Chasing the Wild Sparks

by Alexander, Ren

  I laugh. “Not even a contest.”

  CHAPTER 8

  We begrudgingly start to walk back to the awaiting chaos that is Morgan and Rod.

  Finn lightly swings our merged hands between us as we walk around people on the pathway. Not wanting him to break from me, I hold his hand tighter and cling closer to him. “You told two of your fans that I’m your girlfriend,” I state in wonder, the thought still lingering in my mind and warming my heart.

  He angles himself towards me as we walk, leaning his upper body into me and replying softly, “You are, aren’t you?” Yes, I am. Though, it seems as if I’m your deepest and darkest secret. “I do remember asking you to be my girlfriend on our first date at the chocolate festival after you broke your wrist.”

  I push my shoulder against him, my breast grazing his arm and he smiles. “I have been your girlfriend for three years, but that’s the first time you actually told anyone.”

  He petulantly frowns and his eyes narrow. “No it’s not. People know.” That’s news to me.

  “Name three people that you’ve told,” I challenge, peering up at him. He raises an eyebrow at me in return, apparently accepting my dare. I add, “And you can’t mention family or Ricky.”

  He shrugs and shoves his other hand into his front pocket, glancing at me. “Pam at work knows because she does my makeup.” He grins and uses his left hand to point to the right side of his neck. “This isn’t the first love bite you’ve ever given me.” He smiles knowingly.

  I stop walking. “Wait a minute.” Finn stops slightly ahead of me and studies my expression with bafflement. “I thought you covered them yourself.”

  Finn chuckles. “No.” He angles his head and looks skyward in contemplation. “Well, I do sometimes, but at first I couldn’t because I didn’t have any makeup. After the first couple times, she gave me a tube of the concealer she uses.” After the first couple times? How many have I given him? I didn’t think anyone else would see them!

  I cringe at him as a couple walks past us. “Did she laugh at you?”

  He pulls me along again and kisses the side of my head, laughing against my temple. “She called me a stud.”

  I throw my free hand over my face to hide my embarrassment. “I’m so sorry!”

  He leans his shoulder into mine and tugs on my fingers with his. “It’s okay. After the fourth one—I think it was—she asked if I was getting them from the same woman because of the similarities.”

  “What did you tell her?” I mumble in humiliation, tucking loose strands of my light brown hair behind my ear.

  “I told her yes and then she asked if I had some sort of secret girlfriend. I again said yes.” He laughs and sways our hands between us.

  I giggle. “Secret, huh? Did you give me a flashy stripper name, or an alias like they do in the Witness Protection Program?”

  His eyebrows wrench together, not understanding why I asked that. “No.”

  “Oh.” He probably told her my name is Becks anyway. Maybe Rod is right. Maybe Finn doesn’t even remember my real name. He called me by my real name maybe a handful of times before he changed it to Becks, and that was three years ago. Since Finn started calling me that before we took our relationship further, he has never even called me Hadley while making love to me. I wonder what that would be like to hear him utter my name then. Would it be like me calling him Finnigan? Still, I love that he calls me something that nobody else does. It’s part of our own little world together. I just wish I had a special nickname for him.

  Curious, I ask, “Do you think Pam tells people? I know you don’t want everyone knowing about your personal life.”

  His head falls back as he laughs before he looks at me with a gleam in his eyes. “No, she won’t tell anyone, but she still calls me a stud.” My own eyes widen in mortification. I can never meet this woman!

  Moving on to something that might not be as horrifying. “Who else?”

  “Milo knows.”

  “Your field camera guy?” I ask, intrigued by that odd admission.

  We step around a few boys playing with a white remote-controlled truck. “Yes. He sees me mostly through a lens, which he claims gives him a unique perspective. After you and I started going out, he said he noticed a change in me. He believed I had a ‘sparkle’ in my eyes. He had asked me what was going on in my life, but I didn’t tell him the real reason. The first time I was on location after you and I first made love,” he rubs his fingertips against my skin, “he said something was definitely going on with me because I was grinning from ear-to-ear nonstop. A few days later, he patted me on the back and joked that it looked like I had fallen in love. That’s when I finally admitted to him that I had.”

  “What exactly did you tell Milo?”

  We reach a mass of boxwood bushes before we have to turn the corner and see Rod and Morgan. Finn abruptly stops walking, dragging me to him. He lifts my key charm, letting the chain slip between his fingers and the charm to flip in his hand. His eyes float from the key up to my gaze. “I told him that I had fallen in love with the most beautiful and most remarkable woman in the world.” With one hand on my key, he uses his other hand to sweep the hair hanging over my forehead. “And how much I’m in awe of her perseverance and strength through adversity.” I grin, trying desperately to fight back tears. I hate crying, especially in front of Finn. He smirks. “Milo had surmised for months that I had fallen for someone because of how ‘annoyingly happy’ I was.” He laughs and leans in, kissing my cheek. Before he can move away, I clasp his face so I can kiss him back.

  “The third?” I ask, not wanting either one of us to get side-tracked.

  “My next-door neighbor, Lola, knows.”

  “She does? I guess she must see me at your apartment a lot.” I see her sometimes. She’s an older woman with graying hair, who always smiles and waves at me.

  His eyes drift down. “Yeah, but that’s not what I mean.” He leans forward and says into my ear, “She said she’s heard us in my bedroom on a few occasions.”

  What? “You’re joking?” I ask as horror takes over. He shakes his head against mine, his lips brushing over my ear, fueling the intense feeling of embarrassment.

  “Finn!” I shriek. He moves his head and gives me an unabashed smile. “She said she could hear us from her yard when my windows were open.” His eyes glitter with mirth at my humiliation. He’s not embarrassed in the slightest?

  I cover my mouth and mumble, “How embarrassing!”

  He laughs like it’s no big deal. “Relax. She only heard me.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  He grins. “She asked who Becks is.”

  I impatiently ask, “And?”

  “I told her,” he says like it’s obvious, since he tells absolutely nobody about me.

  “Told her what? That you have a regular Finnatic who spends the night with you and pleases your every whim?”

  He raises a dark eyebrow at me, his brown, blonde-streaked hair lightly fanning in the breeze. “Sort of.” He laughs and I purse my lips. “I told her that I have a hot girlfriend who I’m in love with and that I can’t contain myself when we’re in bed.” Oh. I could ravish him right here.

  “Shit. You did not.” I peek up at him, still burning with humiliation.

  He smiles. “Only the first part, but the second half is the truth, too.”

  “Now that I can never talk to these people anymore, I’m not sure if I feel better that some people know, or if it’s better off if nobody knows after all.”

  He gestures aimlessly into the air with his other hand. “I told you I had my reasons for keeping my private life to myself.”

  “So, tell me. We never did talk much about our first date.”

  His eyebrows tug together and he looks around us before settling his eyes back on mine. “What about it?” Finn angles his head from side to side and then rolls his eyes. “You’re going to tell me now, after three years, that you hate chocolate?” His eyes pop open wide. �
��Because I’ve given you a lot of it.”

  When he took me to the festival a week after I broke my wrist, he drove us almost two hours to the chocolate festival. The car ride was abnormally subdued compared to our phone conversations that were absolutely not. At the festival, we walked around the small town stopping at various booths to browse the crafts and food. Finn hadn’t said too much, which was again very unlike him; therefore, I hadn’t even anticipated it when he tucked his hand underneath my hand and tickled my palm before sliding his fingers between mine, causing my heart to nearly soar out of my body. I had peered up to him, awestruck, as he hugged our fingers together for the first time. He bit his lip and looked shyly at me, which definitely was not the Finn Wilder I had been getting to know that past week. It was another side to him, and I wasn’t sure how many people got to see it.

  I laugh. “No. You were so quiet in the car on the way to Fairfax, but when we talked on the phone, you were so different. Were you disappointed with how different I was in person, or something?”

  “What? Disappointed?” Finn shakes his head and regards me with an odd expression. “Being in the car with you, so close, inhaling your perfume, hearing your voice not through a phone, and glancing over at your beautiful body… Baby, I was so nervous.” That’s a confession that I’ve never heard from him and never thought I ever would.

  “Nervous? Finn Wilder does not get nervous,” I argue. “You can race a dirt bike, water ski, snowboard, surf, mountain climb, skydive, jump off insane bridges, and do God knows how many other ridiculous things without getting nervous. Why were you nervous on a date?”

  He looks down at the sidewalk and softly admits, “Because I had fallen in love with you, Becks. That’s not something I’ve ever done before.” Another confession. This is unheard of for him. Finn raises his soulful eyes to mine. “That helpless feeling doesn’t compare to doing anything I’ve ever done before.” I stare up at him with wide eyes. His eyebrows incredulously wrinkle. “You couldn’t tell I was in love with you? I thought I was rather obvious.” His eyes slide away from me and he scratches his jaw through his scrumptious start of a beard. I desperately want to trail my tongue through it.

  “I thought you were being so nice to me because you know what it’s like to break a bone.”

  He nods his head and glances past me. “Yeah because I ask out every woman I meet in the ER that has ever broken a bone,” he says sardonically. Returning his striking eyes to me and gliding them over my face, he says, “I even admitted that I was in love with you on our second date.” He tilts my chin and looks unwaveringly into my eyes this time. “I didn’t fall in love with you on that date, though.” I cock my head, waiting for him to go on. His confident smile recedes and becomes suddenly shy, reminding me of our first date. “I fell in love with you when you asked me if I was afraid of heights.”

  I giggle. “Well, you could’ve been at least a tiny bit!” I pinch my thumb and index fingers to indicate how little.

  He drops his hand and closes his eyes, laughing along with me. I touch his chest. “Wait. You fell in love with me when I asked you that?” I ask suspiciously and he nods. I narrow my eyes at him. “I asked you that the first time you called me.”

  He gives me a small, captivating smile, his eyes flitting over my face. “I know.”

  Wow. I just fell in love with Finnigan Robert Wilder all over again.

  “When did you fall in love with me?” he asks while sliding his arms around my waist. The first time or just now?

  “When you kissed me at the festival.”

  Before leaving the festival, we started to walk across the street, but impulsively, he turned me into a small park behind us. He led me over to a tree and gently backed me up against it so that I was looking up at him, his spicy scent wafting from the opening of his black puff jacket. Before I realized what he was doing, he bent his head and softly kissed me, taking me completely by surprise. I mean, I thought he might kiss me good night when he took me home, since that is the usual customary thing to do at the end of a first date, but this was much hotter than a forced tradition. His fingers tentatively stroked my cheek as he tenderly kissed my lips. Without thinking of anything except for the feel of his full lips moving with mine, I wound my good arm around his neck and pulled him closer to me, savoring his taste. When he finally pulled away, he stared down at me, his passionate brown eyes carving my soul. Astoundingly, he then asked me to be his girlfriend. He seemed anxious and he confessed he’d never done that before as an adult, so he didn’t know how juvenile he had sounded. Why me, though? He was a much-loved, local celebrity and I was a lowly cashier in a grocery store with no hope on the horizon of ever obtaining the career I wanted. A nobody.

  At first, I wasn’t able to speak because of how shocked I was, so I nodded to answer his question. His face lit up like fireworks in the night sky; his blazing grin so devastatingly sexy. I knew right in that very moment that I was in love with him, both versions: the cocky, sexy, Richmond celebrity/daredevil, and the shy, private, funny, soulful man who wanted to be with me.

  His jaw wonderfully twitches as he regards me. “You didn’t at least like me when we talked on the phone before that?”

  I bite my lip and run my fingers down his gray T-shirted chest down to his belt buckle. “I had a huge crush on you, Finn. I felt like I was back in high school, waiting for you to call me; praying that you would because if you didn’t, I would’ve been so depressed.” Honest truth.

  He bites the inside of his cheek and looks around us. He then takes a deep breath. “You’re all I thought about, Becks.” I tuck my fingers into his jeans’ waistband, like his towel this morning, feeling his firm stomach muscles against the tops of my fingers. Finn moves his hand over mine, stopping me from digging my fingers in deeper. Oops. I glance up to his face and to a raised dark eyebrow, but he continues, “Of course I was going to call you. I wanted to ask you out the first time I called, but I didn’t want you to think that was the only reason why I was calling you.”

  I avoid his eyes when he looks at me. “I honestly didn’t think you were going to ask me out. I did love talking to you, though, so I didn’t want that to stop.”

  In spite of my insecurities about myself and the constant questioning why he’d want to waste his time on me, we talked and laughed for hours each time he called. Finn had me revealing things that I never had to anyone before. His calls, at times, felt like interviews. He wanted to know every single thing about me, as I did him, too; however, he has such a gift for putting people at ease and to relax that I think I even told him my bra size. He really enjoyed asking me hard-hitting questions, as well as the mundane ones. Anything to keep me talking, I think. I could definitely see why he got into journalism, and I could clearly see how excellent of a reporter and interviewer he is, since he made me feel like we were old friends and had talked to each other regularly. During the second phone call, we even ate leftovers for dinner together and watched two TV dramas. Strangely, when Finn phoned me the third time and after talking for almost two hours, he became unusually quiet. I was convinced he was finally tired of me until he unexpectedly asked me to the Fairfax Chocolate Lover’s Festival. Dazed, I asked him if he was asking me out on a date. He hesitated before saying yes. Did he already regret asking me? Right then, I didn’t care. I couldn’t tell him yes fast enough. I had to have sounded beyond desperate, and like such a Finnatic. I was grinning excitedly and hopping around my living room.

  I precipitously glance up at Finn and his upper lip pulls up at one corner. He says, “I also had to work up the nerve to ask you out. I was so worried that you would say no. I felt like I was inside out, baby. I couldn’t even focus at work.” He did seem somewhere else that first week after we met when I started watching his broadcast regularly. I was wondering if I had any kind of effect on him. Did he just admit that I did?

  “You thought about me at work?”

  “And every second since meeting you in the ER, and I haven’t stopped yet
.”

  I get on my toes and kiss him until I hear his breathing begin to pick up. “Let’s go, stud.” He beams down at me as we start walking; tightening his fingers around mine.

  We round the corner and see Morgan sitting on the Pound Puppies blanket, tapping into her phone. Ivan is leaning up against the thick oak tree behind our blanket, talking on his and Rod is playing with his iPod.

  “Really, Ass Rod. I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t bring your My Little Pony blanket.”

  “Shut the hell up, Morganism. Sophie had that one.”

  Rod sees us approaching. The scowl drops from his face and he starts clapping. Morgan looks over to him and then to where he’s looking. She announces, “Well, if it isn’t the happy couple finally gracing us with their presence.” Her usually sleek hair is curled and looks inches shorter. She’s wearing a black blouse that crisscrosses over her upper back and frilly cap sleeves that float at her shoulders. She also has on white capris and her sandals are strappy and black. Her lips are flaming red. She looks very crisp. “And I do have to say, Finn, you are looking well…rested, and not at all like the other night when you were ready to fuck your woman on camera as the weekly dare for your Wild Side segment.”

  “Morgan Yates!” I shriek.

  “How eloquent,” Finn mutters.

  “I told you!” Rod shouts, glancing up from his iPod in his lap, while retying his headscarf. He shakes his head at us and returns his attention to his music selection. Ivan steps away from us as he finishes his call. I don’t blame him. I’d run.

  “Well, it’s the truth.” She shrugs, but then excitedly points at me. “Look at this dress! You finally took my advice and sexed it up!”

  I self-consciously play with the teal, chiffon material with one hand while the other holds onto Finn’s. “This dress is church friendly, Morgan.”

  Morgan shifts so she can address Finn. “What do you think of it, Finn? Would you want her to wear this to church, sitting close to you in a pew, crossing her legs?” She looks me up and down and cheekily smirks.