“What are you doing?” she asked, her gaze moving from the displaced furniture to the cans of paint.
“I’m redecorating.”
She stared at me like I’d said I was planning to tattoo a swastika on my forehead and join a cult that worshipped Cabbage Patch dolls. “Excuse me? I must have misheard you. I thought you just said that you, Brooklyn Turner, were redecorating your room. The same girl who told me that I was forbidden, on pain of death, from putting up wallpaper and cute decorations in the living room.”
I rolled my eyes. “You were going to paste a wall-quote that said Live, Laugh, Love in magenta, five foot tall lettering across the wall over our couch. You seriously didn’t anticipate me vetoing that idea?”
She harrumphed in frustration, taking another sip of her coffee and realizing she wasn’t going to win this argument.
“So how was your night with the Ken doll?” she asked, switching gears. “Was it everything you dreamed of and more?” She snorted into her mug.
“Sarcasm is so not your strong suit, Lex,” I said, smiling. I turned back to the desk and began yanking it toward the door once more. “And actually, nothing happened with Landon. I walked home.”
“What?” she exclaimed, surprise evident in her voice. “Why the change of heart?”
I sighed. “Are you going to help me move this desk?”
“Only if you tell me what happened with Landon.”
“Bitch,” I muttered. “Fine. I just wasn’t into it, okay? He was hot, but I couldn’t clear my mind enough to enjoy it.”
“Clear your mind of what? Or, should I be asking of who?” she pressed.
I spun around to glare at her. “Before you even start, this has nothing to do with Finn,” I lied.
“Oh, you are so full of shit! Brooklyn Turner has a crush! I can’t freaking believe this!” She squealed, dancing into my bedroom and slinging an arm over my shoulder. “I’ve been waiting years for this to happen. And this is perfect! I’ve always dreamed of us dating best friends! Ohmigod! We should all go to this party tomor—”
“LEXI!” I yelled, cutting her off before she could start planning our double wedding, thus inducing one of my panic attacks. “There is nothing going on between Finn and I. We’re friends. F-R-I-E-N-D-S,” I spelled out emphatically, hoping she’d listen to me for once.
“You let all your friends pin you against the side of their truck and kiss you like that?” Finn’s deep voice asked from the doorway.
God dammit. Was the man incapable of just announcing his presence like a normal person?
I groaned.
Lexi spun around, spied him leaning casually in the doorway, and squealed happily. I think she actually may have started jumping up and down in delight, but I was too busy looking around for a rope to hang myself with to be sure. The small digital clock on my desk read 2:05 – he was right on time, so I couldn’t even be mad at him for eavesdropping.
“You bitch! I can’t believe you were selling me that ‘just friends’ bullshit!” she smacked my arm and glared down at me.
“Haven’t you heard of knocking?” I snapped, ignoring Lexi and blasting an icy stare in Finn’s direction.
“I did knock. No one answered,” he said, glaring back at me. His voice was calm but his eyes were stormy as they pierced mine.
Nope, he definitely wasn’t happy about my ‘just friends’ comment.
“You. Me. Details. Later,” Lexi demanded, still glaring at me. Turning to Finn, a sunny smile crossed her face and she sighed. “Be patient with her. She’s emotionally retarded.”
I let out a mortified groan and Finn tried – and failed – to hold in his laughter as Lexi wandered into the hallway and disappeared. When she was gone, a thick silence descended on the room. A charge seemed to build in the air as Finn and I stared at each other, the laughter dying slowly from his eyes. He took a step toward me into the room and I immediately stepped back, maintaining the space between us. A dark look crossed his face and his eyes narrowed.
Striding across the room, he was in front of me in seconds. I’d backed up until I was flush with the wall, with nowhere further to retreat, and he immediately caged me in with his arms.
“Let’s get something straight,” he whispered, tone dark with something possessive and slightly scary. “We are not just friends. We have never and will never be just friends. So stop twisting this around in that head of yours and making it into something it’s not.”
“You said nothing had to change,” I said defiantly, unwilling to accept his words.
“I’ve always wanted to fuck you. You’ve always wanted to fuck me. Nothing’s changed as far as I can tell,” he said, a smug smile crossing his face.
“I don’t want to fuck you! You are the cockiest, most conceited, arrogant asshole I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man left on earth and we were singlehandedly responsible for repopulating the plan—” My tirade was abruptly cut off as his mouth descended on mine.
I responded to his kiss instantly, eagerly, in complete contradiction to my words.
Fuck! What was I doing?
I reeled back and before I could stop myself, my hand shot out and slapped him across the face. I froze, stunned at my own actions. It was like my hand had acted independently of my brain. My face was a mask of shock, my eyes saucer-wide as I stared at the blooming crimson mark on his cheekbone. I hadn’t intended to hit him; I’d just been so desperate to put a stop to the kiss – to take back some control.
Breathing hard, I was still mere inches from Finn’s face. He looked equally surprised, but his face quickly morphed into something darker. “Just for that, I’m going to make you beg for it before I’ll kiss you again,” he vowed, rubbing a hand back and forth along his cheek.
“You’re going to be waiting forever.”
“I’ve heard that before,” he said, a small smile turning up the corner of his mouth. I suddenly remembered another conversation we’d had, after he’d saved me from Gordon, when I’d told him he’d be waiting forever for answers about my past. He’d simply looked over at me and whispered, ‘I’ve already been waiting my whole life.’
I still didn’t know what that meant.
“I’m sorry I slapped you,” I murmured, lifting a hand to trace the red splotch on his cheek. His hand came up to cover mine, holding it gently against his face. “I really am emotionally-challenged sometimes,” I reluctantly admitted.
“Sometimes?” Finn lifted a skeptical eyebrow at me.
“Okay, fine, all the time,” I grumbled. “Can we paint now?”
“Sure,” he agreed, stepping out of my space. As I walked around him to reach the desk, I lifted up on my tiptoes and uncharacteristically pressed a soft kiss to the angry red handprint on his cheek. I felt him smile as I pulled away and began tugging on the desk.
Thankfully, Finn was a lot stronger than me, and he made quick work of moving all my furniture out into the hall. My bed was too big to move, so we pushed it into the middle of the room, stripped it of its bedding, and spread one of the drop cloths Finn had brought over it. He’d also brought over several rollers, white primer, painting tape, and white coveralls that he insisted we both put on.
“You can’t paint in that,” he said, indicating my red v-neck and capris. I’d already traded my wedges in for a pair of ratty old tennis shoes.
“Fine,” I said, grabbing the coveralls, a tank top, and cotton shorts before heading into the bathroom to change. After slipping on the tank and shorts, I stepped into the massive white suit. It had been designed for an adult male, and it was ridiculously large on my small frame. The sheer amount of fabric dwarfed me, with at least a foot of extra material hanging down past each hand and gathering over my feet. I haphazardly pushed up the sleeves and struggled to zip up the front of the coveralls. As soon as my hands fell to my sides, the extra fabric tumbled back down and covered my hands.
This was useless; I wouldn’t be able to maneuver my arms, let alone pa
int an entire bedroom. I trudged back out into the bedroom, concentrating on not tripping over the extra material around my feet. Hearing the sound of Finn’s choked laughter, I drew to a stop and slumped my shoulders.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said, windmilling my fabric-swathed arms in circles in the air. “I look like an idiot.”
“You’re adorable,” Finn said, a soft look in his eyes as he took in the sight of me swallowed up by the enormous coveralls. “Come here,” he whispered, crooking a finger to beckon me over to him.
Crossing the room, I stumbled on the bunched fabric and fell forward. Finn’s arms shot out and he caught me before I hit the ground, steadying me with his large hands resting on my shoulders.
“Let’s fix you,” he said, squatting down in front of me and deftly rolling each long pant leg into a cuff I wouldn’t trip over. He repeated this with the extra material of each sleeve, making sure I had full range of motion before releasing me. A funny feeling built in my chest as he adjusted my sleeves so painstakingly. There was something intimate about him dressing me, something that went beyond just friends or even friends with benefits. I looked down at the top of his head and realized something that floored me.
Finn really cared about me.
Not just in friendly way, or an I’d-like-to-know-what-color-your-panties-are way. He actually cared.
And it didn’t feel impossible, or ridiculous, or even terrifying. To be honest, it felt pretty damn nice.
Chapter Ten
Finger Painting
We painted.
I turned on The Civil Wars, an indie duo whose music we both enjoyed, and we covered the walls with primer. The repetition of my roller-brush striking the wall was soothing, and I could feel myself relaxing with each passing minute, finding comfort in the monotony and mindlessness.
Finn began to sing along with the male vocal part and before long, I’d unconsciously picked up the female versus. We sang and painted until there were no more walls left to prime and the CD player had fallen silent after the final track.
“I didn’t know you could sing until I saw you up there on stage last night. I thought I was hallucinating at first,” Finn laughed, breaking the silence that had descended on us.
“I don’t really,” I replied, turning in a slow circle to see if we’d missed any spots with the primer. We’d have to wait awhile for it to dry before we could start covering it with the blue shades I’d picked out.
“That’s not what it sounded like last night, or just now,” Finn noted skeptically. “You’ve got talent. Why not use it?”
“Singing is something I do just for myself. I don’t do it for the applause, or the audience, or the spotlight,” I tried to explain. “It’s an outlet for me, I guess.”
Finn nodded. This, he could understand.
“Why were you there?” I asked. It hadn’t escaped my notice that he had his own band, with real fans and scheduled performances; he didn’t need to be singing at an open mic night. “It’s not exactly Styx.”
“Styx is great for when I’m playing with the guys, blowing off steam,” Finn said, walking over to lean against my draped bedframe. “But sometimes, when I need a reminder of what’s important in my life, I need to play alone and reground myself. Music’s one of the only things that can clear my mind. ”
“One of? What else works?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Sex.” One side of his mouth curled up in a dark smirk, and he waggled his eyebrows at me playfully. “Don’t suppose you want to help me out with that method?”
I glared at him, but there was no heat behind it. His smile became a full-fledged grin, complete with dimple.
“What’s all this about? The sudden urge to paint?” he asked, switching topics abruptly and gesturing at the whitewashed walls.
“I needed a change,” I said, shrugging. “I looked around this morning and realized how bare my walls were – how empty it made my life seem.”
Finn set down his brush and pulled off the paint-spackled plastic gloves covering his hands. Making his way over to my desk, which sat in the hallway just outside my bedroom door, he gently lifted up one of the canvases I’d had printed earlier – the photo of Lexi and I in costume – and examined it.
“You look happy here,” he said, smiling as he looked at the photo. Picking up the second canvas, the one of my mom on their pier, he stilled and his face grew serious. “This is your mom?” he asked quietly.
“How’d you know?”
“You look like her,” he said. “The eyes, the smile – on the rare occasion you show yours – even the hair. They’re the same.”
Warmth erupted in my chest at the thought that I might look a little like my mother. I wasn’t like her in other ways – not artistic, or forgiving, or kind. I didn’t possess her open heart or her capacity for love. But if I looked like her on the outside, maybe it meant that buried deep down beneath my cynicism, trust issues, and jaded bitchiness, I had a little of her within me after all. Maybe, if I looked for hard enough, I could find pieces of her inside myself.
Finn had moved on to examine the third picture, and he looked sad as he took in the sight of the little girl I’d once been, wrapped in my mother’s arms. His eyes shifted to me, where I leaned against my bedframe watching him.
“You don’t talk about her.” It wasn’t a question.
“No.”
“I didn’t talk about my parents for a long time.”
“What changed?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I met you.”
That threw me for a loop. “What do you mean, you met me?”
“You were the first person I ever really talked to about my parents’ death.”
My mind was reeling. How could it be that Finn had never discussed his parents before the other night on my rooftop? Granted, I never really talked about my mother either, but he seemed far more adjusted and normal than I ever hoped to be.
“Do you want to – need to? Talk, that is?” I asked, taking a hard swallow to calm my breathing. Jeeze, I was terrible at this. I didn’t know the first thing about properly dealing with my own grief, let alone other peoples’.
“Do you?” He turned my own question around on me, pinning me in place with the weight of his intense stare.
Did I?
“I don’t know. Sometimes, I think that if I don’t talk about her, it will be like she never existed at all. Like she’s just some figment my psyche conjured, or an imaginary friend I dreamed up during my childhood. And other times, I think I’d rather not remember anything about her at all, because then it wouldn’t hurt so damn much. I’d be free, normal, just like any other college girl. Worried about normal things like boys and homework and whether I’ll be invited to the Sig Ep party next weekend.
“But I don’t think about those things. I think about death, and loss, and heartache. I wonder why people bother to fall in love, when they know from the start that they’ll be separated one day – whether by infidelity or distance or death.” I took a deep breath, slightly shocked I’d just admitted all that out loud. “I’ve never had the luxury of being normal, Finn.”
“Normal is boring, Bee. It’s not something I’d wish for you.” He crossed the room to me, bringing one hand up to gently trace the line of my jaw. “Grief is a kick in the chest. It steals your breath, hits you so hard you think you’ll never stand back up again. And its not just because you’re grieving death or heartbreak or loss – you’re grieving change. You’re grieving the life that might have been, if it hadn’t all gotten fucked up along the way.”
His other hand joined the one holding my jaw, so he was cupping my face in his hands. I closed my eyes and turned my cheek to rest in one of his palms.
“You could spend forever thinking about the things you’ll never experience with your mother – infinity contemplating the memories she won’t ever be a part of. But at some point, you have to let the life you should’ve had go, and start living the one you’ve got,” Finn w
hispered.
Tears spilled out from under my lashes and he caught them with his fingertips before they could fall. Ignoring the fact that I was a paint-splattered mess, he cradled me against his chest and his lips came to rest in my hair, bringing me comfort as I trembled in his arms.
“Let go, Bee,” he whispered.
And I did.
After a time, my tears subsided and I became very aware of the fact that I’d just had a full blown meltdown in Finn’s arms. I wanted to run. A month ago, would’ve run; I’d have bolted as fast and as far away as possible. But now, I just moved a step back out of the circle of his arms and wiped the residual tears from my eyes.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not this person. I’ve cried more in the past two months than I have in the last fourteen years combined,” I said, forcing a laugh. “I’m sorry for falling apart like that.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I think the primer is dry enough for us to paint on now,” I said with a sniffle, walking over to the paint cans resting in the corner of my bedroom. Finn followed, quiet for once, and crouched down beside me as I shook up the dark blue paint. He grabbed the lighter shade of blue and, after shaking it thoroughly, he used a screwdriver to pop open the lid.
“So, I was thinking we’d paint the walls the sky blue color, and then make the ceiling the navy, dusk color,” I said, explaining what I’d envisioned when I’d picked out my color scheme. “Like the sky at nightfall.”
“Bringing the view from your rooftop inside,” Finn murmured intuitively.
“Something like that,” I said, smiling softly at him. It was weird how well he understood my messed up brain – like we were on the same wavelength all the time.
We painted the walls first. The light cerulean I’d picked was perfect, like the cloudless sky on a crisp fall afternoon. It took nearly two hours, long enough for us to listen through two more full albums. We sang together again, and I could feel the tension and residual sadness from my breakdown melting away.
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