He smirked. “Ironically, this is probably how our first time would’ve gone back in high school, too, only in half the time and I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with my mouth.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Mr. Big Man on Campus? I thought you’d had practice.”
He propped his head up on his fist. “You assumed that. I was a virgin, too.”
Her lips parted, and then she narrowed her eyes. “Liar.”
“Nope.”
“But I saw you with that senior chick here at the lake sophomore year. She was all over you.”
He put his hand to his chest in faux wistfulness. “Ah, Leigh. She gave me my first hand job and a painful lesson in why you shouldn’t let a girl with fake nails handle your business when she’s been drinking.”
Liv snorted. “Ouch.”
“Yeah.” He noticed goose bumps popping up on her skin so he dragged the wet blanket from beneath them and tossed it on the floor. Then, he grabbed the dry quilt and draped it over them. “After that, I fooled around a few times, but I didn’t let anything go far.”
“How come?” she asked. “Didn’t feel ready?”
“Oh, I felt ready the first time I saw Mila Kunis in That ’70s Show. But my dad had given me a talk in junior high about women trying to trap the guys who are going somewhere. He told me that once girls saw I was good at football and had money, they’d try to latch on and even get pregnant so that I had to keep them around.”
Liv made a disgusted face and rolled over to prop herself up on the pillows. “Geez. That’s a shit thing to say.”
“Yeah, extra shitty considering my mom got pregnant with my older sister in high school. Like he wasn’t an active participant in that and it was her fault.” He frowned, old bitterness bubbling up. “But at the same time, the thought freaked me out. I didn’t want to get stuck in Long Acre.”
“So if I had asked you to sleep with me, you would’ve thought I was some scheming chick from the wrong side of the tracks trying to put my claws in you?”
He gave her a yeah-right look.
“What? There’s no denying that we were from different sides of town.”
“I would’ve never thought that of you. First, I pursued you. Second, no one wanted to get out of
town more than you did. I would’ve been an anchor on you, not the other way around. But I never pushed because you deserved better than losing your virginity with a guy who was too chickenshit to date you publicly.”
A little line appeared between her brows. “Is that why you kept us secret? Because if your dad found out, he would’ve seen me as a leech?”
“Partly.” Finn flipped to his back and scrubbed a hand over his face. “He saw us together once. That day I invited you over when I thought my parents were going to be out overnight. My dad forgot something and had to come back to get it and saw us kissing by the pool. The next day, he cornered me and told me what he’d seen.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, the things he said, the way he talked about you and your family… I’ve never come so close to punching my own father. But he threatened to take everything. My college fund. My car. Any support after high school if I didn’t shut it down.” He stared at the ceiling and blew out a breath, anger building in him anew. “I should’ve let him. I should’ve stood up for myself. For you. Instead, I let him think he’d won and got more careful with you.”
Liv shifted to her side and peered down at him, her damp hair tickling his chest. “You were a kid. He was your dad. You can’t blame yourself for being scared your father would disown you and throw you out. My parents had a lot of sway over me, too.”
He stared up at her, old shame filtering through him. “I wanted to tell him the real story of where I was during the shooting, but he was so proud to call his son a hero and I just…let him. It was easier to let him think what he wanted.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given a damn about his opinion. I was a coward.”
The words felt jagged in his throat, but it felt good to finally say them to her, to admit what a selfish asshole he’d been.
When he opened his eyes, instead of seeing disappointment on her face, she bent down and kissed him lightly. “Stop apologizing. You were seventeen, and every kid has a part of them that wants to make their parents proud. Even if your dad’s a dick.”
“That’s being kind.”
“Okay, an überdick. But that’s not news. I once overhead him refer to my dad as the illegal who does his lawn.” Finn cringed, but she smoothed his forehead with her fingers. “Part of me knew all along that you could never bring me home. To be honest, I doubt my father would’ve been overly thrilled with me bringing that ‘rich asshole’s’ son around either.”
“The difference is you would’ve done it anyway.”
She shrugged, conceding the point, and the quilt slipped down a little. “Well, to hell with them both because here we are again anyway. Doing unspeakable things to each other.”