“You’ll get used to them,” Finn said with a small smile.
I searched around for something to say as we turned right and began to walk. Finally I settled on something I’d read in a few books. “Come here often?”
As soon as the words were out, I cringed at my stupidity.
Crap. That’s a pickup line guys use in bars!
Finn either didn’t notice or was too polite to mention it. “Every day. I like to walk while I think. It makes the ideas flow.”
“For painting?” I guessed, remembering the colors splattered on his jeans the night before.
“Stories,” he said, turning right and beginning to walk.
“You write?”
“Comics,” he said. “A little writing, a lot of inking.”
“I noticed your fingers last night.”
Does that make me sound like a pervert?
“My fingers?” He pulled his hand from his pocket and studied his nails, as if just noticing his fingertips were stained black. “Huh. I’m sure that’s attractive,” he said, stuffing his hands back into his pockets.
“I wouldn’t worry,” I said. “You can tell girls you enjoy long walks on the beach.”
He shot me a strange look, and I bit my tongue. Did he think I was flirting?
Was I?
I wasn’t sure that I actually knew how to flirt. I’d definitely never had the opportunity, and I didn’t know if it was something that came naturally or had to be taught. I couldn’t deny that he was attractive, with those jade-green eyes and that moody artist thing going on. I, on the other hand, was wearing a jacket with someone else’s name written on the inside. I had no business flirting with this rich boy.
“I don’t really talk to girls,” he said, turning to approach the water’s edge.
I almost laughed at that, but Finn’s face was serious as he contemplated the horizon to the west. The sky was a pale pink that reflected the sunrise to the east, and for a minute neither of us spoke. The waves in the bay were tiny, rolling up on the beach rather than crashing. The rushing sound of the water on the sand filled the silence between us. But I couldn’t hold back my burning questions. The more I talked to real people, the less I understood about them.
“Why don’t you talk to girls?” I asked at last.
“I leave that to my brothers,” he said.
“You’re talking to me.”
“You’re…different, I guess.”
“Different from what?” I asked, tugging my sleeves over my hands. I didn’t want to be different. I was trying so hard to act normal, so they wouldn’t see what a weirdo I was.
Finn laughed quietly, pushing his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and glancing sideways at me. “That sounded like a line, didn’t it?”
“We just met,” I pointed out. “How do you know I’m different?”
“It wasn’t a line.”
“Okay.” I studied him from the corner of my eye, standing there at the edge of the water, with the morning sunlight glimmering on his tan skin. He looked so beautiful it made my insides ache. I wondered if anyone would ever look at me that way. If only my hair wasn’t so freaking long, I could let it blow across my face and look all sexy like the girls in movies, and maybe he would. Instead, I had the world’s biggest granny bun and the inability to sound like a normal human being.
“I actually want to talk to you,” Finn said after a silence. “That’s how I know you’re different.”
I tried to laugh. “I don’t think Eliot would find that reasoning sufficient.”
“Now who’s assuming she knows us so well?” he said. “What happened to we just met?”
“You’re telling me Eliot’s not the smart, literal, logical type?”
Finn paused, watching me with a slight smile and his eyes all squinted half shut. “No, he is,” he said slowly.
Relief swelled inside me. I had gotten it right for once. Maybe I’d survive this after all.
“Want to walk?” he asked.
“Yes. I’ve only been to the beach a few times.”
We started off down the tideline, where a ridge of seaweed tangled with clumps of seafoam with a brown skin on top. Now that the sky was lightening, I could see that the water wasn’t crystal blue, either, but kind of murky.
“It’s clear on the ocean side,” Finn said, as if reading my mind. “Over here, on the bay side of the Cape, the water is a lot warmer. But not many people swim here because of the color of the water.”
“I don’t blame them,” I said.
“It won’t hurt you, though,” Finn said. “You can surf on the ocean side with a wetsuit and a lot of courage, but no one swims in the winter up here. You’d die of hypothermia.”
“No kidding.” Wind swept along the beach, right through a thin spot in my jacket.
“You said you’d been to the beach before?” Finn asked. “Which ones?”
“A few,” I admitted. “But we never stay long.”
“How come?” he asked, looking genuinely curious.
I bit my lip, trying to come up with a good reason. But when I opened my mouth, something completely unexpected came out. The truth.
“We didn’t really come from St. Louis,” I said. “I mean, we did. It was the last place we lived. But before that…”
“What?” Finn asked, his brow creasing with concern.
“We were on the move a lot,” I said. “I’ve been all over the country. Mom doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long. That’s why we could pick up and move so suddenly when she met your dad online. Why I’ve never really had friends, and I have zero idea what to say to you or any other normal person, and you probably think I’m a total freak right now.”
“You’re doing fine,” Finn said, his hand resting gently on my arm. “After the life you’ve lived, no one expects you to be perfect.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I took a breath before going on. I found myself spilling the story to him, if only the abbreviated version. I didn’t tell him all the gruesome details that would send him running to call social services or make him think we were pathetic losers. But I outlined a few of Mom’s beach-related quirks and other eccentricities. When I finished, there was a moment of awkward silence.
“I’m so sorry, Gwen,” Finn said at last.
Hearing him say my name brought a strange comfort, a sense of safety and stability, as if he’d anchored me in this world, made me real, when he’d uttered my name aloud. I was unbelievably grateful for his simple statement and the simple way he said my name, as if it were an indisputable truth.
I shoved my hands deeper into the pockets of my lumpy jacket. Some of the stuffing had migrated when I used it as a pillow, so it was fat in some places and empty in others. “I’ve probably been to all the famous beaches in the continental U.S.,” I told Finn. “Even if I only saw them out a car window, not everyone can say that.”
“I guess if it was fun for you…” he said, looking doubtful.
“It wasn’t,” I admitted with a sigh. “It isn’t.”
“Well, it’s over now,” he said, his hand slipping down my arm and tugging mine from my pocket. When he linked our fingers and squeezed, a swell of emotion made my eyes blur over with tears.
“I don’t know,” I said, not sure why I was telling him all this. “I keep waiting for her to tell us it’s time to go. Honestly, that’s how I’ve spent the last ten years. Waiting to go, waiting for her to get worse, waiting for something to happen.”
“Now it has,” he said. “We found you. You’re with us. The wait is over.”
It was irrational, but I believed him. I didn’t know how to explain it, even to myself. Just that his words sounded so logical. It was time to live. I could finally stop holding my breath.
But then what? What if I made friends with these people, and then Mom ripped us away again, like she’d ripped me away from every other place in my life. I’d never even had a friend. Now I had a chance to make five friends in the same house, bu
t what then? If I let myself get attached to these people, to these comforts, I’d be worse off than when I started. Now I knew what I’d been missing all my life.
But I wasn’t going to let that fear scare me away. I wasn’t going to run like Mom. I was going to embrace every chance, to wallow in every opportunity. I was going to hold Finn’s hand, and laugh with Peyton and Zeke, and pretend, even if only for a week, that I was normal. Every moment was precious, and I would relish every single one. I offered Finn a shy smile, and my heart throbbed inside my chest when he offered me an equally shy smile in return.
Chapter Eleven
Finn
I knew I should drop Gwen’s hand. Though I’d only taken it to reassure her, she held onto me like I was a lifeline thrown out to a drowning girl. I couldn’t bear to pull away, to make her think I didn’t want to touch her or be near her. She was such a strange mixture of trusting and suspicious, of blind innocence and defensiveness.
She reminded me of an abandoned seagull chick Eliot and I had found down in the dunes when we were kids. It had been so shy, and yet, so trusting once we had it in our hands. We’d taken it home and kept it alive in a box until it was old enough to go off on its own, thanks to Eliot’s endless research on how to raise it and reintroduce it into the wild.
Now, I had this other kind of baby bird in my hand. I couldn’t help but think of how she’d reacted when I’d said she was different. Any other girl would have thought it was a line. From any other guy, it probably would’ve been. It was an easy line because it was true. Other girls knew this stuff. She’d be in trouble when she started school, if she didn’t know better than to trust any guy who said she was different.
We made our way past one of the stone piers jutting out into the water. The tide was sinking, and little rivulets of water wavered across the wet sand. From the corner of my eye, I watched Gwen breathing in the sea air, strands of her blonde hair ribboning out in the wind.
I was glad she’d trusted me with her truth. I had a feeling she didn’t share that story with just anyone. But then, what did I know? I’d never even held a girl’s hand before. Holding her hand implied some kind of ownership, and I didn’t own Gwen. She didn’t own me. In the classes I’d taken at church, they’d told us not to do things like this.
But maybe it was okay if she was like a little sister to me.
I knew I was making excuses even as I made them. She wasn’t like a sister to me. Even if Dad married Olivia—and he wouldn’t do that—that would make what I was doing worse, not better. And Dad had just met her mom. In the two years since Mom died, he hadn’t gone on a single date, despite the locals and tourists lining up for a chance. No matter how long he knew a woman, he’d never replace Mom. They’d been high school sweethearts who had never dated anyone else. Their whole lives had been about loving each other.
Their love had taught me what love was. Growing up, I’d watched them, knowing that one day, I’d have that kind of love. Since then, I’d been saving my love for someone I could share that kind of bond with.
As we approached the stairs, I watched Gwen from the corner of my eye. Her lips drew my attention. Even without makeup, they were red and full. She had no idea how beautiful she was, but it was more than that. She was magnetic. I was drawn to her with a constant, unrelenting pull. Was she the girl I’d been waiting for? Was the attraction some kind of divine sign? I definitely wasn’t holding her hand in the way I’d hold hands with a sister. I knew it, and yet I was too weak to stop.
Her fingers were soft and cold inside my hand, as fragile as that baby bird we’d rescued. It was my job to protect her, just like we’d protected it. A primal instinct had risen inside me, telling me to take care of her. I would treasure her trust and guard her secrets because I knew they were sacred. There were guys at school who would be all too eager to take advantage of her trust and innocence. I may not have been one of them, but I knew exactly what those guys were like, because my brothers were the worst of them all.
Chapter Twelve
Gwen
Even though I knew I should let go of Finn’s hand, I didn’t want to. It was warm, for one thing, but that definitely wasn’t all. Touching him was nothing like touching my mother. Every nerve ending in my hand had come painfully alive. My entire body was gone, leaving nothing but my palm, my fingers, my skin pressed to his. I was a shadow following behind my one living, radiant limb. When he squeezed my hand, his fingers pressing between mine, I forgot how to breathe.
I’d read plenty of books where people did this casually. But it wasn’t casual. It was electrifying, almost unbearable. Since it was my first time holding hands, I tried not to beat myself up about the fact that holding hands with him felt so good I wanted to close my eyes and swoon into his arms. But in my jeans and stuffing-challenged jacket, I didn’t think I could pull that off quite like Scarlet O’Hara in her big dresses.
I contented myself with imagining it instead, with wringing every sensation I could from the moment. We walked along the beach in silence, listening to the water lapping at the shore as the tiny waves receded, leaving behind a strip of wet sand. Hermit crabs scuttled along the beach, disappearing into holes when we came close to stepping on them.
I didn’t dare squeeze Finn’s hand, lest he notice we were still linked and pull away. I prayed he wouldn’t see that I could barely put one foot in front of the other. Though I tried not to overthink it, it was hard not to. I was walking on a beach at sunrise holding hands with a boy. The spaces between my knuckles cradled his fingers, our hands fitting together like they had been sculpted for this exact moment, this exact purpose.
“This is going to sound like another line,” Finn said when we’d reached the wooden steps leading up to the house. “But…I feel like we’ve met before.”
I swallowed hard and managed a nod. “I feel it, too.”
“Really?” He glanced at me, surprise creasing his brow.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I feel like I’ve always known you. All of you, actually. That’s weird, right?”
“Definitely weird,” he agreed, fingers still entwined with mine as we climbed the steps together. They were just wide enough to allow us to walk up side by side. With his hand in mine, climbing up didn’t scare me.
“Do you think…maybe you’d show me some of your comics sometime?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, glancing at me sideways. “Yeah, maybe.”
He sounded like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.
“I’m sure they’re amazing,” I said. “And I love reading everything. Even comics. I promise I won’t judge.”
Finn shrugged, looking uncomfortable as he dropped my hand at last. A wave of loneliness washed over me when his hand left mine. He slid open the glass door for me, and I stepped inside, tugging my hands inside my sleeves to have something to hold onto. Inside, we were greeted by the smell of frying bacon. Low voices murmured in the kitchen.
“Oh, good, you’re back,” Mom said as I followed Finn into the kitchen. Mom was seated at the table, along with Peyton and Zeke.
“Would you go grab your brothers?” Neil said, sliding a spatula full of sizzling bacon onto a plate.
Finn ducked upstairs, and a few minutes later, he reappeared with Eliot on his heels.
“Hello, lovely,” Eliot said, flashing me a grin.
My face warmed as I remembered the last time he’d seen me, wearing considerably less clothing. I cast a guilty glance at Finn. Despite the intimacy of our walk on the beach, he didn’t seem bothered by his brother paying attention to me. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice.
Had I imagined the whole thing—the connection, the moments that had passed between us? Confused and a little stung, I slid in at the table without looking at either of the twins again.
“Where’s Xander?” Neil asked, scooping steaming heaps of scrambled eggs onto the plates already set at the table.
“He’s coming,” Finn said, sliding into a chair.
&nb
sp; Eliot grabbed a pitcher of orange juice from the fridge and began pouring some into each glass like we were guests at a fancy resort.
“Where’s Rosa?” I asked to distract myself. I was determined to make it through the entire meal, though I’d begun to feel overwhelmed again.
“She’s getting the venue ready,” Neil said just as Xander shuffled in and plopped down in the chair next to mine.
“What venue?” he asked just as I opened my mouth to ask the same thing.
“Olivia and I talked it over, and we don’t see a reason to wait,” Neil said. “It will be a small, simple affair, but we’ve decided to get married.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” Xander asked, jumping up from the table. His chair scraped against the floor, and orange juice sloshed in the glasses.
The world tilted dangerously under me, and I grabbed the edge of the table. My throat was so tight that my voice came out as barely more than a whisper. “What?”
“Just a little wedding,” Mom said, giving me a tight smile.
“Mom, you can’t,” I blurted out.
“Oh my god, Dad, I’m so happy for you,” Peyton said, clapping her palms together in a quick little burst of applause before leaping into her father’s arms. “I was about to set up a dating profile for you online. I can’t believe you’re doing this. It’s so overdue.”
I swallowed back a painful lump in my throat. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I knew I shouldn’t have left her and gone to the beach. What had Neil done to her? This wasn’t how our lives worked. It was me and Mom. Mom and me. Thelma and Louise. Not Thelma and Louise and an entire family of weird rich people.
“Be happy for me,” Mom said, cutting her eyes at Peyton, who was babbling on about how her dad needed to get out more, and she’d been worried about him, and he obviously needed to start dating again, although she hadn’t expected him to get married quite so fast…
“That is fast,” Zeke agreed, looking confused. “They just got here. You’re already getting married? You don’t even know each other.”
Emerge: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Page 7
