Beaufort, South Carolina
March 22
More than a month had passed since Twitch had promised the girls the story of her past with Finn. She had stalled and prevaricated, but the time had come. At least they all now knew she was pregnant, and she could talk to her friends without a cloud of deception hanging over her.
Twitch added the charred onions—her grandfather’s secret ingredient—to the chili and gave the pot a stir. She shook tortilla chips into the brim of the sombrero-shaped serving dish her mother had sent in one of the dozen boxes of housewarming gifts. She opened the jar of salsa to pour in the center and reared back at the smell. She’s had a similar reaction to the ketchup on her french fries at lunch. Apparently, baby Devlin did not like tomatoes.
In the living room, Emily, Calliope, Very, and the newest member of their posse, Cam’s girlfriend, Evan, were laughing and chatting. Bishop Security operative, Cam Canto, had fallen in love with Evan Cole after being abducted to Mallorca in a revenge plot crafted by his old CIA enemies. Twitch could see how Cam had been entranced; Evan was beautiful with caramel hair and matching eyes, but it was her kindness and her perspective that Twitch loved. She was an archaeologist working on her doctorate, and Twitch felt an instant connection to the quiet, intellectual woman.
Twitch knew her friends were biding their time waiting for the main event. She walked around the kitchen island that separated the two rooms and set the chips on the coffee table. Very popped into the kitchen, returning with the two open bottles of wine.
“Let’s save ourselves the trip,” Very said, refilling her glass with chardonnay and passing the red to Calliope.
Emily placed a reassuring hand on Twitch’s thigh as she settled on the couch. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Twitch gave a half-hearted smile. “I just feel like I’ve finally let it go, so it’s hard to relive the good part.”
“Don’t worry, babe, nothing you tell us will improve our opinion of Finn.” Calliope topped off Twitch’s glass of sparkling cider.
“Okay. Here goes.” Twitch took a deep breath. “I was competing in HackAttack. It’s an annual competition for programmers. Every year a different tech company sponsors it. I don’t know if you guys would even know about this, but for the tech geeks, it was a huge deal. That year, Obsidian Cybersecurity issued a challenge: no rules, no restrictions, one million dollars to the hacker who could penetrate their system.”
“I remember that,” Emily said. “A group of guys from my NYU class entered. Someone did it.”
“I did. I brought down their firewall.”
“Our girl made the front page of The Times.” Very gestured with a tortilla chip to her friend.
“You really won a million dollars?” Evan asked.
“Yes, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Go on,” Emily encouraged.
“I was sitting on a bench in the middle of South Street Seaport, buried in my laptop, when this shadow fell over the screen. And this voice said, ‘I can tell you why your code is failing.’ I looked up, and it was like…
“Adream.” Finn put his feet up on May’s coffee table, and she knocked them off. He shifted on the couch and continued. “I was just about to try for the SEALs, and trust me, I was confident with women before that. After I explained enough about coding that she knew I wasn’t full of shit, I closed her laptop and pulled her to her feet. I don’t know why she came with me. Well, that’s not true. I knew why. She was feeling the same thing I was feeling: this cocoon starting to form.”
May waited for Finn to continue.
“Like whatever chemical or physiological event triggers a caterpillar to start spinning a cocoon, happened when I sat down next to her, like nothing outside of us mattered, like we were about to be transformed into something better. Something beautiful.”
May said nothing, but as she poured herself more tea, the ghost of a smile crawled onto her lips.
“I convinced her to take a break and clear her head. We walked around the Village for an hour or so, grabbed a slice from a walk-up window. We just talked. About nothing. About everything. The me back then, I was invincible. Nothing got me down. Nothing made me second guess, but I told her about my parent’s divorce and how even though I never said anything, it had sucked.” Finn huffed out a laugh. “I don’t think I had even acknowledged that until that day. There was just something about Charlotte that was…”
“Safe.” Twitch hugged a throw pillow. “Inside, I was all shaky and zzzzzzz.” She fluttered her hands in the air to further illustrate. “I mean, he looked like he should be on a movie set. He was too good-looking, too confident, but around Finn, I just felt safe. He always walked on the street side and steered me around those mysterious stinky New York puddles. And it wasn’t an act, like a guy saying, ‘Hey, look what a gentleman I am.’ It was just Finn. He was protective. And supportive. I would tell him about my hacking strategy, and he would listen and make suggestions, but he never took over or told me what to do, even though he clearly understood the challenge.”
Evan refilled her wine glass. “It’s a nearly irresistible combination. Good looks are great, but factor in the brains, and your serotonin probably erupted. A dopamine flood.”
“You actually made that sound sexy.” Emily clinked her glass to Evan’s.
“More than that, though, there was something about him that just seemed solid. Finn looked like the kind of man you could count on.”
The women nodded at Twitch’s accurate first impression. Despite everything, Finn still showed up for his brothers.
“His calm drew me. My life growing up was kind of chaotic.” Twitch broke a tortilla chip into tiny pieces on her cocktail napkin. “Now might be a good time to tell you about my family.”
“She’s rich. I don’t know for sure, and I definitely don’t care, but when we wandered into the West Village, she asked if I’d like to come over to her parents’ house and work on the hack.” Finn shook his head with a smile. “She must have seen the look on my face because she explained that her mom and dad lived in Locust Valley and kept a place in the city, but they weren’t there now. We never talked about it, and I never asked. She led me down a tree-lined street to a three-story brick house and pulled me inside. Honestly, at the time, I thought, nice place, you know? I was a twenty-four-year-old guy from Philly. I wasn’t exactly an expert on Manhattan real estate. But looking back? That place must have cost millions. And Charlotte? She wasn’t embarrassed by it or proud of it. It just was, you know? That’s what made me think she must have grown up rich because it was just her reality.”