Tag
I flex my fist, stretching my fingers because they hurt. I haven’t hit anyone in a really long time. I couldn’t help it though. He was so rude and inconsiderate. I wanted to shove his teeth down his throat but couldn’t, not with her watching. It’s bad enough that I hit him.
I would scare her if she actually saw how much turmoil there is deep down in my soul. If she encountered the depth of my rage, she wouldn’t look at me the same. None of them would.
I sit down next to Emilio, Finny’s adoptive father. He holds his fist up like he wants to pound his fist against mine, like men often do, so I touch mine to his gently. “Nice job,” he says quietly.
I don’t say anything.
“If you hadn’t done it, I was going to.”
I look up at him, but still don’t speak.
“I’d fight to the death for my daughters.” His voice is low and gravelly.
“I’m glad Star and Wren have you.” It’s true. So glad. I am grateful that they didn’t end up where I did. Because where I ended up was so much worse.
“How’s your hand?” he asks.
I flex my fingers again. “I’ll live.”
“Felt good, didn’t it?” He watches my face closely.
“Not really. I don’t like fighting.” I lean forward and balance my elbows on my knees, and let my hands hang down.
His eyes ghost over the shadow of a scar on my upper eyebrow, and then slide across my chin, which is a crisscross of webbing from all the times I landed on my face. “Right,” he says quietly.
I watch Fin as she dances. She’s graceful and so very beautiful. And so far outside my league.
“You’re going home with the girls tonight?” Emilio asks.
I shrug. “They invited me.” I look at him, finally, and find him studying me intently. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shakes his head. “My girls are strong women. They can take care of themselves.”
My eyes go back to the dance floor and land on Finny again, where she’s in the arms of another man. He’s looking down at her like he wants to have her for breakfast. Or a midnight snack.
“Don’t let Finny’s one-night stands bother you,” he says.
I jerk my head up. “What?”
He nods toward her. “She brings them home sometimes, but she kicks them out soon after. I don’t think she’s ever had one stay the night.” He shakes his head.
“Does that worry you?”
“Nah,” he says. “It would worry me if one ever did stay the night.”
“What do you mean?”
Emilio shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
I wonder if he would feel so nonchalant about it if he knew I was one of her one-night stands and that she didn’t exactly kick me out of her bed at the end of the night.
He gets up and goes to get Marta to dance. She puts Benji in his carrier for me. He’s sound asleep, but I still start to rock it with my foot.
Emilio whisks Marta out onto the dance floor. She giggles and lets him draw her close.
I wonder to myself what he meant by saying he would worry if she did let one stay the night. Strange.
***
Benji wakes me up in the middle of the night four times. I am blurry-eyed and staggering when I smell the coffee start to brew. I lift my head and look around. Coffee? There’s coffee?
I toss the covers back and pull on a T-shirt and some jeans. It would probably be prudent to go to the kitchen in clothes. I immediately wonder if Fin will be up and if she’ll still be in her jammies. Is it disturbing that I would love to see her in her jammies, looking all rumpled and sleepy-eyed? Probably.
I start toward the kitchen and Wren calls out, “Don’t get between Finny and the coffee pot!”
I stop and rub my eyes. “Huh?”
Fin walks toward me, shooting daggers at me with her eyes. I step to the side and let her walk by me. She’s wearing loose-fitting pajama pants with the top rolled down, and a thin camisole with skinny straps. And, holy hell, she’s not wearing a bra. I look away. My dick is already paying attention. I’ve never seen her when she first wakes up. Damn, she’s pretty.
She stumbles blindly toward the coffee pot and stops in front of it. She fills a mug, and my mouth waters. I want coffee too, but she’s taking her own sweet time about filling her cup.
“Don’t touch my coffee,” she mutters as she shuffles past me, dragging her feet.
I’m already reaching for a mug, but I stop. “What?”
“You heard me,” she snaps, but she doesn’t look at me.
I put the mug back.
Wren gets up from her spot on the couch and stomps into the room. She takes down a mug and fills it for me, then presses it into my hands.
“Thank you,” I murmur. It’s all I can do to get the words out. I usually don’t speak until I have finished a pot.
“I wouldn’t drink that if I were you,” Lark says as she comes into the room.
I’m already blowing across the lip of the mug. I look up.
“She’ll knife you in your sleep, dude,” Lark says. “She’s a bitch about her coffee.”
“I’ll make more,” I say. I go to the kitchen table and sit down. There’s a newspaper lying there, so I open it and I immediately see a picture of the Zeroes. They’re candid wedding shots, obviously taken from a tree or a tall building near the venue.
I stop and read all the articles about Star’s wedding, the Reeds, who were in attendance, and all the celebrity gossip about them. Some of it is ludicrous. Other parts are laughable, and even more are just sad. They can’t possibly get a lot of privacy.
“Oh, shit,” Wren says as she looks over my shoulder at the pictures. She jerks the paper from my hand. “They got pictures of them. Those assholes!”
“I’m just glad no one got a picture of Josh standing at the altar,” Lark says.
“He doesn’t want anyone to know?” I ask.
They all shake their heads. “That was all for Star. Kind of a private thing,” Wren explains.
“Will she be angry about this?”
“Probably not,” Lark replies. “I know I’m not going to tell her.”
“Why not?” I ask.
The girls all look at one another and grin.
“Because they’re busy knocking boots,” Finny blurts out. “Bow-chicka-wow-wow.”
Heat creeps up my face. “Oh.”
Suddenly, Benji cries from the other room. “Can I get him?” Wren asks.
I look down into my half-full cup of coffee. “I can do it.” I heave a sigh and start to get up. But Wren is already going toward my room. She goes inside and I hear her cooing at Benji. It makes me smile.
But he’s not going to be happy until his tummy is full. I am completely sure of that. I get a bottle from the fridge and stick it in the microwave. I’m still shaking it when Wren comes back into the kitchen carrying him. She takes the bottle from me and goes to sit on the couch, with my son in her arms. He lets her feed him, and looks up at her, his eyes big and wide.
“That’s a nice look on you,” Finny calls to her.
Wren flips Finny off from over her shoulder.
I laugh.
“Just because you don’t like kids doesn’t mean they’re all bad,” Wren says. “This one is kind of cute.” She grins down into my son’s face.
“It looks better from over here,” she sings out.
“He’s not an it,” I say.
She snorts. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
“I hope he didn’t keep you up last night,” I tell her. He only cried for a minute or two each time, but it was still noise when they were trying to sleep.
I came home last night with Lark, and Fin was still dancing with some guy at the party when we left. It shouldn’t bother me, and I can’t figure out why it does. She’s not mine. She never was.
She looks at me and her brow furrows. She doesn’t say anything.
The doorbell rings and Lark rolls her eyes. “Ten bucks says that’s I-want-to-get-in-her-pants-again flowers.”
“Huh?” I get up and go to the door. Fin goes to her room, closing her bedroom door.
I open the front door, and find a man standing there holding flowers. He looks around the edge of the bouquet and frowns at me.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I was looking for Finch…” He waits, letting his voice hang there in the air.
“Why do you want her?”
“I brought flowers.”
I glower at him and he shrinks back a little. “Why?”
“She’s not here right now,” Lark calls from behind me.
“Can I leave the flowers?” the man asks.
“Sure,” Lark replies. She comes and takes them from him. Then she slams the door in his face.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
Fin opens her bedroom door and pops her head out. “Is he gone?”
“Yep. You can come out.”
“We seriously need to talk to the doorman. They let just about anyone in the building.” She glares at me.
They didn’t actually let me in that first night. I snuck past them.
She comes back into the kitchen and pours herself another cup of coffee. Then she plucks the card from the clip on the flowers, reads it, rolls her eyes, and tosses it into the trash. “I’ll drop them off at the assisted living center. They’ll like them.” She shrugs and goes to her room. She closes the door.
“She gets lots of flowers,” Wren explains. “That particular guy has been bringing flowers every two weeks for the past four months. She takes them to the assisted living center and gives them to the residents who don’t have visitors.”
So she didn’t sleep with this guy recently? The clutch that’s squeezing my heart eases a little.
“That’s nice, that she takes flowers to the assisted living facility.”
Wren snorts. “No one makes the mistake of calling Finny nice to her face.”
Lark makes an exaggerated gang sign and says, “She’s got a rep to protect.”
I laugh. Fin’s tiny. Like a little Latina fireball. But I don’t see her as particularly fearsome.
“You laugh, but she’s tough.”
The doorbell rings again and I look around. “Should I get it?”
They all roll their eyes but I go to the door anyway. I open it to find a flower deliveryman standing there with a huge vase of roses. There are at least three dozen. How many men did she bring home with her in the past two months?
I take the flowers and put them beside the others.
Fin comes out of her room. She’s wearing jeans and a hoodie, and she has her hair pulled back into a haphazard bun.
“Well, shit,” she says when she sees the second vase of flowers. “I can’t carry that many flowers by myself.”
Wren stands up. “Tag can go with you to help.” She looks down at my son. “He’s asleep.”
“Never mind,” Fin says. “I’ll just make two trips.”
“I don’t mind,” I say quickly.
She looks up at me, her brow quirked. “You sure?”
I want to talk to her anyway. “Yes, I’m sure. Let me get my shoes.” I go to my room and slide my feet into my sneakers. Then I dash into the bathroom to brush my teeth. “Are you sure you don’t mind watching him?” I ask Wren as I come back out. She barely knows me, after all.
She grins. “As long as you come back,” she says.
“I promise to come back.” I pick up the largest vase of flowers, after I put on my coat. “Ready?” I ask Fin.
“A better question is whether or not you’re ready,” Lark murmurs. “She’s only had two cups of coffee.”
I guess I’ll take my chances.