At the mention of his name, I look over to see what he’s doing. From where we’re standing, I have to lean forward and back again to get a glimpse of him. He’s sitting on the blanket, talking on his phone. He has his head down, gently gesturing with his hand that is hanging over his propped knee, the other knee laying at an angle in front of him. He looks delicious. Just thinking about him sprawled across his bed this morning makes me hot in my sweater even with the cool breeze.
“Quit checking out your hot and moody boyfriend, and fly with me, Hadders!” he enthusiastically shouts, shoving the back of my shoulder. Hot, yes. Moody? He is acting more antagonistic toward Rod this weekend. Why? He said he’s never jealous. Does he trust me that much? Or is it that he just doesn’t care if anyone else flirts with me? Maybe he doesn’t think anyone else would want me.
Looking away from him, I unexcitedly unfold my kite as Rod drags his out further to catch the breeze. His white and pink Hello Kitty kite starts picking up wind.
“What the hell?” I ask, laughing and dropping my kite to the ground. I clutch my stomach and snort. Rod is undeniably rubbing off on me.
“What?”
I point as a new wave of laughter takes over. “Your kite!”
“Quit laughing, you douche canoe!” he orders, trying to be stern, but ends up laughing with me.
I gasp for air. “Don’t tell me that was the only one you could find!”
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t.”
“Okay…” I nod at him to continue.
“What?”
“It wasn’t the only one left, but you bought it anyway?”
“Yes.”
I splutter, “Are you a fan?”
He gives me a sour look. “No.”
I laugh and he smacks my arm with the tips of his fingers for maximum sting; however, my sweater jacket cushions the blow, which only makes me laugh harder. “I’m so confused right now!” Laughing hysterically, tears flood my eyes.
“It’s all of Wilder’s sperm floating around your head.”
I instantly stop laughing to stare at him. “That is so weird.”
It’s his turn to giggle now as he gazes up at his pink kite and readjusts his headscarf with his free hand. “It’s for Eden. I got it because I told her I’d fly a kite for her.” The tears in my eyes spring forward, but now for a different reason.
“That is so thoughtful, Greg.” I wipe my eyes and he looks up at his kite.
He nonchalantly shrugs. “It’s just a kite.”
“It’s the thought behind you flying it.”
“Well, actually, it’s the lift-to-drag ratio and the length of the string.”
“Shut up, Rod.”
He grins and glances down at me. “I can’t believe you gave him a hickey where everyone can see it. That was rather crazy to do on a guy that is seen all over Richmond and surrounding areas on a daily basis.”
“Yeah. I didn’t mean for everyone to see it. It was dark and I thought I was low enough.”
“Did he know you were doing it?”
“I think so. He did pull my face away, but I guess it was too late.”
“It’s a pretty big one.”
“I know.”
“Was he mad when he saw it?”
“No. He didn’t even say anything about it until we were on our way here and I pointed it out.”
“He didn’t even try to cover it up today? Why? He knew I’d call him out on it.”
“I don’t know. He never really did say.”
“That’s strange. He’s usually cagey about you in public.” He gestures to the crowd around us. “And this is definitely public.” Not in his immediate viewing area, though.
“We did talk about that. He said he doesn’t care what people speculate about his private life. He just wants to keep it that: private.”
“You’re a huge part of his private life, Hadders. Aren’t you?”
“I guess. He did give me a ring last night.” I lift up my hand and he looks from his kite down to check it out.
“That?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“What does it mean? Did he ask you to marry him?”
I dejectedly sigh. “No. He said he may change his mind one day, but he still doesn’t want to get married. He said this ring means that he loves me.”
“He didn’t even promise you that it will lead to an engagement ring someday?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, Hadders.” His lips pull sympathetically to the side.
“He said he just wants us to be together.” I sigh again. Rod puts his arm around my shoulders and lightly rubs my upper arm.
“Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
“I doubt it.”
He inhales and says, “Let’s get your kite up.” I stoop to pick mine up from the ground and unroll some string.
When I get it up in the air, Rod squeals, “Nice kite!” I guess he likes my black kite with a huge white skull covering it.
I smirk at him. “Pretty badass, huh?” We giggle and concentrate on not entangling ours with each other’s or anyone else’s.
Rod looks down at me. With one hand on his hip and the other on the roll of string, he complains morosely, “Thanks for making me look like a complete and utter pussy.” I giggle and smack his arm.
“You’re a pussy? I would’ve never have pegged you for one,” Finn deadpans from behind us. He puts his arms around me and says into my ear, “Look at you go, baby.”
Glancing at Finn, Rod proclaims, “Oh, look. It’s the cheering committee, Hadders.” He then gives us a disgusted expression. “Don’t try to grab Hadders’ pom-poms in front of everyone, Wilder. I don’t want us to get booted out of here.”
Above my head, Finn replies, “If they didn’t kick you out of here for flying that kite, then we’re good.”
Rod frowns and gives Finn the bird. I tilt my head back from underneath his chin and say, “Rod is flying the kite in honor of his sick sister.”
Finn’s taunting smile fades and he concedes to Rod, “Oh, well, that is nice of you.”
“See. I’m all about the niceness,” Rod affirms. He then snaps his fingers. “Oh, Hadders! I have such a great idea! You should take your necklace off and tie it to your kite’s tail! Maybe we’ll discover electricity…again.”
I put my hand over my key charm. “No way! I love my necklace.” It’s the first piece of jewelry Finn gave me.
“I love it, too,” Finn adds and kisses the back of my head.
Rod grimaces. “You two are so gross. Why can’t you be in love over there?” He motions with his thumb to the general direction of our picnic blanket.
“Why don’t we take a walk when you’re done here?” Finn asks, scraping his scruff and lips against my cheek. Definitely better than kite flying.
I declare, “I’m done for now.”
“Good.” Rod wrinkles his nose and his eyebrows pull together. “I can smell the sex coming off of you both. Pun intended.”
“Morgan still isn’t here?” I ask Finn from over my shoulder as I roll in my kite.
“No.”
“Hmm. I wonder what happened to her. Maybe I should give her a call.”
“I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
Rod frowns. “Unfortunately.”
I tuck my kite under my arm and Finn grabs my hand, tugging me with him. We stop by the blanket for me to leave my kite. I ask him, “What do we do with our food and things? Plus, Morgan won’t know where we are sitting.”
“Just leave them here. I’m sure the food will be alright.” Finn glances at Rod, who is winding his string. “It looks like he’s coming over anyway.” Finn nods past the blanket to the walking path. “Let’s go.” He interlaces his fingers between mine and we walk to the paved path meandering around the park a short distance away.
“It was a perfect day for kite flying,” I observe as we weave around people on the walkway.
“Uh huh.” I peer up at him to see he’s lo
oking down at the ground, seemingly lost in thought. I notice his magical brown hair is now blonde in the sun.
I ask, “Baby, what’s the matter?” I squeeze his hand and he squeezes back.
He sighs. “I wanted to talk to you.” My heart thuds to a stop.
“About what? Why didn’t you talk to me in the car? I asked you if something was wrong.” We walk near a small pond where there are families; children pointing at fish and talking to the scattering of ducks swimming far from their reach.
“I didn’t bring it up in the car because I’m the pussy,” he mutters. He stops us and steps in front of me. Hesitant to speak, his eyes search mine. For what? He finally says, “It’s something we’ve talked about before, but—”
“Mommy! Look! It’s Finn Wilder from the TV!” Finn’s chocolate brown eyes slip from my face to see who said his name. I turn my head and follow his gaze to see a little boy running over to us. Oh, shit. I hope they don’t notice his hickey. Now I’m mortified.
“I’m sorry!” the boy’s mother says walking up behind him. Finn shakes his head at the woman and smiles down to the kindergarten-aged, brown-haired boy staring up at his hero in awe. Finn stoops to the boy’s height and holds out his hand.
“Hi, buddy. I’m Finn. What’s your name?”
“David,” he replies shaking Finn’s hand.
“Hi, David. What’s your favorite sport?”
“I love everything you do, Finn! You’re awesome! I watch you when Mommy and Daddy watch TV.” Finn chuckles at the little boy’s enthusiasm. Not forgetting his other Finnatic, he glances up to the woman standing behind her son and smiles at her as well, his perfectly white teeth gleaming, rivaling that of the sun’s reflection in the pond. The woman’s face is unmistakably red. He sure knows how to turn on the charm for his women followers. I suppose I also fell for it when we met in the emergency room. He had wowed me then. All he did was smile at me and I was caught in his spell. Is that how he wooed all of the women he’s been with? He has said he’s never dated a woman as long he has me before, but will I join the list of cast-offs because he’ll tire of me wanting more of a commitment from him? What makes me so different from all the other women?
“I like them all, too,” Finn brightly replies and David’s face lights up.
David’s mother asks, “Do you think you could give him an autograph? He would really love that.”
Finn instantly nods. “Absolutely.”
She starts digging in her purse. “I have a pen and paper in my purse here. He even has a Finnatic shirt he wears all the time,” she informs Finn. So do I, but I get more than just his shirt to cover my body.
I smile politely and take the pen and paper from her and hand them down to Finn. He pushes the end of the pen and props the paper on his thigh, the gentle breeze picking up the edges of it as he writes something and then signs his name with a flourish.
“There you go, buddy. So, David, are you going to keep watching me every night on TV?”
“Yes, Finn! We’re friends now!”
“You bet, David.” David smiles at him and then looks up at me.
“Who is she? She’s pretty.”
Finn peers up at me and squints from the sun shining down on him. “Um, she’s my girlfriend. She is pretty isn’t she?” I’m stunned. He actually admitted to people, albeit a six year-old and his mother, that I’m his girlfriend.
“Do you kiss her?” David asks, scrunching his face up. Finn smiles and looks down at the ground next to their feet.
“Yes.”
“Eww. Girls have germs,” he angles his head up at me, briefly studying me before continuing, “but she looks okay.”
Finn smirks up at me. “Yeah. She’s okay.” I give him a small smile.
“Are you going to kiss her now?”
“David,” his mother says. “Sorry,” she mumbles to us.
Finn laughs and leans toward David. “Maybe I will.” He puts his hand out again for David to shake. “It was nice meeting you, David.”
“You, too, Finn!” Finn stands and intertwines our fingers together again.
“Okay, David. Let’s leave Finn alone.” She holds her hand out as David walks over to her, while looking back and waving to Finn.
“Wow,” I say quietly. Forget last night or any other time. Watching him interact with David and how he actually admitted I’m his girlfriend were the sexiest things he’s ever done.
Finn looks from David’s retreating figure to my face. “What?” I hook an arm around his neck and with my other hand, I grip his T-shirt, tugging to indicate what I want him to do. His dark eyes drifting to my lips, he leans down and I kiss him. He winds his arms around me and kisses me back. He abruptly pulls away as if he just remembered something. “Wow, what?”
I smile. “You.”
He narrows his eyes at me in confusion and marginally smiles. “Okay…?”
Not wanting to explain since Rod told me to only tackle one issue at a time, I pull on his shirt again, and he meets me for another kiss.
I remove my hand from Finn’s shirt and look up at him. “What did you want to talk about?” I ask as he holds me in his arms. He gazes into my eyes and I feel like I’m seeing into his soul, as if he’s about to open it up and let me in.
He inhales caustically before answering. “I want you to move in with me, Becks.” His deep is voice quiet as he seems to hold his breath, waiting for my answer.
“Oh.” And we’ve talked about this before, too.
As if he reads my mind, he says, “I know we talked about this before, but we need to talk about it again.”
I look away from him and over to the pond. “Why?”
“Because this is way too hard. We never see each other, baby. I miss you.”
“We see each other as much as we can, Finn.”
“Not enough.”
“That’s because of traffic and the horrible commute.”
He sighs. “I think you’re using those as excuses.”
I swing my head from the pond to his doubtful expression. “What? Why?”
He licks his lips and shrugs. “I don’t know. You tell me. Whenever I bring up the subject of moving in together, you either counter with marriage or change the subject.” Damn it. Doesn’t he understand that I don’t want to just “live in sin” like Rod suggested? It boggles my mind that he’s against me taking the Pill, but he’s okay with me living with him.
“Why do you want me to live with you, but not get married?”
“Becks, we talked about why I don’t want to get married.” He frowns at me and then at the pond. “So, that’s why you don’t want us to move in together? Because you’d rather us be married first?”
I vaguely nod and watch two ducks fighting over a piece of bread. I bet it’s me he doesn’t want to marry. I tear my gaze away from the ducks and look at Finn’s profile while he stares out at the pond. I argue, “You want me to move in with you, but you don’t want to make us permanent.”
Turning from the pond, he glares at me. “We are permanent.”
“But you won’t prove it to me.”
Annoyance flaring, he asks, “Besides marriage, what do I have to do to prove to you that we are forever?” He removes his arms from my waist and puts his hands on his hips. “Shit,” he mutters to the ground. He blows out a huff of air before looking back up at me. “I don’t want that piece of paper to break us up!” he whispers angrily and glances around us. “Can we not fight here?”
“We’re not fighting. We’re talking. You want me to give, but then you won’t.”
“What’s really the difference between us living together as girlfriend and boyfriend or husband and wife? We’d be together. We’re a couple. That’s all that matters!” he says, getting louder. The tension in his jaw begins to spread throughout all his visible muscles.
“But I feel like you want all the benefits of having me live with you, but you won’t wear the ring or the husband label that comes with it.”
; He runs a hand through his sunlit, blondish hair. “I told you I’d think about it. Can’t you do the same for me? At least let’s take this step towards what you want. If we move in together, that will give me a taste of what marriage will be like, won’t it?”
“I just don’t want to move in with you and then you think we don’t need to get married. I don’t want to be the girl who has a boyfriend forever. I do want more than that. I want to be able to call you my husband. Don’t you want me to be your wife?” Finn’s mouth and eyes widen, in horror maybe? Why does he hate the thought of me being his wife so much? Is it just me that he doesn’t want as his wife?
“Hey, Morgan is here,” Rod says jogging over to us.
“Okay,” I mumble to him and he gives us a bewildered look, his eyes falling briefly on me before he turns away. I step back from Finn and cross my arms, looking down at the ground.
Finn grabs my elbow, dragging me to him. “Becks, will you please think about it? We can get a place together somewhere in between. I’ll even move in to your place for now until we do find a bigger apartment. Just please? Please, think about it. It’ll be good for us. I want us to be together, baby. That’s all I want.”
I reluctantly glance up at him and ask, “And if you don’t want to get married, what happens then?”
“We’ll still be together.”
“But, you get what you want.”
Finn reaches up and strokes my ponytail laying over my shoulder. “Becks, come on. We’ll always be together. Married or not. We’re forever. I promise you that.” I want so much to believe that. The doubt in my mind is driving me insane.
“I’ll think about it, if you keep thinking about what I want.”
Finn puts his forehead down against mine. “I will. Let’s just take this step and see how it goes.”
“Let me think about it. We should go back before Morgan and Rod kill each other.”
“I’d actually pay to see that.” He moves his forehead from mine and tenderly kisses me.
In front of people? He’s already been recognized once. He’s dangerously taking a walk on the wild side for sure. He lifts his lips from mine and laughs. “I’d put my money on Morgan.”
Chasing the Wild Sparks Page 10
