Totally His

by Erin Nicholas

  Sophie took his face in her hands again, meeting his gaze directly. “Remember the first night we met and you picked me up to carry me out of the theater?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want you to fuck me now the way you wanted to that night.”

  His eyes reflected surprise for about three seconds, and then he gave a little growl, slid his hands under her ass, and thrust hard. And kept thrusting hard. And fast. And deep. And Sophie moved with him, meeting each stroke and holding him tightly. The way she’d wanted to that first night too.

  She went flying first, her climax rolling over her and scattering every thought. Finn was right behind her, calling out her name.

  Then he buried his face in her neck and groaned.

  They lay plastered together for several long minutes. Minutes Sophie spent memorizing everything about. The loose, warm feeling in her limbs, the hot hardness of Finn’s body against hers, even the wallpaper in the room, and, most of all, the incredible full feeling in her chest.

  So this was what she’d been holding herself back from. All this time she’d been afraid and worried and careful…she’d been missing out on this.

  Then again, this hadn’t come along until Finn Kelly had walked into her theater.

  * * *

  They managed to shower—not together, since that would have taken more time than they had—and eat breakfast before Angie got home.

  Sophie was upstairs blow-drying her hair when Angie came through the back door into the kitchen. Finn was doing the dishes and trying really hard not to think about how much he loved the whole domestic vision he had going of Sophie and him doing all of this in their own house.

  Man. The sex had been good, but had it been so good that he was ready to play house with her? Because the second Sophia Birch had so much as a pair of socks moved into one of his drawers, he was done for. He could never break up with her.

  He was in love. Really, truly in love. And that meant all of the issues were solved. The only concern had been her getting attached to the family—and vice versa—if they split up. If they didn’t split up, all was well.

  “Good morning,” Angie said, not seeming a bit surprised to find him there.

  “Hi, Mom.” He shut off the water and grabbed a towel to dry his hands. “We need to talk.”

  She nodded and moved to put her purse down on the table. “Yeah, we do.”

  He faced her. “I’m in love with Sophie. I didn’t mean to fall for her but…I did. Completely. And I know that seems complicated, but it’s not. I love her, and she’ll be a part of the family forever now. So no breakups. You’ll never lose her. She won’t be devastated by loving us and losing us.”

  Angie folded her arms and studied his face. Then she took a breath and said, “I’m sorry I’ve been giving you such a hard time. Doing the play has made me realize that you, of all people, will love Sophie the best. A girl like her, who never had any stability or anyone to count on, needs someone like you. You’ve never let anyone down in your life. You are so much like your father. And I’ve always known that, but it’s been so amazingly obvious watching you put the show together.”

  He appreciated that, but couldn’t help but ask, “I didn’t let Sarah down?”

  Angie shook her head. “Marrying Sarah would have been letting her down. And me. All of us. Because we expected you to marry for love. When you admitted that you weren’t in love anymore, you called it off. Before you got in deeper and ended up unhappy and perhaps even breaking up down the road. That would have been worse.”

  “You still lost your best friend.”

  Angie gave him a sad smile. “Maybe she wasn’t that good of a friend after all if it was that easy to lose her. They had to see, eventually, that you and Sarah were better off.”

  Finn took a deep breath. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Thank you for being someone I can trust Sophie with, and thank you for showing us that there’s more here for her than just you.”

  He frowned and shifted against the counter. “What does that mean?”

  She tipped her head. “When I lost your father, I was devastated. But the Kellys were there for me. More than my own family was. Sophie can’t count on her dad. I was worried about what would happen if you…didn’t come home one night. That would be way worse than a breakup, Finn.”

  “You were afraid of her having to say that kind of goodbye?” Finn swallowed hard. He knew that his job was dangerous, of course. He’d lost his father. He’d been to an officer’s funeral just two years before. But he and his whole family of cops and firefighters believed that what they did was worth the risks they took.

  Angie nodded. “But the play, remembering how your dad and I started, what we worked through to be together, how happy we were…I’ve never forgotten that, but seeing it come to life onstage, with you playing his part and Sophie as me, it’s been…like doing it all over again. And I know that the Kellys will be there for her, the way they were for me. If needed.”

  Finn straightened. “Mom…” He shook his head. “Angel and Tony are you and Dad?” A ripple of shock and then a wave of Of course, holy shit went through him.

  She nodded. “You didn’t know?”

  “I guess I didn’t realize.”

  Angie gave him a small smile as she read the surprise on his face. “You okay?”

  “I’m…Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  It was weird, maybe, as he thought of the play and how it was about his parents. But it was also really…great. It was a wonderful love story, and it was what had brought him closer to Sophie, and it was going to help the theater that the two most important women in his life loved.

  Yeah, it was really great.

  “So yeah, Sophie,” he said, “she’s going to be around for a while. Like forever.”

  Angie stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank God.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sophie was putting the second layer of paint on the upper part of the wall when the back door to the theater opened.

  She looked over, and her heart stuttered as she saw Finn striding down the aisle carrying several bags from the local hardware store and a cup of coffee. It was just the two of them working for the next couple of hours, and she was hoping that they both might end up with some paint streaks where other people wouldn’t see them.

  She grinned and started down the ladder. It had been five days since she’d awakened wearing his T-shirt in his childhood bedroom. Since then, she’d awakened wearing nothing in his grown-up bedroom three mornings out of five.

  “Did you get all the stuff?” she asked, hopping from the bottom rung to the floor.

  Finn was frowning as he handed her the debit card she’d given him to use for the purchase. “Yeah, I got it. But your card wouldn’t work.”

  She looked down at the card. “What do you mean it wouldn’t work?”

  “The account’s overdrawn, Soph.”

  Her heart thumped, and she felt a mixture of dread and Of course slither through her. Of course because she’d been expecting this. Dread because she hadn’t wanted Finn to find out. “Oh.”

  “Sophie.”

  She took a breath and looked up at him. “Yeah?”

  “What’s going on?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Nothing. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I thought the ticket sales were going well.”

  They were. Very well. Nearly every show had sold out since a local news station and the Globe had reported on the story. Not to mention the Facebook posts that had been spreading all over.

  “Ticket sales are great,” she admitted.

  “So where’s the money?”

  Looking into his eyes, Sophie knew that Finn already knew the answer. “Frank,” she said, simply.

  “Son of a bitch.” Finn hurled the coffee cup against the lower half of the wall. There wasn’t much coffee left in it, but it splattered all over the new plywood. At least they hadn’t painted there yet.<
br />
  “Finn, it’s—”

  “Don’t say fine,” he told her.

  She shrugged. “It’s expected.” She hated that even more than he did. Didn’t he get that? But she had made sure only five thousand dollars had been in the account.

  Frank had been staying on Joe’s pullout couch for almost two weeks now. She knew he would be getting restless. And that when he got restless, he’d come looking for the rest of the money he needed to buy the RV.

  She knew Angie had given him three ten-thousand-dollar loans. She didn’t want to know that, but Frank had shared it with her. Smugly. With the insurance check, that put him at forty of the fifty thousand he needed.

  She just hadn’t wanted Finn to find out all of this.

  “What is expected?” Finn asked.

  He was going to make her say it? Fine. “That Frank would clean the account out.”

  Finn dropped the bags and started for the door.

  “Hey!” She ran after him. “Where are you going?”

  “To find your father. We need to have a talk.”

  Sophie grabbed Finn’s arm. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  He stopped walking and faced her. “He stole from you. And I’m guessing it’s not the first time.”

  “He didn’t. The money’s his.” She took a breath. “I’d hoped he’d wait until the show was over to take his share. But he didn’t steal it.”

  Finn shoved a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “But he took it all.”

  “He only took what was in there. I would never put everything where he could get to it.”

  Finn studied her eyes. “But he knew you needed all of it to finish the repairs and everything.”

  She nodded.

  “But he doesn’t care.”

  She shook her head this time. It hurt. But she had built up some calluses, so it wasn’t as bad as it used to be.

  “I fucking hate that.” He reached out and pulled her close. “And after everything we fucking did for him.”

  Oh boy. She let him hug her for a moment, but she felt her stomach knotting. She pulled back after only a few seconds. “This is going to be a problem, isn’t it?”

  He huffed out a breath. “Me wanting to strangle your father every other day?”

  She was completely serious. “Yeah.”

  He clearly hadn’t been expecting her to agree. “Really?”

  “This is Frank, Finn. This is who he is. And you’re you. You fix things. But you can’t fix Frank. You can’t fix me and Frank.” The realization struck her too, as she said it. This was definitely going to be an issue. Finn was going to do everything he could to get Frank to change. And it was never going to happen. “So yes, you’re going to be frustrated with him. A lot.”

  “And you’re okay with Frank being who he is?” Finn asked with a scowl.

  Sophie stepped back and crossed her arms. “Of course not. But that doesn’t matter. That’s never mattered. If me being disappointed or angry or frustrated mattered, he would have changed a long time ago.”

  “So we just let him take and take and take and never give you anything back?” Finn asked.

  She didn’t know what to say. “That’s what he’s always done. He did it to you too, you know. Where’s he been working and sleeping and eating for the past couple of weeks?”

  “Temporarily,” Finn said firmly.

  “Bullshit.”

  Finn lifted a brow.

  “Seriously, Finn,” she said, her exasperation showing, “your family gives and gives and gives. Frank takes and takes and takes. You really think anything about that is temporary? Frank’s probably feeling claustrophobic with your family being around all the time. And I think that’s hilarious. He wanted to be in the midst of everything and now he is and he’s probably feeling smothered. So he might be taking a break and heading out of town early, but he’ll be back. My God, he found a gold mine of attention and handouts from your family.”

  “So by being warm and generous and welcoming, my family is setting themselves up to get screwed?” Finn asked.

  Sophie pressed her lips together. Finn’s family was amazing. But yeah, if there was a way for Frank to take advantage of them, he would.

  “Would he steal from the bar?” Finn asked after a moment.

  Sophie drew a deep breath. “I don’t think so.” Frank would want to come back to the Kellys in the future for a place to stay, a “loan,” maybe even—as much as she had a hard time believing it—for some sense of friendship and family. So no, she didn’t think he’d steal from them. “But…”

  “That’s why you put that money in the account, knowing he’d take it. You were keeping him from taking from the pub.”

  She didn’t have to admit it for Finn to know the truth. She couldn’t put anything past Frank. So she had changed the bank account password back to the old one and made sure there was a chunk of money—but not too much—in there.

  “That son of a bitch,” Finn muttered.

  Her temper prickled a bit. “The thing is, you know what to expect with Frank,” Sophie said. “If you would just quit being so intent on saving him and changing him and so enamored with the idea of your family somehow winning him over to the good side, then you’d just see him for who he is and you wouldn’t be so disappointed.”

  The disbelief in Finn’s eyes made Sophie take a step back.

  “You’re defending him?” Finn demanded. “You’re saying that it’s my fault that I’m pissed off? Because I expect him to be better than this? When did you start just accepting the shitty way he treats you, Sophie?”

  She lifted her chin. Was she defending Frank? That seemed odd. And yet she had made a good point. You could only be disappointed in people when you expected more than they could deliver. “You’re just pissed because you finally ran up against a problem you can’t fix. This is stinging your ego a little, right?”

  Finn’s frown deepened. “This isn’t about me.”

  “Of course it is. You think Frank should be grateful and that he should want to be a better man after hanging out with your family. Your feelings are hurt that it didn’t work like that, that your family wasn’t enough to change him.”

  “He should want to be a better man,” Finn said. “But not because of my family. Because of you.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen.”

  “You’re better than that,” Finn said firmly. “Jesus, Soph, you can’t let him treat you this way.”

  “I don’t let him do anything. I also can’t make him do anything, Finn,” she said. “This is just how it is.”

  “Why do you keep letting him come around?”

  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “He owns half this theater. He’s not breaking any laws coming here.”

  “But he’s breaking your heart,” Finn shot back. “Don’t tell me that you’re not hoping deep down that one day he’s going to come here and realize what he’s done, what he’s been doing, all this time. Don’t tell me you’re not hoping someday he’ll be sorry and that you can have some semblance of a family.”

  Sophie opened her mouth and then shut it again. She had been about to make the biggest confession of all to Finn. One she’d barely made to herself. One that could make her look strong…or incredibly pathetic. But finally she had to tell him.

  “I don’t think he’ll be sorry, Finn. I don’t think that he and I can ever be a family like yours. But I’m still here, in the theater his mother gave us, sharing this with him because…I want to be better than him. I want to be here where he can find me when he comes to town, I want to stay somewhere that matters to me, doing something that makes me proud, doing something on my own, because I want to be the things he wasn’t—steady, independent, and”—she took a deep breath—“happy. God, Finn, that’s all I want. I want to be happy. I want to find a place to stay and be happy.”

  Emotions flickered through Finn’s eyes, but his mouth remained a grim line. “You’re just going to just keep taki
ng it then? After seeing what a real family is like, after seeing what it’s like to love and take care of someone, after having people who want to love and take care of you?”

  Sophie felt anger flash through her. Working to be the opposite of everything her dad had been and shown her and taught her was somehow a bad thing? Not quitting when things were tough, not running away when she got hurt, not taking the easy way out were somehow making her weaker in Finn’s eyes?

  “Not every family is like yours, Finn,” she said quietly. “This is as much family as I have—an old theater, a bunch of memories, and a far-from-perfect father. But I can’t just walk away. That’s what I knew as a kid—walking away when something isn’t perfect. I’m not going to do that.”

  “You don’t have to put up with any of this,” he said stubbornly. “You can be with me and be…happy. And stay. Be all of those things you said you wanted. Walk away from Frank and all of this. Let me fix this and make you happy.”

  She felt tears stinging, and she shook her head. “I would think that you, of all people, would understand and even admire me accepting him as he is and making the best of it.”

  Finn’s expression softened slightly, but he shook his head. “I love you, Sophie, and I don’t understand you putting up with all of this.”

  He loved her. Sophie felt her heart race for a moment. Then her stomach dropped. He loved her. But he also wanted to fix things he couldn’t fix.

  Sophie blinked back the tears as she looked into the eyes of the man who really could be her knight in shining armor. Except that she wanted to wear her own armor, and she didn’t really want to ride off into the sunset. She wanted to stay right here. In the theater that was the only home she really knew.

  “I love you too,” she said, her throat tight. She did. So much. But Finn was a fixer, and she couldn’t watch him be constantly hurt and frustrated by being unable to fix her. “And that’s why I have to say that I don’t think we should keep seeing each other.”

  His eyebrows slammed together. “What?”

  “You will always want to fix this with me and Frank,” she said. “And it will never be the way you want it to be. You need to find someone like Sarah—someone who values and understands family the way you do. Someone you can fix things for and who can let you love them the way you need to love them.” Sophie felt as if her heart were being turned inside out, but all of that was true. Finn needed someone he could save.