Chapter Nine
I spent the next couple of hours chatting with him and his assistant Marin off and on and then noticed the time. It was going on one in the morning and I wasn’t sure I could remember the last time I was up at this time when I wasn’t being dragged somewhere by Sam or Frankie. I had been having such an amazing time. Something if I thought about, I hadn’t had in a very long time. But I didn’t want to think about that.
When I did think about it, my heart finally took back control over my mind and made me do logical things like text Finn goodbye while he was busy during his scene. Then it made me do things like retrace my steps and locate my car in the middle of the night in an unknown neighbourhood and hope and pray I made it to the safety of the car quickly. Then it made me drive myself home thinking about how stupid I was even thinking I was allowed one date, let alone two. A third was just out of the question. My heart clearly remembered the promise I had made five years ago and wasn’t going to let my brain take over.
My heart convinced my brain that it was a fun evening but it was going to stop there. Fun didn’t fit in my life. Nope, I pulled the shit card in the deck of life. That’s what I got and I dealt with it. Continuing down this road wasn’t for me and it wasn’t fair to Finn. I would text him in the morning and let him know. I was saving us both a lot of future heartache. So then why did my heart hurt so bad right now? It was like I was two different people at war with each other.
I locked up and turned out the lights and headed to bed. As I was washing up, I remembered Finn lifting my chin. His touch had felt light but electric. I sighed. Brain, turn off would you? It did and I promptly forgot about the internal war I was waging and fell exhausted into bed, directly into a deep sleep.
I woke to a pounding on my door, my phone vibrating and bouncing around the night table and the doorbell ringing. When in the hell had the apocalypse started? I grabbed my robe, pushed my mop of hair off my face, wiped any remaining drool away and stumbled out to see who the hell it was.
I looked through the peephole and sucked in a huge breath. It was Finn. Banging on my door at three a.m. I flipped on the outside lights and he went still. “George?” Pause. “George?”
Shit shit shit. What was he doing here? I cracked open the door. Squinting at the bright light, I had a hard time focusing. That and I had left my glasses on the nightstand. “Finn? What are you doing here?”
He looked at me like he could just decide to suddenly be an axe murderer and strangle me. He was running his hand through his hair and was visibly agitated. “Finn? What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? What am I doing here? George, Jesus Christ. I looked up and you weren’t where I had left you and I couldn’t find you. Then I found my phone and your text that said you were just up and leaving. In the middle of the night. In the shittiest part of town. Without telling anyone you were leaving or where you were going. Jesus. I was freaking out. I left right away and was calling and texting you the entire way. Can you imagine how I felt?”
I looked at him. How he felt? Ok, I realized I may have left a little hastily and it may have been uber creepy where they were filming, but he was busy. Why was he acting so upset? So, again, I just stared. I watched him get a hold of himself. And then he stared right back. “Can I come in?”
“I don’t know, Finn, it’s three in the morning. Aren’t you tired? I really need to sleep.”
“Yes, I’m tired and yes, I know what time it is but we are doing this, George. So you might as well let me in or I will just be standing out here, pounding on your door until the sun comes up.”
“Finn, just turn around and say goodbye. I was going to text you in the morning but since it’s morning now and you are here, I guess I will just get it out. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to continue seeing each other.”
“I see.”
“You know it and I know it so let’s just be realistic and save each other a ton of time.”
“Ton of time. Ok.”
I plastered on a big smile that totally didn’t reflect the ache in my heart. “Yes, well, thanks for checking on me. I’m fine as you can see. You can go home to sleep.”
I moved to shut the door and he shoved his foot inside the frame to stop me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finishing this.”
“Ok, look, I just don’t think-“ He put his full weight on the door and barged on in.
“No, that’s just it George. Don’t think.”
He slammed the door behind him and began to stalk towards me. I shuffled back to avoid being eaten alive. The closer he got, the more I shuffled back until I felt the couch behind me and my options were failing. He was the predator and I appeared to be his prey.
“Stop trying to think for me. Stop trying to think for your heart. Just let it be darling.”
“But-“
He grabbed me on both shoulders. A warmth was there that felt electrifying. Resist at all costs, Georgie, I reminded myself. Get a grip.
“I can’t. I can’t get involved with you.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Finn, I just can’t. It’s not good for you or me.”
“George, listen. I know. I know what happened to you and I know you want to push me away because of it. I know you were married. I know you had a husband and I know he was taken from you tragically.”
I stopped breathing. How? How could he know? No one knew.
“George, breathe, darling. Breathe please. I know you think you don’t deserve happiness, no matter how small it is, but I am here to tell you you’re wrong. You’re so wrong, baby. Sam told me everything.”
“She had no right.”
“And before you scream at her, she loves you. She’s just looking out for you. She texted me from your phone this afternoon. She was sure you were going to do just what you just did, so just hear me out. Please?”
He gently and slowly released my arms. I took a deep breath and pushed the emotions down. They were too close to the surface. Way too close. I didn’t talk about them to anyone. This conversation so wasn’t going to happen.
“No, Finn. I won’t hear you out. You don’t know me and I barely know you. You think you know me, but you don’t. You think you know how I feel, but you don’t. I want you to leave, please. Just leave and go on with your fabulous life with your fabulous friends and your fabulous job and leave me to be me in peace. I will speak with Sam and ask her to forget your number and the two of you should forget to decide the course of my life behind my back. Now please, just go.”
“No.”
“Finn, stop.”
“Stop what? Stop wanting to be let in? Stop wanting you? You think you know me? You think you understand what my motivations are? You don’t know shit. You’re scared. I get it. You would rather build walls around the heartbreak so it never gets out. I get that too. No, I have never suffered the type of loss that you have and God willing, I never will. But you don’t get to decide when we’re done. There are two of us here. You don’t get that. We’ve only had a few dates and I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re driving me crazy and whenever I’m near you all I want is to be even closer to you. I’ve never, in my life, met someone like you. Do you not think I deserve that? Deserve a chance at that? I do. And baby, you’re it. You’re the chance I’ve been waiting for to finally come around.”
He stilled and took a deep breath. I saw my chance and moved. Just a slight motion, maybe I could worm my way out. Then I made the mistake of looking up. Those eyes. Those baby blue eyes. They reminded me of another set of eyes and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the eyes. Connor had those same blue eyes. Shit. A tide of feeling so intense it wouldn’t be stopped erupted from my breaking heart and I couldn’t contain it. It had been behind the wall for too long and now it was out. All it took was those eyes. I looked into Finn’s eyes and knew. It was in his eyes. I was lost in a sea of memories and swallowed up by a plague of guilt. It was all in those damn blue eyes.
My breath hitched and the first hesitant sob burst forth. His eyes changed. They were on fire before and now they were calming, searching, trying to tell me something.
“Let it out. Just let it out.”
And I did. And somewhere in the middle of my humiliating sobs and snot, he scooped me up and carried me to the couch and wrapped me in his arms. And still, I couldn’t stop. I had never really started. I had never allowed myself the option to cry. Crying was a waste of time. Crying wouldn’t bring anyone back. Why bother?
Slowly I became aware of him. His even breathing. His soft whispers. His long, strong arms built a fortress around my broken and battered heart. I could feel his soft shirt under my wet cheeks and finally, the steady, strong beat of his heart under my head. The hysterics began to calm, and my sobbing abated until finally, they were gone and I was done. I finally felt the band around my heart loosen, just a little, but it was a start at least.
We laid there completely still and quiet. I had lost all track of time. I pushed up a bit and looked back into those eyes and saw it. I was safe. He was still here. He knew my secret, he had seen me at my worst and yet he was still here and wasn’t quickly trying to put me to rights and head home. God, it must have been going on four a.m.
“I’m sor-“
“Don’t. Do not make this something it isn’t.”
“But-“
“No, George, baby.”
There, again. The belt was loosening a little more every time he used those silly words of endearment. I always thought I was the anti-baby type of girl, but it turned out I just hadn’t heard it from the right guy.
“Ok, I won’t. But-“
“Listen, I came here knowing what I was feeling. I came here knowing that what just happened to you, was a huge possibility and I’m not scared of it. You did it. You got somewhere. You let that wall come down after how many years? It’s huge and you don’t understand how much that means to me that you trusted me enough to give it to me. That’s mine. Something no one else gets. Mine. So don’t make it seem like it was nothing, because it wasn’t nothing to me.”
He lifted his thumb to trace a remaining tear that had gotten loose slowly down my cheek, slowly towards my lip. He caught it there and traced the outline of my lips with his thumb. It left a trail of fire along my lip. Which led to a trail of fire down my body that landed right where no man had gone for a very, very long time.
I turned my body into his and lifted my hand to his cheek. My eyes searched his, looking for permission. To do what, I wasn’t sure. This was totally foreign territory for me these days. I began to share.
“Since Connor died I’ve been on a few dates, but I haven’t really been able to get him out of my head. Until this moment, I guess I thought I needed to do that in order to move on and be with another man. Thank-you Finn. Let me say this once and then move on. I miss him. I miss him nearly every day, but those tears, were the beginning and the end of me missing him in a new way. I just realized he’s here, he’s inside of me and I have my memories of he and I, but there’s room. Room inside me for more. More memories of new adventures, new experiences and new men. I can’t promise you that I won’t be a pain in the ass and I can’t promise I won’t be fighting those memories once in a while, but I can promise you that you matter to me. What you just did for me matters. Matters more than perhaps you will ever know and after I’m done kicking Sam’s ass for going behind my back, she matters to me too.”
I noticed his eyes change again. The calm, cool was gone and the deep fire was back. It was then I noticed the subtle changes that had been happening while I wasn’t paying attention. The whisper soft feel of his fingers stroking my back in soothing circles. The soft pad of his thumb moving so slightly around the sensitive spot in front of my ear. My thumb stroking the fine layer of stubble on his cheek and my other hand wrapped around his waist and holding on for dear life.
“Slow?” I asked.
“Slow. But I can’t guarantee you won’t have to remind me from time to time, liiike right now for example.” He slowly lowered his face to meet mine, while I hesitantly rose to meet him there. I wanted to close my eyes, but knew that was a very bad idea. Closed eyes for me meant a drifting mind, and a drifting mind over thought way too much. My eyes locked onto his and then I just let go.
It started with a soft brush, so soft I wasn’t sure it happened. I pulled back but he gently applied pressure to my back with his hand to hold me still.
“Let go, George,” he whispered. “Let me in, baby.”
That was the key. That damn word went straight in and shot down my body and landed right in between my legs. My lips opened up on their own accord and he was there. No more hesitation, just heat. Burning heat.
My lips opened a little more and he saw his opening and took it. His tongue invaded and headed straight for mine lighting my skin on fire. God, it had been so long. Why? Why had I waited? Somewhere inside, in a place I didn’t want to examine right now, I knew. I knew it was him. I had been waiting for him. This man right here, right now.
My hand around his waist wrapped tighter and my other hand twisted up to grab hold of his hair. He began to recline and pulled me down with him, never once breaking our connection. I was burning up from the inside out. I had been kissed before but never, in a million years, like this. He shifted us around until our chests were touching and the delicious friction on my nipples sent shock waves up and down my body.
He broke the kiss, but before I could express my sadness at this, he started trailing and nipping kisses down the sensitive side of my neck, my favourite part of the body.
A small sigh escaped and I felt his mouth smile. He knew he had won this battle. His little manly smile of victory was proof of that.
“George, I haven’t been able to get doing this out of my mind since we ran into each other at The Clark.”
“Mmmm, less talking please. Whisper sweet nothings but no logical words please. I’ve waited for this for a while too, Finn.”
“Say it again.”
“What?”
“My name. Say it again.” He lifted his head and I had to stop myself from yanking him back down again.
I looked him in those crazy blue eyes and said the word he asked for. “Finn.”
He smiled and then rolled me under him and proceeded to kiss me into oblivion and I decided that I might just like to stay there for a little bit longer.