I did it didn’t get better. So I spent all my time trying to make sure she was happy. It was exhausting.”
“Then you left.”
He nods. “I went on the mission trip with the church, and she fell into someone else’s arms and wanted out of our marriage. But by then she was pregnant with my baby.”
“If she showed up today and wanted to try again, what would you say?” I hold my breath and wait for his answer.
“I would tell her I’m head over heels in love with his cute little chick named Finny who has filled up all the cracked spaces in my heart.”
My breath catches. That’s just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
“Do you want to be a mom?” he asks softly.
“I never really liked babies very much,” I admit. It’s true. No need to hide it.
“Oh,” he says. He lets out a heavy exhale.
“But I love yours. So if you’re asking me if I could love him like a mother would love a child, the answer is yes. I could.”
“Do you ever feel shafted because of your adoption?” he asks.
I snort. “I feel shafted that I have a mother who is mentally unstable. But adoption? No. No shafting there.” I take in a deep breath. “Marta has proven to me that a mother can love a child who doesn’t share her DNA. Without reserve and without prejudice. She’s my mom, and I love her and she loves me back. That’s all there is to it. I hope whoever you marry will be the same thing for Benji.”
I get up off the bed because I’m feeling sort of lost after this conversation.
“Finny,” he calls out as I head to the bathroom.
I hesitate, still feeling raw and exposed. “Yes?”
“I know this has gone really fast, but I want to be with you and see where this thing goes.”
“I do too,” I whisper. I don’t know if he hears me or not.
“Finny,” he calls again. I turn back, but this time I meet his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I’m just feeling really…sad all of a sudden.”
“I thought you were happy,” he rushes to say as he gets to his feet.
“I am–”
“But you said whoever I marry.” He bends down so he can stare into my eyes.
“Whoever gets to be Benji’s mother will be a lucky woman,” I tell him, then I go into the bathroom and close the door.
I turn on the shower and stare at my reflection in the mirror while the water warms. What if I’m not meant to be Benji’s mother? What if Tag can never love me like he loved Julia? What if…what if the world keeps turning and I want to get off?
“This is what falling feels like,” I say to the mirror.
My reflection stares back at me.
Suddenly the door bursts open and I step back in the small bathroom to dodge the bump of it.
“What did you mean when you said that?” Tag demands to know. “Are you telling me that you don’t want to be with me?”
“We really just met–”
“We met months ago,” he corrects.
“No, we fucked months ago,” I say.
He freezes. “Is that why I can’t get you off my mind? Because it was just fucking? Is that why you gave me what I needed today when you took me to church? Is that why you are in my head and in my heart and so damn deep in my soul?” He pulls me hard against him. “Tell me to go away,” he growls.
“I can’t,” I whisper. Then I draw his head down to mine and kiss him. It’s a fear-filled, lust-ridden gnashing of teeth and tongues, and my breath stutters in my chest. I push him back. “I can’t think when we do that,” I complain. “I can’t tell you to go away but I can’t tell you to kiss me, either. I have no idea what to do with you.”
“Just love me,” he says. “Or is that the problem? Am I simply unlovable? If that’s the case, just say so.”
I cup his face in my palm and stare into his brown eyes. “You’re not unlovable. I’m just not sure I’m worthy.”
“What?” He covers my hand with his on his cheek.
“What if I’m not good enough to be a wife and a mother?”
“You’re good enough. Better than good enough. You’re so much that you make my heart stop just looking at you.” He squeezes my hips. “Then I touch you and I lose all reason.”
He clears his throat. “That first night when you pulled your top down and sat in front of me with your tits out and no shame at all, I thought I wanted you then. And when you took me to church and you brought your whole family to support me, I knew I needed you then. When you cried on my son’s shoulder on the Ferris wheel, and you held him close and protected him, I knew I loved you then, because that was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But now, right this second, I want you and I love you and I can’t live without you, Finny. If you tell me to walk away, I will. But please tell me to stay. I understand if you don’t feel as strongly as I do yet, but just give me time to make you love me.”
“Why did you come to this hotel room?” I hate that I need to know, but I do.
“Because I wanted to hold you all night.”
“That’s the only reason?”
He looks directly into my eyes. “Yes.”
“You had no expectation of sleeping with me?”
He grins. “I hoped I would get to sleep with you, Finny, I won’t lie. But if you’re not ready, I’ll settle for whatever you’ll give me.”
I kiss him then, and he kisses me back. It’s soft and tender and slow. Then I turn my back, pull my shirt over my head, and ask him without words to unhook my bra, simply by looking over my shoulder at him. His lips touch my shoulder as he works the clasp. The straps fall away and I let the bra drop over my arms. I kick my shoes off, yank off my socks, push my pants down along with my panties and step out of them. The screech of the shower curtain when I pull it back is loud.
My knees wobble, and Tag palms my naked hips to steady me. I immediately stick my face in the spray, and close my eyes, because his eyes are raking up and down my body and I feel more naked and exposed than I have ever been.
“Are you coming in?” I ask quietly.