Calliope flopped back on the coach. “How did I not know this about you?” Twitch brushed the end of her auburn braid against her palm. “Very few people know. Finn doesn’t know. None of the guys, well, Nathan knows, obviously.”
Emily nodded. “He told me and asked me not to say anything.”
Twitch tossed the braid back over her shoulder. “I figured.”
Very pointed with her wine glass. “She’s not kidding. I don’t think anyone in our college class knew. Tell them about graduation.”
Twitch rolled her eyes. “Dad came in disguise. An old man in a wheelchair. He wore full makeup, and his security dressed as male nurses in scrubs.”
Very took over. “It was ridiculous, but there were fifty thousand people in Charlottesville that day. Nobody looked twice. Plus, you have to remember, Twitch’s mom was an actress, and she’s still fucking hot. If people were staring, it was at Daisy, not at some geezer trailing behind her.”
“Back to the story, please,” Calliope urged.
Twitch cleared her throat and continued. “The reason I told you about my family is that after we had talked and spent the day walking around, I invited him to my house. If Finn had taken even a minute to walk through the rooms, notice the memorabilia and awards, he would have known who owned the house.”
“But he didn’t,” Calliope guessed.
“His attention was on me. And the tech.” Twitch laughed. “He checked the router, ran a systems check, downloaded a new anti-virus software. You’re going to think it’s crazy, but I was a twenty-two-year-old virgin, and when he looked up from checking the activity monitor on my machine and winked at me…”
“Virginity, poof.” Very made a little vanishing gesture.
“Well, not poof,” Twitch clarified. “More like boom, crash, bang, pow.”
“Fiiinnnn.” Calliope dragged his name out, impressed.
“Yeah,” Twitch sighed. “He was amazing.”
“It comes as no surprise that Finn knows his way around a woman’s body. Even scarred up, he’s a sexy fucker,” Very said.
“It was more than that, though. It wasn’t, I don’t know, generic. It was like I was a blowfish cipher, and he decrypted me.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I get the idea.” Calliope tossed a cube of cheese into her mouth.
The entire week we were together was like that. Like Finn was slowly decoding me. He noticed I wasn’t interested in the designer stores in Soho, so he led the way to St. Mark’s Comics. He paid attention. For the first time, I felt seen.”
Emily squeezed her hand. “I know exactly what you mean. And these Bishop Security guys? Well, I guess it goes back to their SEAL days. They are like a pack of wolves in the wilderness. You know those videos online? One will show a wolf attacking some animal. Then in the next one, the same wolf is playing with his cubs or nuzzling his partner.”
“Yes,” Calliope agreed. “That’s what I love about Tox. Most of the time, he’s a teddy bear, but man, when that grizzly comes out of its cage.” She fanned herself.
“That’s why I was able to make excuses for Finn for so long. I felt like he was a wolf who had been separated from his pack. I closed my eyes to what he had become because I knew what he used to be.”
“A part of the pack.” Very finished the thought.
“Mine,” Twitch corrected. “He used to be mine.”
“Hers.” Finn rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “That’s what I was thinking when I said goodbye to Charlotte. I’m hers. I didn’t want to leave her.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Maybe part of me knew that once I left, once reality crashed the party, it would be over.”
“And was that what happened? Reality destroyed what you had?” May asked.
“No. I did.” Finn groaned. “Honestly, at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. Giving Charlotte an easy out. She wouldn’t have rejected me when she saw what they’d done to my face. And trust me, it was not something a beautiful twenty-two-year-old girl should have to deal with. You think this is bad?” He ran a hand across his cheek. “This is after two reconstructions and a skin graft and four years of healing.”
May sipped her coffee.
“You’re going to be disappointed in me.” Finn stared at the floor.
“No sense in you being disappointed in you all by yourself,” May replied.
“It had been over a year since I’d seen her. She’d wanted to come see me, but I told her no. I mean, what the fuck were we? It’s one thing to meet someone, have this magical connection, and make plans to, I don’t know, get dinner or go to a fucking movie. I couldn’t ask Charlotte to fly to fucking Germany and hold my hand after knowing her for a week. Oh, hey, sweetheart, remember that incredible vacation in New York? How’d you like to see me through recovering from a hideous disfigurement?