“I’m pretty sure you just did,” I tease him.
“Which neighborhood is he in today? So I know where to avoid,” he adds.
He’s frustrated. Any honest thing I could say would only make things worse, though. “Most likely, he’s not far from here,” I say. “He usually volunteers at the kitchen near Sixth Avenue.”
Finn leaps off the curb and hails the first cab he sees.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he ushers me in.
“Anywhere but here.”
As we pile into the cab, I don’t tell Finn it doesn’t matter where we go or how far we get. The day has to end at some point. And when it does, I’ll go home to Nathan. That’s a reality he can’t escape.
TWENTY-TWO
Anywhere turns out to be Times Square. On a Sunday, even in the cold, the blocked-off area is a disaster. The crowd is thick, made even denser by puffy coats and thick-soled boots. A trashcan overflows onto the sidewalk. The cabbie drops Finn and me off as close to the center as he can get.
“Why are we here?” I ask. Billboards flash over us. I’ve spent every year since I moved here avoiding these tourist-infested blocks.
“Do you know anyone who’d come here on a Sunday?” Finn asks.
“No. Not a single person. Not during the week unless it was work-related and definitely not on a weekend.”
“Exactly.”
People walk around us in multiple directions. A toddler face plants between a stranger’s legs and cries. Finn’s plan dawns on me, and I look up at him. “We’re alone here.”
He taps me on the nose. “Beautiful and smart.” I can’t help my smile. “What’s your maiden name?”
“Beckwith.”
“Beautiful and smart Sadie Beckwith.”
I clamp my teeth together. It’s been a while since anyone called me that, and I don’t even know that woman anymore. I’m Sadie Hunt through and through. “Do you have any siblings?” I ask, changing the subject.
“No. You?”
“An older brother. Andrew. You’d like him.”
He perks up. “Yeah? Why?”
“If there were an artist in our family, it’d be him. He runs a garage, but he also loves tattoos. Giving and receiving. And he’s a dad to a daughter, like you.”
Finn smiles crookedly. “I’d love to meet him.” Before I can protest, which I’m about to do, he adds, “One day. Not now, obviously.”
I’m already picturing it, though, what it would be like to introduce them. I may have spoken too soon. Andrew is all kinds of fucked up when it comes to the opposite sex, but he wouldn’t approve of what I’m doing. In fact, I think if Andrew found out about Finn, he’d take pleasure in wringing his neck.
“What’d I say?” Finn asks. “I meant down the road, Sadie.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s something,” he says. “I’m sorry. I just get excited when I think about a future. For us.”
I can’t even hear the words without panic rising up my throat. In an attempt to stop the direction of the conversation, I wave my hands and say, “No. It wasn’t that.”
“What then? Something about your brother?”
I’ve backed myself into a corner. “It’s just that Andrew, well—he really likes Nathan. I mean, he loves him. They’re brothers. Andrew doesn’t like many people.”
Finn’s eyebrows sit low. He flits his green eyes over my face. “So you were wrong just now. He wouldn’t like me.”
“You have some things in common. Art, fatherhood. Stuff like that. You know?” I swallow dryly. “Andrew’s protective of me. Of Nathan too. I’m sure if the circumstances were different—”
He looks away. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
“Yes.” My relief comes out in a long sigh. “Let’s take a step back.”
“All right.” He shifts on his feet and scans the faceless crowd. “Can I kiss you?”
I blink up at him, surprised. I shouldn’t even be considering it, but I feel bad about our awkward conversation. And it’s true—I can’t imagine a single person I know coming here. “Okay.”
He tilts his head. “Thank you. It’s just that in the theater, things got a little intense.”
“No.” I shake my head. “It was just what I needed.”
“Well, I feel like I need to kiss you now. So that you know, even when it’s like that, it means something to me.”
He looks nervous. And adorable. The tip of his nose is red from the cold. His hair messy from our romping. I slip into him—my arms underneath his coat, my body against his.
He bends his head and brushes his lips over mine. He whispers into my mouth. “In so little time, you’ve lit up my world like the sun. And you’ve warmed me just the same.”
His words melt like butter on my tongue. He kisses me thoughtfully, like the way I read my favorite books, fearful of missing even one word. This thing with Finn isn’t just sex. Something else will bloom if I nourish it. He feeds my newly hungry soul, but he isn’t afraid to show me his fear. It’s obvious in the way he grips me.
We part to look at one another. Times Square suddenly sparkles. The neon signs are reflected in his eyes. I’m grateful for the cold that keeps us close. I touch my mouth, burnt by the small shrub on his face.
He catches my hand and thumbs my lower lip. “I’ll shave.”
“No. Don’t.” I smile and repeat what I said to him years ago about his long hair, “You look like an artist.”
He studies me a moment and smiles. “Are you hungry?”
“I guess.”
“Your stomach grumbled.”
“No, it didn’t.” I laugh. “Did it?”
“I felt it. You’re pressed up against me, after all.” He kisses my palm. “Come.”
He takes me to a chain restaurant with burgers and beer. It’s dim inside, night or day. Each table has its own yellow lamp. At this odd time of afternoon, the bar and restaurant areas are crowded, but not full. The hostess hugs two menus and shows us to a table.
Finn stops her. “Can we get a—”
“Booth? No problem,” she says. She’s been at this a while.
A minute later, we’re nestled into one corner on the same side of a squeaky, springy bench. Our waitress wears a black polo and a nametag that says Ashley! Albuquerque, New Mexico. Finn orders us some greasy food and two hot chocolates with whipped cream.
“If you’re going for romance . . .” I start. Families populate the tables around us. A crayon flies by our booth. “You nailed it.”
He winks. “Romance isn’t really about atmosphere, is it? Maybe for some people.”
“Not us?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “For us, romance is these s
tolen moments to ourselves. It’s taking you in a theater full of people because I can’t survive another second without being inside you.”
He looks as though he expects a response, but he’s robbed the breath right out of my lungs. Breath I need to live, let alone speak. He’s right. Our time together is always charged by what we can’t say or do.
“The pictures turned out exquisitely, by the way,” he says. “I’m going to hang them in my living room like art.”
I wiggle against him. “You can’t.”
He slips his hand between my denim-clad thighs and rubs. “My bedroom then?”
“I don’t think Kendra would go for it.”
He stops touching me.
“Sorry,” I say and close my mouth to keep any other stupid comments inside.
“It’s fine,” he says calmly. “We should be able to talk about them.”
“Should we?” My stomach gets queasy, which doesn’t bode well for the heavy food he ordered. “I’m not sure.”
“Yeah. We should. Especially if this might get serious. And it could. Is there anything you want to know?”
Sex is the first thing that comes to mind. Now that I’ve been irreversibly intimate with Finn, curiosity about Kendra and him needles me. “Are you this insatiable with her?”
“No.”
“Were you ever?”
“Not really. We’ve never lost control in a public place, for example.” His expression softens. “I’ve never risked everything just to be inside her.”
I look at my hands in my lap. It’s the truth. He’s putting his whole life on the line for sex. I am too, of course, but I don’t have as much as I once did. Nathan might’ve already gone there with another woman. If I thought Nathan weren’t about to drop a bomb on me, I’m sure I’d do better at resisting Finn.
“What about you?” he asks.
“Our sex life?” I bite my bottom lip. Nathan could fuck with the best of them, and he only got better with time. He isn’t as adventurous as Finn—up until the whole slut thing, that is—but my body is his well-worn map. He knows every curve of every road.
If I were that candid, though, Finn would probably get up and leave. “I have no complaints,” I say, not wanting to lie. I look up at him from under my lashes. “I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings.”