His Secret Heart (Crown Creek) Page 9

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.”

  “I wish I’d made more of an effort,” I exhaled. “I made friends easily but then things just… fizzled. Because my focus was on when my father was coming back next.”

  I shook my head, looking at the ground. For a moment, the feelings were too overwhelming.

  I saw Finn’s boots shuffling in the dirt.

  And then the solid weight of his hand as he rested it on my shoulder and squeezed. “That sucks.”

  I laughed and then nodded. “It does.”

  “I hate when people try to give you that positive bullshit. Finding the goodness in the bad shit that’s happened to you.”

  “I don’t see how I can find any goodness here.”

  “So don’t,” he said. “Be pissed. You have the right. What he did to you? It’s wrong and unfair. It shouldn’t have fucking happened.”

  “You’re damn right it shouldn’t have, my friend.

  I looked at Finn. He looked at me.

  And we both smiled.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Finn

  And just like that, I had a friend.

  Me. The unlikable asshole who got in fights like it was his job. The one whose brother had to drag him along to anything and who sat in the corner, pissed off about it the rest of the night.

  I’d done basically everything I could to drive her off, but Sky was still here, four days into our reboot. Making fun of my pop-star beginnings, but still. She was here.

  “Oh my God,” she groaned. “I remember those suits!” She handed me the ear of corn she’d finished husking and I wrapped it in foil to put on the grill. “How did you let that happen?”

  I didn’t like talking about my brothers. Not now. But I liked to see Sky’s smile so I answered her. “The label wanted to play up the twin angle. You can be sure it wasn’t our idea. Though I was a lot more resistant than Beau was. I think that’s because he got to wear the blue one.”

  “While yours was a lovely shade of -.”

  “Puke green,” I finished, which made her laugh harder.

  “Ugh, you poor thing.” She handed me another ear and then stood up and wiped the corn silk from her lap. “They were ridiculous. But sadly not the worst costumes I’ve ever seen. I once worked a production of The Glass Menagerie where the costume designer put these silver, elbow-length gloves on Laura. Her dress was pure twenties glam, but her gloves were straight out of a disco.”

  I blinked at her. “I’m afraid I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “The Glass Menagerie? Tennessee Williams? Didn’t you read it in school?”

  I snorted. “I didn’t go to school. I did have a tutor who didn’t give much of a shit about his job, however. And he never mentioned it.”

  “So you’ve never seen The Glass Menagerie?”

  “Seen? Read? Heard of? No to all of the above.”

  She looked scandalized. “How about Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? Come on now, you’re alive, right?”

  I closed the lid of the grill. “I’m alive and apparently uncultured, Miss Theatre Snob.”

  “Oh, can it,” she laughed, batting at me with her hand. “I’m hardly a snob.”

  I struck a dramatic pose. “Oh, but you work in the the-a-tra!”

  “Yeah, doing laundry for divas.” She rolled her eyes. “But don’t change the subject. This is an emergency. You’re missing out on like, the building blocks of cultural expression.”

  “You ought to talk with Jonah,” I muttered. “You two would hit it off immediately.” My oldest brother was the kind of Type-A control freak who was perfectly functional on three hours of sleep. I was sure he’d know what she was talking about. And be thrilled to share his opinions about it, too. I picked up the tongs and opened the grill again to turn the corn.

  “Jonah’s not here. And you’re the one who needs an education on the classics.” She stomped up the stairs into the trailer and poked her head in the door. “Hey, you have a DVD player in here, right?” she bellowed from inside.

  “Yeah?” I was a little wary about where this was going.

  She laughed and shook her head as she stepped back out again. “Course you do. How could I forget? You’re ‘camping.’” She made air quotes with her fingers. “But it’s perfect. We can get started tonight. After dinner let’s head out to the library.”

  I dropped the tongs.

  “Five second rule!” Sky swooped in and picked them up again. She was grinning when she held them out to me, but her face fell when she saw my expression. “Hey, what’s up?”

  What was up was that my mother worked at the library.

  Sky’s eager suggestion nearly caved my chest in with longing. Mom might even be working tonight. It would be so easy to walk in there - like I had a million times before - to say hello.

  “I’m not going to the fucking library,” I growled.

  “Jesus.” She stepped back. “Fine then. Have a tantrum about it.”

  I finished flipping the corn and slammed the lid of the grill down so hard it rang out. And made Sky jump. She turned away from me and busied herself setting out the hamburger buns on our paper plates.

  Shit. She’d been really excited and I shut her down. And for some reason I cared about the things she cared about. “You could go?” I heard myself say. “Maybe? I wouldn’t know what to get, anyway.”

  Her little pink tongue flicked out and I watched her mouth as she tried to hold it in a frown. And then failed. “Are you sending me on your errands, Finn King?” she smirked.

  I relaxed. “Sure am. And we need more cereal too.”

  “That’s because you eat a whole box in one sitting.”

  “I like cereal.” I shrugged. Then gestured for her to hold out her plate.

  “I guess I need some things too, now that I’m staying.” She held her plate up to her nose and sniffed. “Nice work. You’re better at grilling than you are at making the fire itself.” She laughed when I gave her the finger. “But I’m a little freaked out about going into Crown Creek, to be honest.”

  I slid onto the bench across from her. “Are you worried about running into your family?”

  “They’re not my family. They made that amply clear.”

  “Well, don’t be too stressed out. I know the Knights, and you’re not likely to find them hanging out near the library.”

  “What about somewhere else?”

  I bit into my burger and chewed thoughtfully. “They keep to themselves,” I said after I’d swallowed. “And besides, what do you think they’re going to do, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “You’re the one who knows them, not me.”

  I took another bite. I did know them. J.D. was fairly reasonable, but the rest of them? Prickly. Quick to find insult. Rocco was no worse than me in the temper department, which made him bad enough. Maddox, though. He was a wild card. And Lennon actually scared me.

  Their sister Grace? I didn’t know her except in passing. But her brothers seemed to defer to her in a way that Claire could only dream of Jonah, Gabe, Beau and me doing for her. If a scary motherfucker like Lennon found Grace intimidating, she was probably the worst of the bunch.

  Poor Sky. I knew what she was up against. But I didn’t want her to be scared either. “You’re not anyone’s dirty secret,” I reminded her. “Remember how you said that?”

  Her smile was pure sunshine. I swore it warmed me from the inside out.

  And I wished like hell I could fix things for her.

  But I knew that was a fantasy. So far I’d fucked up twice with Sky, but I seemed to be doing well right now. In spite of myself. I watched her eat, and then laugh, those eyes of her widening as she told me stories about life in theater.

  Friendship was something I wasn’t good at, and I’d only make things worse for her with my good intentions. But the thought stayed there, lodged in my brain. Twisting like a worm on a hook.

  You could fix this for her.

  But
how?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Finn

  “Guess what I did!” Sky burst into my trailer without even bothering to knock.

  I looked up from my book. I’d been sitting here trying not to think about what she was doing for the past forty-five minutes. All kinds of dark suspicions had crowded into my head.

  But when I saw her again, I could only smile. “I have no idea. You jumped up and yelled about having something to do. And by the looks of it, it wasn’t learning how not to be a slob.” I stooped to pick up the bag she’d dumped at her feet.

  “Nope!” She reached into it and pulled out a small blue card.

  I licked my lips. “You went to the library?”

  She nodded. “Turns out the month’s deposit I put on a campsite qualifies me as a resident of Crown Creek.” She tapped the card against my shoulder. “I put an absolute shit-ton of DVDs on hold too, so prepare yourself.”

  “Fuck,” I complained. But I wasn’t really mad. How could I be when she looked so damn excited to share something with me? “I thought I was safe because you were worried about seeing the Knights in town.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Well, you told me they didn’t go to the library, so I thought I’d be okay.”

  A strange warmth filled my chest. She trusts me.

  “Yeah, you’re fine,” I grunted, turning away. “So, since tonight is my last night of freedom before you start putting me through your culture classes, how about we do a bonfire?”

  “Sure. Let me run to my tent real quick and then I’ll make it for us.”

  “You don’t have to!” I shouted at her retreating form. “I know how to build a fire!”

  “No you don’t!” she shot back from across the road.

  I laughed as I watched her stooping into her tent. Half her shit was still over there, strewn around in a messy pile.

  The other half was strewn across my trailer. I pushed her bag aside on the counter and poured us both some drinks, then headed outside.

  Tonight was the perfect night for a fire. A cloudless sky meant we could see the stars and with the sun setting, the chill was coming on fast. I gathered up our paper plates from earlier to put in the fire pit and held my lighter to them.

  The flame caught. Then fizzled.

  “Fucking seriously?” I complained.

  Sky bounded over with her hands shoved in the pocket of a hoodie advertising some two year old Broadway tour. But when she saw me crouched over the fire pit, she folded her arms over her chest. “Are you seriously trying to make a fire when I’m right here?”

  “You know? I would have gotten it if you’d just given me a minute.”

  She tapped her foot. “Minute’s up.”

  I huffed and rolled my eyes and pretended not to enjoy watching her ass as she bent over the flames. “Honestly, you’re like a newborn baby,” she complained as the plates finally caught. She looked around appraisingly. “We need more wood,” she said, planting her hands on her hips.

  I gestured to the logs I’d had delivered yesterday. “Right there.”

  “Those? That’s not firewood. It’s too huge.”

  I planted my tongue in my cheek. "Why thank you.”

  “Fuck off.” She rolled her eyes as I laughed. “No, the firewood, dumbass. We can’t put that on the fire. It’ll smother it.”

  “So I’ll go buy a bundle from the camp store.” She was looking at me. “What?”

  “Buy it? There’s wood right here.”

  “You said it was too big.”

  “Hey Einstein, you know how you make wood smaller?”

  “Have you ask a bunch of questions?” I crudely supplied. I liked how she was getting all lathered up. Mad Sky was freaking cute. “Fine,” I relented when she started sputtering. “I’ll chop us some fucking firewood.”

  The storage compartment under the bus used to hold our band equipment. Now it was a jumble of random shit I’d thought I might need in my new life. Including the axe my great-great-grandfather had used to build the first house on what was now my parents’ property. I hoped my Dad didn’t miss it too much.

  I also hoped he knew why I needed it.

  When I pulled it out, Sky pressed her hand to her heart. “You know how to use an axe?” she gasped, faking a swoon.

  “I do indeed.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Oh, you want to try?” I held it out to her. “Go ahead.”

  With a smug look on her face, she reached out and grabbed it.

  And promptly let it drop down, “Hey!” I warned, snatching it back up again before she chopped off her leg. “Watch where you swing it.”

  She was pale. “It’s… heavy.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “You can lift that?”

  “I lifted you. Only needed one hand, too.”

  I didn’t mean to keep bringing that night up. It’s just…. I’m an asshole.

  She blushed and looked away, and I knew she was remembering it too. I took a step away from her. It was the only way to stop thinking about the way she’d bucked against me as my fingers slid inside her. “Stand back,” I grunted. “I don’t want to hit you.”

  She stepped back and watched with an expression of mute respect as I made my first cut. The pent up adrenaline I’d stored up trying not to want her made quick work of the first log. I handed her a piece I’d split. “Is this a good size?”

  She took it gingerly. “It’s good.” She was staring at me open-mouthed.

  I grinned at her. “What? You like what you see or something?”

  She recovered enough to give me a look. “I’m impressed. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “We have a wood stove, you know.”

  “Who does?”

  I swallowed. “Me and Beau. In our house.”

  She went quiet. I didn’t look at her. I hefted the axe and then split the next log in one go. Then the next. Then the next.

  “Hey, killer,” she whispered, interrupting me before I yanked the next log from the pile. She spoke softly. Carefully. “That’s plenty. You can sit now.”

  My knees gave out, and I sat.

  After a moment, Sky slid closer. She put her arm around me. “You look like you need a hug. That’s what friends do. Right? Hug each other?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” I grimaced, but leaned into her embrace anyway. She put her hand on my face and tilted my head until it was resting on her shoulder.

  She moved her fingers in idle, soothing traces. Across my brow and down my cheek, the up to my ear. When was the last time I’d been touched like this? Gently? Affectionately?

  I couldn’t remember.

  My eyes were nearly closed when she startled me by clearing her throat. “So. I saw your mom today.”

  I stiffened.

  “I know it was her. Her eyes. They're the exact same color. You definitely got her bone structure too. Damn, I hope I look that good when I'm her age.”

  I said nothing.

  “She helped me get signed up. And I stood there having to make chit chat with her the whole time she was putting in all the holds for me.” Sky let her hand fall from my face. “Finn, I felt like I was lying to her.”

  I said nothing. I had nothing to say.

  She twisted until she could see my face. “You know I don’t lie.”

  I gripped my knees. “So you said something?”

  “No.” She watched me unclench my fists. “No, I wouldn’t do that. You have your reasons, whatever they are.”

  “I do.”

  She went silent again. “You really do look like her,” she said finally. “People always said I looked like my mom.”

  Some of my tension eased to have the spotlight off of me. “Do you?”

  “I guess. I felt bad about it too. Guilty.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my Dad was the one who raised me. My mom split when I was seven.”

  “I thought your Dad wasn’t around?”