“You have a lifetime,” he said, then leaned in to kiss her.
They spent a whole week together, but it didn’t feel like a week. It felt like the beginning of eternity, of a lifetime.
“I never apologized for that kiss at the club,” he said when they finally bothered to put clothes on and go out for an early dinner. They sat at a window table at a half-full Life’s A Beach.
She chuckled. “Who was that girl with the sequin dress you were with that night?”
“I don’t remember her dress. I don’t even remember her name,” he said, chuckling. “I think I forgot it as soon as you and I kissed.”
At another table, she saw Roni, Libby’s best friend. In high school, she had been well-liked, pretty, talkative. Anne secretly admired her sarcastic remarks in class. Roni was with Don, her fiancé, her high school sweetheart. She noticed that Roni eyed her and Finn, though they didn’t touch each other.
“Did you have a crush on me in high school?” he asked when they went down to the beach to watch the waves.
“Don’t flatter yourself. It was such a tiny crush that even the science class equipment couldn’t find it.”
“I had a thing for you in your band uniform.”
She laughed and smacked his arm. He caught her hand and kissed her.
A week was all they had. Because, on the eighth day, Finn showed up at her door, his face the embodiment of a whiter shade of pale.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Can I come in?”
This worried her even more because, until that point, he’d just grab her and enter with her already wrapped around him.
“What happened?” she repeated.
He took her hand and led her to the living room that, in the smallness of the brightly painted house, was a few feet from the door. With his hand on her shoulder, he made her sit on the sofa while he drooped down on the coffee table, facing her, their knees huddled together.
He turned even paler.
She threw a hand up to cover her mouth. “Oh my God, Finn, tell me. Is it your mother? What?”
He covered his face with his hands, then took a deep breath and started talking, his voice muffled by his palms. “Eight weeks ago, before you were even back in Riviera View, I … I hooked up with someone. Once. Could barely remember it or her right after.”
Her heart sank to her knees. She didn’t think it could sink any lower, but his next sentence crashed it on the floor.
“She’s pregnant.”
When only silence followed his words, he removed his hands from his face.
She just stared at him, thinking she must be as pale as he was.
He gripped her forearm, leaning closer to her. “Jane. Say something.”
“What do you want me to say?” She felt numb inside.
“I don’t know. That we can work through it, that I can be involved, but you and I will be okay.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I don’t … I guess.”
“She called me an hour ago. Showed up at my house, showed me the results of … a blood test. And the weeks. They match. My mom was there, and she told her. And…”
“She told your mother?”
He nodded.