“Know what I figured out too?” He clicks his tongue and I bite down on mine. The anticipation both killed me and wanted him to continue. “He’s not like us, he’s moral. Even caught him offering to carry her books for her once.” Finn snorts. “Not that she let him but still, the offer was there.”
Let’s give the guy a badge and call him a hero then. I owned a black plated credit card, didn’t mean you see me handing it out to the homeless. Same thing.
A slow grin crosses his face as I breathe in through my nose.
“He almost hit her with his car!”
“That was an accident.”
“He could have killed her!”
Finn’s eyes glimmer. He wasn’t backing down and neither was I.
“Rory admitted that was her own fault for not looking both ways before crossing the street and we both know it,” he stresses.
My chest heaved. Whose side was Finn on again? Sure as shit didn’t seem like mine right now. And where the fuck was Eli? He couldn’t still be with the on-staff medic looking at his knee, could he?
“Xander is good for her—”
“I’m good for her!” My muscles tightened in strain, exhaling doing nothing to relax them. “Not him, not anyone else.Me.I’m thebestfor Rory!” Voice thundering as it echoes off the walls.
I was too wound up. My temper finally snapped.
The empty room filled with our thickened tension. Our teammates smart enough to abandon ship soon after Finn slammed his locker for the second time.
“Rory shouldn’tbewith anyone elsebutme,” I reiterate, slamming my fingers into my chest.
Long seconds tick by before Finn pulls his lips over his teeth in a deep-seated whistle. A slow clap following soon after.
“It’s about fucking time.” His voice was bold, unconcerned.
I keep my eyes guarded even though I was brimming, full of raw emotions. There was no denying it anymore. I wanted Rory, and after her comment in the barn, I knew she wanted me too.
Rory deserved protection. I would give her that and in return, she would never have to know the truth.
I thought by pushing her away, denying us both what we’d wanted I was sheltering her. What I realized is she didn’t need that. She’s had to look out for herself for so long she knew no other way.
Now it was my turn to carry that weight for the both of us. That is if she’d let me…
“One last thing,” Finn says randomly. “You hurtmysister, Kellet, and I will hurt you, got it?”
I raise a marveled eyebrow. “Now she’s your sister?”
“Damn right she is.”
His answer came without hesitation. Finn’s response not unexpected but it still catches me off guard. A few short months ago he couldn’t stand her and now look at him, defending her.
I had no right to mock him though, so I stay quiet. If anyone had room to talk it was me. I was in a lot further than he was.
Rory Hale was mine. My rival, my enemy, my future.
Finn rights himself, straightening his back on a chuckled breath. “Was that so hard to admit?”
I swallow thickly realizing now that it wasn’t. Saying the words out loud made me realize what I’d known I had wanted for a while now. Rory, it had always been her. Even back then, when we were kids, I knew.
“Look, C, if this is because of your mom…” Finn says, lowering his voice, leaving the sentence hanging in the room.
My face fell as my eyes emptied. Realizing maybe he was onto something. I couldn’t save my mom; had I been trying to save Rory from the same fate?