It was a doozy.
“I only go because of Aidan. And I’m not going anywhere. You need me here.”
“I do,” I admitted. “But I needmyFinn. You seem to want me to punish you, Finn. I’m not going to do that.”
He grew still at that, and with his back to me, he stared out the wall of windows that overlooked the city of Manhattan, and tension crawled down his spine. “Why not?” he asked quietly.
“Because what happened wasn’t…” Blowing out a breath, I covered my face with my hands and rubbed my eyes. I was too tired for this, but Finn was suffering more than I was.
And that was saying something.
Mom had always told me that men could be big babies sometimes. I just hadn’t believed it.
I couldn’t say it wasn’t an accident. Because it wasn’t, was it? The drive-by had been Cause and Effect 101. Still, I didn’t think Finn needed a lesson on causality.
It wasn’t his fault, though. Not directly.
Did I hate him for putting me in a hospital bed? No. Did I wish it hadn’t happened? Of course. I wasn’t a fucking idiot. But it was complicated. Just because I didn’t hate him, didn’t mean I was happy with what had gone down. I was in a lot of pain—unnecessarily so. But my sulking with him wasn’t going to do anything.
It wasn’t like I could even use this against him as leverage. Everyone knew how it worked. You were a Five Pointer until the day you died—unless you’d served them well and they let you retire.If you were lucky enough to live that long,I tacked on ruefully.
So, my holding a grudge and saying, ‘It’s me or the Five Points,’ wasn’t going to get us anywhere, was it?
Had I expected to be shot on my wedding day?
Nope.
Did I expect him to feel guilty about it?
To be honest, yeah, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to be miserable. I just wanted it to make him think about his actions. That wasn’t so much to ask, was it?
“Finn, go to church.”
He turned around to scowl at me. “I’m not—”
“Just do it, would you? For me?”
His jaw worked but as he stared at me, his conscience warring behind his eyes, before he turned on his heel, and stalked out of the room.
The minute he left, it was like all the air was sucked out with him. Fuck, I hated it when he was in the other room, never mind notheresomewhere. And if that made me a pussy, well, you try being shot, having your spleen removed, and then…
Well, walk a day in my shoes before you fucking judged.
The last thing I wanted was for him to be anywhere but with me, but if confessing his damn sins put him in a better mood, then I was game for anything.