The dirt road over the hill to the pond is rocky and rough from disuse. The SUV bobs and weaves, but we make it over without too much trouble.
I pull over next to a cluster of pine trees. Opening the trunk, I grab the four-foot pine board that I bought at the hardware store in Whitby, while Finley gets the axes from the back seat.
It takes me only a few minutes to set up the target in front of two trees set close together.
By the time I’m done, Finley’s unpacking the rest of the stuff I gathered, taking out folding chairs and setting them out along with a few wool blankets.
“What’s in the cooler?” She tilts her head toward the item shoved into the back of the trunk.
I pick up the bundle of firewood next to it and toss it to the ground. “Wieners.”
She grins. “We’re going to roast wieners?”
“Yep.” I squint up at the overcast sky. It’s midday, but the sun is hiding behind clouds, the entire sky gray and dreary. “It’s a little cold, so a fire seemed ideal.”
“Fire and sharp objects.” She nods. “I already feel better.”
“Only one rule,” I say.
She looks at me expectantly.
“There are no rules.”
She rolls her eyes with a snort. “Okay. Whatever you say,Fight Club.”
“Maybe one rule. Don’t throw the axe at me.”
She sticks out her bottom lip in a pout. “Party pooper.”
I finish setting up the target, using spray paint to make a circle with an X in the center of the thick board.
“I have no idea how to do this,” Finley says from behind me.
I turn around and shrug. “It’s like darts, I guess, but with something a little bigger.”
“Bigger is better.” She covers her mouth with her hand. “Sorry. I’ll try to keep the dick jokes to a minimum. I blame the wieners. They got into my head, and now they won’t leave.”
Laughter barks out of me. “This is your time. You make as many dick jokes as you need to. As long as they aren’t at my expense, I’m good.”
She presses her lips together as if she wants to comment on my nether regions, her gaze even dipping down slightly before returning resolutely to mine.
“Axes,” I say with a determined nod. “Let’s throw some axes.”
I’ve never done this myself, but it doesn’t stop me from showing Finley how to hold the axe, if only to get close to her and breathe in her scent just for a minute. We spend the next hour throwing axes at the board and hitting it a majority of the time. Finley is a quick study, and pretty soon, she’s throwing better than I am.
When she finally hits theXI drew in the center of the circle, she jumps up and down, grabbing my arm. “I did it!”
“You did great.”
She smiles up at me, but after a moment of us getting stuck in each other’s eyes, she drops my arm and turns away. “So. Now can we roast some wieners?”
We get the fire going, and I pull out the hot cocoa and cups. She finds some long sticks for the hot dogs. We sit in chairs next to each other, sticking the dogs into the flames.
I don’t want to bring up anything about the tax issue, don’t want to ruin the rest of her day, since the whole point of this is to not think about her problems—but I’ve been dying to know more about her relationship with Reed since he stood in the doorway and smirked at me. “So, how long were you and Reed together?”
She shrugs. “Off and on for around a year.”
I clear my throat. “That’s a decent amount of time.”