It was only eight and my shift didn’t start until noon. When I left Josh’s I decided that a walk around my new town was in order. I’d been an Outskirts resident for a while and had barely gone anywhere besides work and home.

And home was no longer an option.

I ignored the pain in my gut. I didn’t want to spend the morning dwelling on what no longer was but on the possibilities the day might bring.

When I came across a junkyard I was about to pass right by it, not giving it too much thought, when something caught my eye. I pushed open the metal gate which had a sign on it that read LET YOURSELF IN. I passed a mound of tires and rows upon rows of kitchen sinks, making a beeline right for my target on the far side of the yard. When I reached it, I sighed and butterflies danced in my stomach.

It was even prettier in person.

It was a house. And not just ANY house.

It was the house.

The one from the billboard in town. Same white siding, blue shutters, and grey shingles. The biggest difference was that the one in front of me was split in half right down the center. The right half sat lopsided on the ground and contained the red front door. The left half remained upright, leaning against a rusted tanker truck. A flimsy sheet of plastic was stapled over the contents, but it was torn just enough so I could see inside.

“The door was unlocked,” a deep and very familiar voice said. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the words licked across my skin like a cool breeze.

“What door?”

Finn stepped up so close behind me I could feel the heat radiating from his chest to my back and I resisted the temptation to lean back into him.

“My front door,” he said. “I left it open for you last night.” His breath tickled my neck. “You weren’t there when I got home.”

“Should I have been?”

“Yes.”

I felt heated in a way that even the ninety-degree weather couldn’t make me feel. “I’ve been staying at Josh’s.”

“So I heard.” Finn stepped beside me and I got a good glimpse of his tight white t-shirt over his muscles. The stubble on his jaw made me remember how it felt against my skin when he kissed me. My neck. He glanced over and caught me staring. “You like what you see?”

“Yes,” my answer was immediate.

Finn chuckled and placed his hand on my head, turning me back to face the house, the entire reason why I was even in the junkyard, to begin with. I mentally prepared myself for some sort of snarky comment or for him to say something to make me feel more embarrassed than I already was, but luckily, it never came. “It’s not very big,” he said instead, taking in the house.

“Neither am I.” I sighed with relief. “It’s perfect.”

Finn walked up to it and tugged on the plastic covering of the upright side until it gave and fell to the ground.

“Wait, can you do that?” I asked in a screamed whisper, looking around for anyone who could be watching.

“It’s a junkyard. They don’t care if you break it. It’s already broken,” Finn pointed out.

I was too short to step up into the house like Finn had done. “Here,” he held out his hand. I reached for it and he pulled me up and against him, holding me for a beat too long before finally releasing me. He smelled like cigarettes and soap.

On the inside, I was ecstatic to find that it was ten times the size of my camper, although still pretty small. “How big do you think it is?” I asked.

“Both halves together?” he asked. “Probably around eight hundred square feet. Give or take.”

There was no flooring, just wood boards. “The sellers of these things usually waited to get a buyer before they put down the floors. That way whoever was buying it could choose their own,” Finn explained like he was reading my mind.

The walls were real drywall. It had windows with white trim and marble windowsills. In the kitchen was a table style island and a big white farm sink with matching white cabinets and grey and white marbled counters. “Wow,” I said, admiring my surroundings. There was a bedroom in the back big enough for a king size bed and an attached bathroom.

“You really like this thing?” Finn asked.

“No, I don’t like it.” I looked around. “I love it.” I held out my arms and spun in a circle. I was drunk on the possibility that I could somehow make the house mine. “It’s like a mini version of the house I saw when I first came in. That one was three stories with a picket fence. It looked like the kind of house where people could laugh.” I turned to Finn. “Where kids are tucked into their beds at night and read bedtime stories. Where family meals are full of laughter and jokes and plans for the weekend instead of a run down of what you did wrong that day and how God wasn’t happy with girls who didn’t obey his every command. Who showed too much skin. Who wanted to go to a real school instead of being home-schooled.” I stopped when I realized I’d gone off on a tangent. Finn was watching me curiously.

“And you didn’t have that growing up,” Finn said. It wasn’t a question.

I shook my head and ran my hand over the counter. “No. Did you?”

I expected him to avoid the question or change the subject but he surprised me when he said. “I had that. My mom and dad were there for every baseball and football game. My mom was the loudest in the stands and I used to be so embarrassed,” he chuckled while recalling the memory, running his hand over the stubble on his chin. “And now I think how lucky I was to have the loudest mom in the stands.”

“Where are your parents now?”

“Georgia mountains. Mom and Dad always talked about having white Christmases so the second I graduated high school they followed their dream.”

“And you stayed? Why?” I asked.

“Because I belong here,” Finn answered simply. “This is home.”

“Josh said you moved out to the swamp a few years back. Where did you live before?” I didn’t look at him when I asked but I could see his entire body stiffen out of the corner of my eye. This time he did evade the question. Well, not so much evade as didn’t even attempt to answer.

“Come on. Let’s go see the other side.” Finn came over to me and lifted me up by the waist, setting me down a few feet on the ground below. He followed me down in one easy hop that he made look effortless with his long legs and confident movements. He grabbed my hand and led me over to the other half of the house. He tore down the plastic like he’d done on the other side. When he released my hand, he kept his pressed lightly on the small of my back.

When we entered, I was surprised to find another bedroom, a small alcove with a built-in desk, and another bathroom, this one accessible from the main living space, which would be substantial in size if the two pieces were put together.

“Why is it in half?” I asked, running my hand over the dusty walls as I walked from room to room.

“It’s a park model,” Finn explained, following me but staying a few steps behind.

“Park model?” I scrunched my nose. I’d never heard the term before. “So, it’s not a real house?”

“It’s a real house all right. It’s just constructed off site, probably in a warehouse somewhere, instead of being built directly on the land. Same destination, just two different kinds of journeys to get there,” Finn said as he watched me admire the built-in laundry room off the back bedroom. “It’s delivered to the site in two parts because it’s too big to fit on a flatbed in one piece without blocking the highway.”

“So it CAN be put back together then?” Excitement was growing inside of me. My wheels were turning.

“It can.” Finn’s lips turned upward in a crooked smile that made my mouth water.

There were no appliances and everything inside and out was beyond dusty. I had no idea how long the house had been sitting there, but it was long enough for some of the laminate on the cabinets to start peeling in the corners.

But it was salvageable.

I glanced back to Finn and clasped my hands together. I hadn’t even realized I was smiling until he came up to me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile,” he said; his words and touch were surprisingly soft and tender.

I craned my neck. “Thank you again for rescuing me the other night.”

Finn took a step back against the wall but tugged me against him so that my chest was pressed to his torso and his knee was between my legs.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” he said, lowering his lips to mine.

We’d barely touched when a voice broke the spell, sliding between us and breaking us apart. “Who’s out there?” a man called out. I stepped out to find Sterling coming our way. A huge dimpled smile across his clean-shaven face. “Sawyer is that you?”

“It’s me. Hi, Sterling.” I gave him a small wave.

“Here, let me help you down from there,” Sterling offered, grabbing my hands and lifting me to the ground.

Finn muttered something under his breath and followed me down.

“Finn?” Sterling asked, seemingly confused. “Wow, I didn’t see you back there.” Sterling pointed from me to Finn. “Are you…with him?” he asked hesitantly. I didn’t know if he was asking if we were there together or THERE together but either way the answer was no.

I shook my head at the same time Finn said, “Yes.” He stared Sterling down as if he’d offended him in the worst of ways.

Sterling cleared his throat and turned back to me. “I saw you admiring the park model. Did you know it was the one from the billboard?” he asked, smiling even bigger than before. “They used it for the ad. Never built a single one except this one before the bubble burst though. It’s been here ever since.”

“Do you work here?” I asked. “I thought you said you owned the feed store?”

“And the junkyard. And the paint store,” Sterling said, rubbing his hands together.

“Wow,” I responded.

Finn grunted.

“You think you’d be interested in buying it?” Sterling asked, waving his hand back to the house.

“How much is it?” Finn chimed in, snatching the words off my tongue.

“This baby here retails for over forty thousand dollars.”

I felt myself instantly deflate. Finn put his hand on the back of my neck and I’m not sure if it was a sign of dominance or reassurance but either way I found myself liking that he was there.

Even if he was doing more grunting and growling than actual talking.

“But THIS particular one,” Sterling started, wagging his finger at the house. “Can be yours for…” he moved his fingers in the air like he was calculating something. “MMMM…say seven thousand dollars, plus transport fees. So around eight thousand five hundred. Well, of course you’d have to get someone to prep the land as well. That runs right around three grand.”

And that was that. My short-lived dreams of homeownership were gone.

“Thanks, Sterling.” I looked back at the house. “Maybe someday.”

“Do you need to get anything?” I asked Finn who only shook his head and led me back toward the front gate.

“Sawyer, don’t forget I owe you that walk,” Sterling called out. “Are you working this weekend?”

“Lunch and dinner shift,” I called back.

Finn answered too. By tightening his grip as he led me back through the gates of the junkyard and steered me in the opposite direction of the way I’d come in. Behind the junkyard, where his boat was waiting in the waterway, tied up to a small rickety dock covered in metal and plastic hubcaps.

“You got here by boat?” I asked.

“You can get most anywhere in this town by boat,” he answered. “How do you know Sterling?”

I glanced back at the junkyard “I should have looked for truck parts for Rusty,” I said.

“Rusty?”

“My truck. That’s what Mom called him,” I explained.

“I have to come back this way tomorrow. I’ll look then,” Finn said.

“I’m working tomorrow.”

“I’ll get you what you need.”

“But how do you know what Rusty…”

“I know,” Finn reassured me, holding out his hand. “Now tell me how you know Sterling.”

I was hesitant in getting in the boat with him. I took a moment to take in his appearance. He wasn’t wrinkled or disheveled. He looked tired but didn’t reek of alcohol.

“Why are you hesitating?” Finn asked curiously, still holding out his hand.

“I’m just…”

Finn grabbed my hand. “I haven’t had anything to drink today. I’m not going to say I won’t, because I’d be lying but I’m not your father, Sawyer. I don’t beat on girls or women although I’ve given my fair share of beatings to men who for the most part had it coming.”

“And some who didn’t?” I questioned.

“Something like that.”

“What do you do? For work?” I suddenly blurted.

“Various things. A lot of unrelated things. Why?” Finn’s grip on my hand tightened.

“Because maybe you should think about changing professions. You’d make an excellent mind reader,” I said, keeping my tone light.

It worked. Finn chuckled.

My stomach flipped and I wasn’t even on the boat yet and already I was suffering from some sort of pre sea-sickness.

I stepped onto the boat which wobbled the second I got one foot in. Finn reached out with his other arm and guided me onto the boat. An electric current raced up my arms. I looked up at Finn and our eyes locked. He held onto me long after I’d steadied myself.

“I’ve never been on a boat before,” I admitted.

His eyebrows shot up like I’d just told him that I’d never eaten food or breathed air before.

Finn guided me down onto the bench facing forward and he untied the boat, leaning against a pole shaped like a T next to the motor so he could steer us with a lever sticking out from the top. “So, Sterling?” Finn asked, not letting go of his earlier question.

Finn was a complicated creature. Not all of his reactions were good and bad. He wasn’t that cut and dry. However, I was tempted to evade his question some more. A small part of me enjoyed the look of torment on his perfect face.

However, his scowl told me I’d better not push my luck. “He comes into the bar. He likes to talk a lot.”

“Some things never change,” he said flatly.

“He’s NICE,” I emphasized the word NICE.

“He’s not as nice as he seems,” Finn argued, pushing us off.

“Why do you say that?”

“Trust me,” he said. “Stay far away from him.”

“Trust you? How can I trust you if you won’t tell me anything?” I asked, throwing my hands up in the air. “And you don’t get to tell me what to do. No one does. Not anymore.”

“Have you really never been on a boat before?” Finn asked, changing the subject.

“Yes. I’ve never done a lot of things before,” I answered, looking around in complete and utter wonderment at the water surrounding us. “I’ve never lived on my own in a real house. I’ve never seen a movie in an actual movie theater. I’ve never made dinner for anyone besides my parents unless you count helping other women of the church make pies to sell at the farmers market. I’ve never been to a library and just sat down and read a book of my choice. No warnings or bans or approval needed. Maybe I’ll do it and sit there and read a seedy romance or…or Harry Potter! I’ve always wanted to read that one. Maybe I’ll even work at a library someday. That way I can read all day long.”

The trees surrounding us were growing thicker until we were under a canopy of foliage with just hints of the sun’s rays peeking through making every gap appear like a shining star. “Until I came here, I’d never even traveled outside of the state. There are so many other things I don’t really even know yet,” I admitted. “But I’m going to find out…and I’m going to do them all.”

“Is Critter’s your first job?” Finn asked.

“It is,” I answered cheerfully.

“Was I your first kiss?”

My heart had been pounding wildly, but when he asked that question it stilled completely. I pretended to be very interested in a pair of tall grey birds drying their wings on the shore while trying to remember how to breathe. “You were.”

I heard Finn make a noise that sounded like a hiss followed by a groan but I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face.

The birds from the shore took that moment to dive under the water and thankfully it was a sharp enough ice pick to create a hole in the tension that had formed between us.

Finn was quiet for a moment. “This conservative family of yours, it sounds more like a cult, keeping you sheltered from the modern world.”

“It was and it wasn’t,” I answered as a snake slithered in an S form in front of the boat. I watched it swim all the way to the other side of the waterway before disappearing into the reeds. “We didn’t live on a compound or anything. We actually lived in one of those cookie cutter developments where all the houses looked the same, but lots of different kinds of people lived there. Not just members of the church. However, women were rarely allowed out in public without a male family member to escort us. I was only allowed out alone for simple errands, like the grocery store or bank. We did have a television in the basement, but it only got a few channels. I would sneak down and watch reruns of a show called M.A.S.H. in the middle of the night on mute.”

“M.A.S.H.,” Finn said. “Good choice.”

I blushed.

“For the most part, growing up how I did, was very boring. But as I got older and my father… let’s just say I preferred the boring to the alternative,” I said, not wanting to dredge up a past that I wanted to keep buried deep in the swamp waters of my brain. “I’m here now,” I added. “That’s all that matters.”

“Yes, you are,” Finn said and I couldn’t tell if he meant it in a good way or a bad way.

I laughed nervously. “Do you want to hear the crazy part? I never even thought about leaving. I know that sounds stupid, but it was never an option. I couldn’t leave my mom and I knew she’d never leave my dad, so it didn’t occur to me that I should leave until after she died. After she’d suggested it to me in a letter.”

“Where is your dad now?”

I shook my head. A frog croaked loudly nearby. “I’m not entirely sure. The church travels during the summer. They do this big tent tour, traveling to spread the word to little towns all over the southeast. He was planning on going with them this time around as assistant reverend. He could be anywhere.”

Finn steered us between heavy brush so thick I thought we’d hit it for sure but we didn’t, skating right through with precision accuracy like he’d done it a million times before and knew the location of every stump and tree in the swamp.

“So, I took the camper and truck that my mom left for me,” I continued, “and set out to find a real life of my own. Where no one could tell me what I can do and who I should or shouldn’t be friends with.”

An eternity of silence stretched out between us.

BASIN CANAL was spray painted in block lettering on a sign on the shore with an arrow pointing the direction we were going.

I glanced back at Finn whose eyes were sparkling under the sunlight. He was looking at me but it was more. Like he was finally seeing me. All of me. “Have you found it yet?” he asked.

“Found what?”

“A real life of your own. What you came here to find.”

My erratic heart was all over the place. My hands started to sweat. “Too soon to tell,” I finally answered.

We slowly puttered and at one point I had to duck under a curtain of moss as we passed underneath. The other side of the curtain looked completely different. The waterway in the center was only wide enough for two boats to pass one another at the same time. Steam rose off the water creating a mist all around the boat.

It was beautiful.

“This isn’t anything like I thought a swamp would be. It smells like rain and…” I inhaled deeply. “Like…fresh cut grass.”

“That’s probably because every movie ever that takes place in a swamp is a horror movie,” Finn commented. Almost immediately he realized his error and continued without apologizing or making me feel small.

“Out here the water moves around a lot better than up by the house,” Finn explained. “Up there all the dead plant and animal matter sinks deep in the muck. That’s why you smell that sulpher rotten-egg smell. It’s usually worse after a rain storm, but it’s all a part of nature. A part of setting things to right and keeping everything moving.”

We passed under another curtain of moss. Finn sat down behind me, lowering the handle of the motor. He had to part his legs in order to fit his large frame on the bench, a knee on either side of me, his jean clad thighs brushed up against me with his movements.

“I love all the Spanish moss,” I said, looking around. There was barely a branch that wasn’t covered completely in it.

“It’s actually not moss. It’s not Spanish either.” Finn leaned forward so his chin was hovering above my shoulder. The base of my spine tingled with awareness. He pointed to a tree so covered in moss you couldn’t see a trace of the bark.

I swallowed hard. “It’s not?”

Finn leaned back and I exhaled. “It’s actually more related to a pineapple than moss.”

“Then why do they call it Spanish moss if it’s not Spanish and it’s not a moss?” I asked.

“Probably because southern logic is a little bit different than most,” he said, his eyes dipping to my thighs where my shorts had ridden up on my legs.

I turned back around so he wouldn’t see my heated cheeks. “I’m learning that.”

Finn turned the boat to the right to avoid a huge tree stump that looked like a knee sticking up from the middle of the waterway. “The moss reminded the French who came here a couple of hundred years back of the Spanish Conquistadors with their long beards, so they started calling it Spanish Beard, which somehow over time turned to Spanish Moss.”

“You know a lot about the swamp.”

“I should. I grew up here. Plus, history was the only class in high school that didn’t bore me to tears, so I picked up a thing or two.”

“I’m not a big fan of the past,” I commented. When I stole a glance back I noticed him staring blankly at the shore. “I know where I’ve been, enough to know I’m never going back there.”

When I turned back around, Finn’s eyes were again on me until something on the shore caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. “What’s that?” I asked, grateful for the distraction.

“It’s a gator slide,” Finn said. “During the hotter months, they’ll make these nest-mounds at the edge of the water to lay their eggs. You see those reeds up ahead? The green ones with the lily-pad looking thing at the end?”

“Uh huh,” I followed to where he was pointing off the front of the boat.

“There isn’t much that can crush those over just from wading through, so if you see any of those bent all in one direction it’s usually a good sign that you got gators nearby. There’s also one other telltale sign they’re close. The most important one to remember.”

“What?”

“It’s the fucking swamp,” Finn said. “Of course there are gators nearby.”

“So he does know how to joke,” I said sarcastically.

When we passed the back of a huge white house I screamed. “Stop!” I shouted and Finn slowed the boat down. “That’s it!” I exclaimed as we floated past it. “This is the house I first saw when I came into town. Isn’t it amazing? It’s like a much bigger version of the park model in the junkyard. Do you know who lives there?” I asked.

“Nobody worth mentioning,” Finn grumbled.

I ignored him. “It’s almost pretty in a really messed up way. Almost like she doesn’t know how beautiful she is,” I lamented, looking around in wonderment at my surroundings before turning back to Finn. The heat of his gaze firmly fixed on mine. I bit my lip and my heart began to race as his eyes trailed from my eyes to my neck down to my t-shirt and my nipples tingled when they raked over the front of my t-shirt.

“No, I don’t think she does,” Finn said. His lips turned upward into a smile that made my pelvis clench and my skin heat.

A shadow crossed over the boat and Finn’s half smile fell. His gaze shifted over my head. Finn slowed the boat to a crawl as we approached the abandoned water park.

“Wow,” I mouthed as we passed under three huge intertwining slides. “You really can get everywhere by water.”

Back on the land there were tall palm trees artfully arranged around empty pools. Crumbled landscape curbing surrounded downed palm fronds and weeds covered the ground beneath them covering at least a few feet of the trunks themselves. A few small pavilions and some downed lockers came into view. The sign was missing letters but I’m pretty sure S K SH C once read SNACK SHACK.

The place was the water park equivalent of a ghost town. Like when the wind whistled through the tunnel of the slide it was like I could almost hear the echoes of laughter from kids who never got the chance to slip down the twisting slides and the cries of the toddler who dropped their ice cream cone the second his mom handed it to him at the Snack Shack.

“It looks sad. Like it was meant to bring happiness and now it’s just a reminder of what it’s never going to be,” I thought out loud.

Finn remained quiet.

“So, I take it you don’t like Sterling?” I asked in an attempt to get him to use words again.

Finn’s expression remained unreadable. His lips in a straight line. His shoulders squared.

“I mean, was he a friend of yours? Like Miller and Josh were?”

“Fuck no,” he snapped.

My frustration was growing. I’d just shared so much with him and in the course of a few seconds he’d completely shut down on me. Which was why I asked a question I knew I shouldn’t have, and pushed a button I knew I shouldn’t have pushed. “Finn, why aren’t you friends with Josh and Miller anymore?”

“Drop it,” Finn grated through his teeth, speeding up the boat. The motor buzzed loudly, effectively ending any further conversation. When we got to Critter’s, Finn didn’t bother tying off the boat. He hoisted me up onto the shore.

“You told me to trust you, but I can’t trust you if you don’t tell me anything,” I said, trying one last time to get him to open up.

“So then don’t,” he growled; before he pushed off the dock, he added “I’ll leave the door unlocked.” He zipped back under a curtain of moss. The high-pitched zinging of the small engine was all that remained of Finn’s presence.

“Don’t,” I whispered, rubbing the skin on my arms up and down as if a sudden chill had blown through the thick humid air.

When my dad wasn’t drunk, he still wasn’t the happiest person in the world. Liquor for him was that added fuel to an already burning fire. It helped turn his irritation into full blown anger which then caused him to lash out. It was the reason why I’d come to see him as a monster instead of a father.

But with my father, it was like a predictable kind of insanity.

Finn’s anger, on the other hand, didn’t come with the courtesy of a warning in the form of a bottle. He didn’t need alcohol to help flip the switch on his demons. Even though I had a feeling it was Finn’s demons that were somehow flipping the switch on him.

Whatever he had gone through, he was STILL going through it and it was worse than I’d imagined.

I needed to keep my distance. To not allow myself to be fooled by his kiss or convinced that he was a good person to have in my life because I liked how it felt in his arms.

I knew better.

The only thing more dangerous than a predictable monster…

Was an unpredictable one.