by Roxy Reid
Finn’s strong fingers replace mine, gentle and sure, making small circles in my hair, and my own arms fall away.
“Like this?” Finn asks.
“A little more pressure,” I say, and he complies.
It feels so good, it’s like I’m melting. You’re not supposed to let your enemy under your defenses like this.
The bartender comes back with a bag of ice, which he sets on the table. He looks at Finn over the top of my head, and there’s some sort of territorial male thing going on because Finn says, “I’ve got her. You can go.”
The bartender retreats reluctantly—he’s kind of cute, I notice belatedly—and Finn’s fingers resume their magic.
“How did you remember my birthday?” I ask.
“I’m good with birthdays,” Finn says.
“You’re horrible with birthdays. You forgot your own once.”
Finn doesn’t have a response for that.
A woman I assume is his waiter appears around the corner holding two plates of salmon, “Would you like these over here?”
“NO,” I blurt indignantly. “He’s allergic to peanuts. That’s bully-salmon, and we don’t want it.”
Finn’s fingers still, and I realize I’ve given myself away, as the waitress apologizes and backs away.
Finn sits down opposite me and passes me the ice. It’s a poor replacement for his fingers, but I accept it.
“You were listening,” he says.
“I recognized your voice.”
“Why were you here in the first place?” Finn asks.
“A sudden craving for overpriced fish?”
Finn scowls.
I realize I have to give him the truth. Some of it. “I was going to get lunch when I saw you leave the lobby. After you’d told Bridget you had a headache and lied to her about the meeting, I was curious.”
His scowl deepens, “That’s none of your business.”
“What are you doing here?” I demand. “You hate Zane Wright. And that’s who that was, wasn’t it?”
Finn crosses his arms, his jaw set mulishly.
It’s his I’m-not-going-to-tell-you-a-damn-thing face, and suddenly he’s not the only one who’s furious.
Because I don’t want to give this story to Shaun. I don’t want to paint Finn as a man who gives in to jerks. I don’t want Finn to be a man who gives in to jerks. There’s more to this story, but if Finn won’t talk to me, there’s nothing I can do to help.
I realize with a jolt that I do want to help. I want to climb into Finn’s lap and soothe his hurts and fight off his bullies.
But as Finn said, it’s none of my business.
I shove away from the table and storm out of the restaurant.
“Charlie! Charlie, be careful!” Finn calls, hurrying after me.
Oh that’s rich. Him telling me to be careful. I’m not the one of us that’s self-destructing.
Finn grabs my arm, “Charlie! Wait.”
I whirl on him, “Why are you doing this, Finn? Practically everyone on your tour has told me they like working for you because you don’t hire people like Zane. And now you’re going back to him? This is bigger than you. It’s going to make all of your people miserable.”
“I’m not letting him anywhere near them. He’s not producing. He’s just helping me write some songs.”
“Why? You’re a good songwriter. You don’t need him,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, letting his hand fall from my arm. “I do.”
I want to smack Finn. Just smack that look of defeat right off his face.
Sure, I want to take him down a peg. That doesn’t mean anyone else gets to. Especially not someone like Zane.
“You don’t need him,” I say. “You wrote your first album by yourself, no Zane.”
“I didn’t write it by myself.”
“Then who’d you write it with?”
“You! I wrote it with you,” Finn closes his eyes and scrubs a hand through his hair.
“Finn,” I say cautiously, “what are you talking about?”
Finn spreads his arms, smiling, but it’s a tense, horrible smile. “I can’t write music by myself. I need someone to bounce ideas off of. Like I used to with you. And the only people I’ve ever written successfully with are you and Zane. And I’ve got an album to record as soon as we finish the tour and I don’t have any songs.”
I wrap my arms around myself as the pieces start clicking into place, “That’s what you were trying to talk to me about in New Orleans. Why you wanted me to forgive you.” My eyes narrow, “Is that why you hired me?”
Finn shoves his hands in his pockets and looks away, “Are you furious with me?”
I’m trying to use him for an exposé. Compared to that, trying to use me to help him write some songs doesn’t seem that bad.
It almost seems … vulnerable.
“Why didn’t you just ask me?” I say.
Finn looks up at me, and it’s like his eyes are burning into me, “Because you still hate me. So sue me if I don’t want to hand you my biggest failing on a silver platter.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say.
He snorts a laugh and turns away. He looks so alone, standing there with his back to me. When he finally turns back to me, his shoulders are squared, and his face is impassive, like he’s determined to bear up under some impossible weight.
“Come on Concussion Lady,” Finn says. “Let’s get you back to the hotel. I have to call Zane. And you should get some rest.”
“No,” I don’t plan to say it, but as soon as I do it’s like the world has straightened. Like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.
“Charlie—”
“Don’t call Zane.”
“Don’t worry about this. I’m a grown-up, I’ll be fine—”
“I’ll help you,” I say.
Finn freezes.
“You’ll what?” he asks.
I adjust the strap on my purse nervously, “I’ll help you write your song or whatever. I’m stuck with you until the tour ends anyway.”
“Charlie, I …” Finn runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you not want my help?”
“No! Yes. Yes, I want your help.”
“Ok then.”
“Ok then.”
We stand there looking at each other, strangely nervous, and for some reason it makes me think of the first time he asked me out.
He brought up a photography exhibit, and I could tell where he was headed before he got to the question. I remember the sensation of standing on a precipice, knowing that any choice I made would change what we were forever.
It feels like that now. Except I’m not on the precipice. I already jumped, and now I’m free-falling.
“So,” I say, “how do we write a song?”
Five hours later we’re in his hotel room, pizza boxes and scrap paper strewn around us. His hotel room, I will say, is much nicer than mine. For starters, there’s a living room.
Finn’s sitting cross-legged at a keyboard with a notebook that’s full of unsatisfactory song ideas.
At least I assume they’re unsatisfactory. I don’t know, because he won’t say any of them out-loud.
Finn presses a key and frowns, “Does this note sound flat to you?”
“FINN. IT’S AN ELECTRIC KEYBOARD. STOP. WASTING. TIME. AND. WRITE. A. SONG,” I punctate each word by throwing a guitar pick at him.
“It’s not that fucking easy!” Finn catches the last pick and flicks it back at my forehead.
I stretch, “You used to write songs way faster than this.”
Finn eyes the arch of my back and smirks, “I used to have better motivation.”
“What are you … oh my God. I forgot about the Study Game,” I say, laughing. “You used to be so horny.”
“Hey! If I remember correctly, the Study Game was not my idea.”
I bite my lip and look away because he’s right. I came up with the Study Game
to help him prepare for the SAT. One kiss per every answer he got right. We’d been dating for weeks, but we hadn’t had sex yet, and the scores on Finn’s practice tests improved with freakish speed.
“Area of a circle, Mr. Ryan?” I tease.
“πr2,” he says, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think there was heat in his eyes. “Do I get my kiss?”
I laugh. But suddenly I feel restless in my skin.
I hop up and head over to the fridge, because of course he has a fridge in his hotel room. I have a mini-fridge in mine, but I can’t figure out how to turn it on.
“I’m getting a beer. Do you want anything?” I call as I peer into the fridge.
“Sure, I’ll take a beer,” his voice is so close behind me I jump.
I turn around and shove a drink at him to cover up my nerves.
Why am I nervous? I’m just hanging out with an old friend.
In his hotel room.
Alone.
While we talk about kissing.
I try to twist the cap off my beer, but I can’t get a grip.
“Here, let me,” Finn says. I pass it over, trying not to notice the warm strength of his hands.
I need to think of something other than how good his forearms look as he works the cap of my beer. “So who would you use now for the Study Game?”
The cap goes flying across the room.
“What did you say?” Finn chokes out.
My cheeks heat as I realize how stupid that sounds. “I don’t really mean who, obviously, like you’re a rockstar, you can have sex with whoever you want,” I babble.
Finn looks at the ceiling, “You’d be surprised.”
“I mean, what motivates you?” I ask as I take my beer back, because clearly I need something to stop my mouth. “What’s the thing that you bribe yourself with to do the stuff you don’t want to do?”
“Fear of failure?” Finn jokes.
“Come on,” I take a swig of my beer, “tell me the truth.”
“I am,” he makes a face, then sips his own beer. “That summer, after we … ended, I did everything I could to have more time to disappear into music, because that was the only place it felt good. And that’s kind of always been true. I’m just playing for the sake of playing. Writing for the sake of writing. But with this album, it’s like all I can see is the deadline. The failure. I know I have to write something, but it’s like … it’s like when you have a crush on someone, and it makes you too desperate, and you turn into a dork, and then they won’t give you the time of day. The song is this girl I can’t catch because I want her too bad.”
I point at him, and smile, “That’s it.”
“What?” Finn asks nervously.
“That’s your first song. You’re going to write about how frustrating it is not to be able to write a song.”
Finn groans, “It’s so cliche.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
When he groans again, I grab his shirt and drag him back out into the living room area.
We’ve been stuck in this room so long, I can feel my creativity dropping just looking at the pizza boxes, and I’m not the one who has to write a song, “Any other rooms in this ginormous suite of yours?”
“Just the bedroom,” Finn says.
I let go of his shirt, grab his guitar and a fresh notebook, and head back to Finn’s bedroom.
“Charlie?” His voice sounds nervous, “What are you doing?”
“Breaking your wall down,” I say. I survey the room. There’s a luxurious chair, and an even more luxurious bed.
I gesture with the guitar, “Get on the bed.”
His eyes darken, and his next step can best be described as a prowl.
“Not like that!” I say hastily. I toss his guitar onto the bed, then back into the chair, clutching my notebook like it’s the thing that will save me from this massively bad idea.
Finn looks down at his guitar, “The keyboard’s more efficient. I can record stuff as I write—”
“This isn’t about efficient. It’s your soul. And your soul is guitar.”
Finn reaches a hand out for his guitar and there’s so much elegant longing in that gesture, I wish I had my camera so I could freeze the moment.
Finn settles on the bed, his back slouched against the headboard, his legs loose and long, the guitar cradled in his lap. His hands play a few warm-up chords absentmindedly, and I wish I had my camera again. If the False Prophet thing falls through, maybe I can just make a Finn Ryan pinup calendar.
Thinking of False Prophet leaves a bad taste in my mouth—I still haven’t called Shaun, partly because I don’t know what I’m going to tell him—so I shove the thought away and focus on Finn.
Finn, who is looking up at me from under messy curls, that dangerous smile lurking in the corner of his mouth.
My mouth goes dry.
“Are we playing the Study Game?” Finn asks and his voice slides through me like whiskey, potent and dangerous.
“Sure,” I flip my hair, nonchalant. “What do you want your prize to be? Shots? T.V.? A break from me?”
“I was thinking I’d stick with the original. Why mess with a classic?”
My lips part. “Oh,” I say, and damn it, my voice sounds breathy. Breathy and needy.
Which is probably because I feel breathy and needy, but he doesn’t need to know that.
Finn raises an eyebrow in challenge, “You game?”
Yes. Yes, I am so game.
I roll my eyes and slouch deeper into the chair, “I would have thought you would have diversified your palette, but sure whatever. I’m game.”
“Great. One kiss per stanza.”
“Per stanza? Oh no,” I drawl. “Per verse. And then one for the chorus. And one for the bridge.”
“You used to be easier,” Finn grumbles.
“I used to like you more.”
Finn snorts a laugh, and I smile. We’re trading barbs like always, but this time it feels like we’re in tune with each other. There’s a rush to it, sparring with Finn. And it’s even more heady when we’re goading each other toward a shared destination, instead of trying to tear each other down.
“Bonus kiss if you finish the song before dawn,” I say.
“That’s what, six kisses?” Finn looks me up and down, and it’s all I can do not to shiver under his gaze. I know he’s just trying to get a rise out of me, but damn him, it’s working.
“I can work with six,” Finn says, and then he bends over the guitar. His hands skate over the strings, and he tries out some different rhythms.
“Ok, the chord progression is E, B, C minor, and A.”
I narrow my eyes, “Isn’t that the chord progression that’s in half the pop songs ever written?”
His grin is cheeky, “You didn’t say this had to be good.”
I throw a pillow at him, and he laughs and ducks, but I write down the chord progression.
Finn closes his eyes and plays me two different strum patterns, “Which one do you like better?”
“The second. It’s got more pep to it. No one wants a sad song about not being able to write a song.”
“Right then. Peppy anger it is,” Finn says and starts playing our chord progression with his strumming pattern.
On stage Finn’s voice is rough and powerful, but this close, while he’s toying with melodies, his voice is softer, richer.
Deeper.
I shift in my chair, waiting for my kiss.
“She’s like this song, I’m trying to catch/ Like a dream waiting to hatch …”
I giggle.
Finn rolls his eyes, “Shut up. I know eggs aren’t sexy. But you try to rhyme—”
“Match,” I supply.
“She’s like this song, I’m trying to catch/ Sharp and True/ My perfect match,” he sings. He looks up, self-conscious. “This is too sappy. It’s not my brand.”
“You don’t have to marry the song, you idiot! Just write it. Sharp and True/ My perfect match,”
I sing for him.
“Wait, do that again, but up a third.”
“Finn, I can’t …”
“Just listen. Match my pitch, like this,” Finn sings a note, and I match it. Normally I think of my voice as boring, but layered over Finn’s voice and the pulse of the guitar, it fits in perfectly, part of what is becoming a delightful, hot mess of a song.
Finn’s going faster now, and I’ve given up trying to write all his lyrics down, since he’s making me sing backup vocals and clap out rhythms. Instead, I’m recording it on my phone.
We’re building to something, and I’m getting caught in the bittersweet joy of the song, when it comes to an abrupt stop, and I’m left clapping awkwardly in the silence.
“Hey. What did you stop for?” I ask.
“We just finished the first verse,” Finn says, putting his guitar aside and looking at me with great intent.
“Oh. Right,” I say, as Finn comes to me. He leans over me, and I think he’s going to kiss me, but instead he very deliberately turns off my phone’s recording. My pulse is thudding, and I’m very aware of everything. Of my tight jeans and my skimpy camisole. Of my full breasts, and my open mouth, and my restless heart.
Finn cages me in, one tattooed arm braced on each arm of the chair, and my heart skids at his scent.
He looks down at me, fierce, and maybe I’ve been watching too much HBO, because I’m reminded of a warrior king, coming home to claim what’s his.
Finn slides a finger under my camisole strap. He’s toying with me, barely touching, but the gesture is intimate, and I feel nervy butterflies dance in my stomach.
Finn bends down, hovering over my mouth for an agonizing amount of time, and it’s all I can do not to beg. Why is he doing this to me? To us? He never used to be patient before.
And then Finn does something I don’t expect. He kneels between my thighs. All that strength and power and rough male beauty, kneeling at my feet, gently parting my legs.
“What are you doing?” I breathe.
“Deciding where to kiss,” he says.
“What?” I gasp.
He grins like a crocodile.
“On the mouth,” I sputter. “The study game was always on the mouth.”
“Well, I was younger then. Too timid to give you what you deserve.”
“Finn,” I say, and I don’t know if it’s a warning or a plea.
