by Ally Blake
“Come on now, darling. Chin up,” Hazel said, voice a little gentler now. “You can’t possibly be that surprised. This is what you paid me to do.”
At that, April found her words just fine. “I did not pay you to get me a date!”
“But I didn’t ‘get you a date’, darling. You said you wanted to change your life and I gave you the man who would do it.”
April shook her head. No. Nope. This wasn’t happening.
“It was not done lightly,” Hazel said. “I would never have taken you into that bar if I wasn’t also certain that you were also the woman who would change his. And look at you both now. Besotted with one another.” Hazel held out her hands, palms up, as if she was unburdened, only to realise that her audience had moved on.
“Anyway, isn’t it good to have all that out in the open? I know I feel better about things. You will too when you shake off the shock, darling. Hash things out. Kiss and make up. Then come inside. The rain in the air isn’t doing your hair any favours.”
With that Hazel turned and followed the crowd up the hill.
April folded her arms, not caring if she looked defensive. She felt defensive. She’d take any kind of armour she could get.
Then finally her gaze rose to Finn. “Really?” she said. “I mean... really?”
Finn’s jaw twitched. That was it. The extent of his reaction.
While April’s vision focussed to a small tunnel of fading light. “That night in The Burrow when I told you all about Hazel did it even occur to you at that time to come clean? Of course it must have. So why didn’t you? What was your thinking? Why let it go this long—”
And then it hit her. Like a big bolt of lightning right to the head.
Suddenly she was back in that tree, watching her dad kiss another woman. So frozen with shock, sick with fear, she’d lost her grip and fallen. When she’d landed, the world she’d known had been shattered. The shape of her life gone.
“You wanted to get caught.”
A flare of the nostrils...then nothing. God, he was obstinate. Well, too bad for him, because so was she. Her arms uncrossed. She took a step his way. She looked him straight in the eye.
“You knew it would all come out one day. Yet you waited for me to put two and two together so that you didn’t have to be the bad guy and walk away.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Finally, he speaks!
“Then why are you here? Why come to a party you knew Hazel and I would both be at?”
“Kane has been good to me. Not coming would have meant letting him down.”
Her next breath shot from her lungs like a bullet. “No. Nope. You do not get to be the good guy here. You could have told me at any point over the past few weeks. At the very least before today so that I didn’t have to learn the mortifying truth in front of a hundred of my closest friends.”
Dammit. She had to swallow as emotion got the better of her. Because she already knew the answer.
He was tying up loose ends. And she was one.
“You’re not entirely innocent here, April.”
“Excuse me?”
“I never made you any promises. So you can stop acting like I broke them.”
Which was when Erica appeared from nowhere, stormed up to Finn, and slapped him in the face. Then Jase was there, grabbing Erica by the waist and dragging her away, showcasing more strength than April had ever given him credit for. While Finn just stood there and took it. A hot pink hand print flaring on his cheek.
“He can’t talk to you that way!” Erica said, scrambling.
But April’s mortification and fury spluttered and died, like a bucket of water had been thrown over her head. Because he was right.
“Yes,” April said, “he can.”
“What? No, April. Just no.” Erica shook Jase off, levelling him with a stare. “Don’t you dare lose your spit and fire over this guy. Don’t you dare go back to fawning over Mum, and being a pushover at work, and luring insipid men like Jase and that creepy Parsons git downstairs and...” She swallowed. “And giving in to me. I’ve been awful to you. For years. For ever. Because I blamed you for Dad leaving. But I know that they fought, Mum and Dad. You were so young you probably don’t remember. But they fought all the time. He was mean to her. And she took it. Then you caught him. And he left. And I blamed you because you were Mum’s, and I was his. And he was crap. Which meant I was crap.”
April took Erica’s face between her hands and squeezed. Squeezed until her sister’s mouth squished and the words stopped pouring out.
“You are not crap. You are spit and fire. You are my sister and I love you.”
Erica sniffled. “Right back at you.”
Any other time April would have taken those words and drunk them in. Any other time...
“But Finn’s right.” April spared him a glance to find his eyes blazing. Jaw working. Breaths streaming out of his nose like a racehorse in the stocks. Heat flared in her belly at the sight. She shut it down. Hard. “You both are. I’ve been so unhappy with my life, something was going to snap. Finn was a little rebellion that I let go too far.”
He was also right in the fact that she’d changed the rules.
She hadn’t been looking for permanent anymore than he had. And yet she’d gone there. She’d promised she could handle it, handle him. Instead she’d fallen in love.
Erica muttered, “I still want to smack him.”
April spun Erica and gave her a shove up the hill. It gave her the chance to swallow down the tears burning the back of her throat.
Erica went. Jase tried to comfort her but she threw his hand away. Poor Jase. Poor Erica.
Knowing that feeling sorry for the whole world was a crutch, April tucked her empathy away and turned back to Finn. A hand at his cheek, he wriggled his jaw. The tension in his body was now palpable. And when his hooded eyes found hers, she struggled to find her breath.
Needing to get out of this alive, she brought a mental wall down between them, imagining it was made of the finest glass. If she tried to walk through it she’d be cut. Badly. Fatally.
And said, “I’m sorry. For Erica. For making a scene. I was surprised. I was...reaching.”
Oh, how she’d reached. Deep and wide and every which way. But the worst part was she’d let herself believe that Finn had been reaching too, stretched far beyond the edges of his comfort zone. That maybe she’d finally met a man who thought she was worth it.
Hope had a lot to answer for.
She shrugged, a helpless move. Fatalistic. Not a feeling she was at all used to. Not a feeling she at all enjoyed. It registered as a flash behind Finn’s eyes. Something hot and furious. Something that looked a lot like pain. Something that felt like...
No. Desire and disruption – that wasn’t love. Love was honest and open and it didn’t hurt like this. Surely.
He took a step her way. She drew in a breath. Sensation skittering over her skin. It seemed her body hadn’t read the memo that he’d lied to her and she was no longer meant to feel that way.
Finn, sharp guy that he was, noticed. He stopped mid-step.
“Stop apologising, April. Just stop. You...” His jaw clenched.
Once. Then again.
He ran a hand over his face, breathed deep, swept his fingers through his hair and pulled himself together. “Yes, I went to the Chaser that afternoon as a favour to Hazel. With my father’s letter hanging over me, I wanted her on my side in case the time came where I had to leave Frank behind. Her instructions were simple; chat up a girl in a bar. That was it. That was the extent of it. Everything else that happened beyond that...”
His words stopped. Curating. Careful.
April’s uncooperative heart hurt for him. For how difficult it was for him to simply be true.
“I’m a private man. Talking about such things does not come naturally.”
“You think?”
A flash of humour lit his eyes before being swallowed by the storm therein. “
I’m also a selfish man. Not revealing my link with Hazel was a selfish move. My self-interest was born of necessity and circumstance has never altered that perception. Until I met you.”
His eyes roved over her face in the descending gloom.
“You came out of nowhere, April. You made focussing on my own best interests more difficult than I’d have ever thought possible. You filled my head when I tried to stay away. Made me second guess every decision. Interrupted my plans. You are the single most disrupting influence I’ve ever come across.”
April’s whole body felt like it was straining not to miss a single word. Such words. For a guy who didn’t use any more than necessary he used them so well.
“I wish...” he said. Curating. Careful.
What? What do you wish?
Laughter bubbled from the direction of the house as a drunken group of revellers spilled back out onto the lawn above. They flinched. Finn with a twitch of a brow, April so hard she pulled a muscle in her chest. And there was the biggest difference between them. Finn was so self-contained he could weather a hurricane and not bend. April felt every change of wind so deeply it left a permanent mark.
But she had to hear him out. She’d never get closure otherwise.
So, before she could talk herself out of it, April grabbed Finn by the hand, yanking him into the privacy of the boatshed. No key needed after all.
Once inside, she tried to take her hand back but found that he wouldn’t let her.
Dying sunlight slanted through worn planks in the ceiling and walls, cutting shadows over Finn’s face. Light and dark. Heartbreaking beauty with glimpses of iniquity. Push and pull. Temptation and reparation.
She waited for him to tell her his wish. Instead, she got—
“I’m leaving town.”
April reared back. Finn gripped her tight.
She had no idea she was shaking her head until her bun slipped free of its loose band. Her subconscious, less of a Pollyanna than the rest of her, whispered, “Of course he is, sweetheart. Why else has he been so busy tying up loose ends?”
“When?”
“Soon. A matter of days.”
The urge to laugh was a strong one, even if it was the unfunniest thing she’d ever heard.
Until he said, “Come with me.”
Her heart stopped. Literally. She coughed to start it up again. “I... I don’t understand.”
“Another letter arrived at work. Not routed through my out-of-state connections. Hand-delivered. My father has found me, April. I can’t put it off any longer. I have to go. It’s the only way to protect Frank. Hazel. The boys.” His throat worked as his dark eyes roved over her face. “And you too. Unless... Come with me.”
She could feel the energy in his hands, flickering just beneath his skin. If she’d been waiting for a declaration of how he felt about her, this was as good as it was likely to get. And this time she hadn’t prodded, she hadn’t angled for it, she hadn’t sat on him and pulled his chest hairs till he’d talked.
He was leaving. And he’d asked her to come.
April couldn’t blink. She wanted to. Felt like it would help. But Finn’s offer was bouncing off the insides of her skull like a rogue firework.
“Where?” she asked, needing time to contain her scattered thoughts.
“Does it matter?”
“Let’s assume it does.”
“Anywhere else but here.” Finn pulled her closer, so close his voice rumbled from his chest to hers. “Say you’ll come.”
Anywhere else but in the path of her impossible sister, her hardheaded mother, her absent father, the struggles at work, the tiny apartment with its veneer of independence... It was like a million, beautiful, fresh, New Year’s midnight-moments all rolled into one. It was every impulse she’d ever had wrapped up into one big ball of bliss, then plugged in at the mains till it lit up the sky.
But this would be no little rebellion. It would be emotional hari-kari.
Because Finn had lied to her. Then told her that he wanted her despite his own needs. Despite the discomfort it afforded. Even despite himself.
April didn’t know much about love but she knew that those terms were not acceptable. She also knew she was worth more than that. And she didn’t need to see it reflected in any man’s eyes in order to believe it.
Her heart still felt like tortured metal in her chest as she said, “You know how I feel about you, Finn.”
His hooded eyes turned dark. Like knowing it and hearing it were two very different things. Which made her even more certain that she was making the right decision.
“You read the last page of a book first, watch the last episode of a TV series, so you can be sure you’ll approve of the ending. You know how I feel about you or else you’d never have asked. And how I feel is why if you’d asked me to run away with you, I actually might have said yes. But you’re asking me to run. To turn my back on my life. On the person I strive to be.”
“April—”
“My turn to talk.”
His nostrils flared, dark energy swirling about him like an electrical storm. But he nodded all the same.
“My workmates voted for another man to have the job they knew I wanted and yet I turn up to work every day with a smile. I make the effort to see my father every Christmas, even while I secretly want to smack him for what he did to us. I bite my lip rather than tell my stubborn, tunnel visioned mother to mind her own business because I know that she is lonely and she loves me. I hang on tight to my crazy sister, even when she tries her hardest to push me away, because she is family and I love her. And it’s hard. Sometimes really hard. Sometimes I even have to lie to myself about how hard it is. But at least I don’t run. I show up. To the bitter end.”
She stepped back, her shoe catching on a snag in the rough boathouse floor.
Finn reached out and with his superhuman strength caught her, pulling her into his arms. “It’s okay,” he said, his voice rumbling through her like a wave of heat and need and pain. “I’ve got you.”
Feeling outside of her own body, April said, “That’s the thing, Finn. You don’t have me. You never did.”
With that, she pulled out of his embrace, disentangled her limbs from his, and stumbled away.
Her footsteps rang dull on the wooden floor of the boat house before she burst out into the moonlight.
Powered by the need to just get as far away from the distressing ache in her chest as quickly as possible, she headed back up the hill, through the fairy garden and into the house where JJ and Kane’s engagement party had simmered to groups chattering in corners and a few diehards waving their arms on the makeshift dance floor.
April grabbed her purse from the pile on the chaise lounge and tried to slip away.
“April?” JJ called as she edged past.
April stopped, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I have to go. Great party. Congratulations to you both.”
“April, what happened back there with Finn – I had no idea—”
“I know. I just have to go.” She hoped her voice sounded more normal outside her own head. Inside it was muffled. Strangled. In all sorts of karmic pain. “I’ll catch up with you later. I have to go.” Had she already said that?
“Erica!” JJ called, spinning as she looked for her friend.
“I’m on it.”
Erica was at April’s side, a tough hand hooked into her elbow as she led her through the halls of the Cinderella Project offices and outside.
“You were talking to someone. Go back in.” April insisted.
Erica shrugged. “Kane’s friend, Guy? Oh, that wasn’t talking. That was him trying to convince me he’s not a man whore but is in fact a top-drawer bloke. Now, do you want me to smack him?”
“Guy?”
“Finn, you idiot. Do I need to take him out? He’s big. Gargantuan, really. But I’m scrappy. I could kneecap him.”
April shook her head. “Forget about him.”
“Easier said than done, I f
ear.”
April shot Erica a quick look, but Erica’s expression was unreadable. Except for a flare of protectiveness she just couldn’t quell.
“I saw the way you looked at him, kid. I knew from that first moment that he was going to break your heart.”
April shook her head, but said nothing.
Was she heartbroken? Was that was this feeling was? She’d always imagined it would be devastating. Like her bones had crumbled and her insides were in a vice.
But after her speech, in which she’d made it clear to Finn that his offer was unacceptable, she felt fiery. Sharp. As if her blood was swimming free and fast. Adrenaline was out in force, making her shake from head to toe.
“So, where to, sis?” Erica asked. “Home and under the covers, a bar, a bridge?”
April shrugged, her teeth now starting to chatter.
“A bar then,” Erica said, slipping her phone from her jeans pocket to make a call. Into the phone she said, “The Burrow. One hour. Big ask, but can you swing it?” A pause then, “Which is why you are the best thing that happened to me.” Erica rang off, then angled April towards her Fiat. “I’m driving.”
April handed over her keys and let Erica pour her into the car.
Resting her head on the cool window, she watched posh Sydney suburbia slide by until the streets became familiar, the light and sky and hum a part of her from birth but strange and new at the same time. She wondered if this was how it felt after having been away for a while then coming home.
For she had been away. Her life all drama and chaos, barely recognisable from the time pre-Cinderella Project. Pre-Finn.
She dragged herself upright. Tightened her seatbelt. Wound down the window and breathed in the scents of home. Letting go of the drama. Letting go of the chaos. Grounding herself in reality. Putting the mess behind her. Literally. It diminished to a speck in her rear view mirror. In her past. The place where mistakes made went and stayed.
She’d managed to catch herself by a fingernail back there, hanging onto reality by the merest whisper. Now was the time to haul herself over that cliff’s edge and back into her life. Her real life. With a real fresh start.
What that might entail, she had no idea. Her world had been turned upside down this year, and she couldn’t know which parts would survive and which would be broken beyond repair until her feet hit solid ground.
