She’s such a fighter.
She’s so beautiful.
So young.
I can’t imagine how this must be for you.
Strangely, Finn is the one who probably could imagine how this is for us, and it’s a relief to not have to face it when I’m with him.
I get home in record time; the traffic light gods were smiling upon me. I could change out of my grungy clothes, but don’t bother. If we aren’t banging, I’m not primping.
He’s such a gentleman that he texts from the curb that he’s here, and I meet him at his truck and jump in.
“I forget how to get to Fred’s,” he says by way of greeting.
“Hello.” After buckling my seat belt, I tell him, “Hang a right on Prospect and then a left on Draper.”
“Oh, yeah.” He maneuvers out of the spot and then follows my direction. “I think I’ll remember from there.”
“Especially given that it’s on Draper,” I say with a cheeky grin.
But he doesn’t smile back. In fact, Finn seems lost in thought. He fiddles with the radio and settles on NPR, so instead of conversation, we have a rerun of Terry Gross interviewing Joaquin Phoenix to keep us company. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel at a red light, looking out his window away from me.
“This not-having-sex thing sure is way more stimulating! I’m super glad we’re still cool just hanging out.” I lean forward to get a better look at his face, but I don’t even get a flicker of a grin.
“Just wanted to get out for a bit,” he mumbles cryptically. Oliver lives a block from the beach. Finn could easily “get out” and do about a hundred different things other than taking me to Fred’s, where we just went just a few nights ago.
He parks in front of the bar and meets me on the sidewalk, as usual gesturing that I lead the way. Mr. Furley calls out to me when we enter, telling Kyle to kick some “ratty-ass kids out of Harlow’s booth.”
“How dare they?” I hiss playfully to him.
“Kids these days,” he says, wiping down the bar. “Buncha little assholes. How’s Madeline?”
“She’s hanging in there.” I stretch across the bar and kiss his stubbly cheek before hopping down and grabbing the two bottles of beer he hands me. I give him my best Bogart: “Tanks, schweetheaaart.”
Handing one to Finn, I gesture for him to follow me to our corner, wiping a few stray peanut shells off the table as I slide into our booth.
“You sure have him wrapped around your finger,” Finn says as he climbs in after me, looking back at Mr. Furley behind the bar.
“Yep. He’s the best.” I take a long pull on my beer, watching Finn swallow as he does the same. God, I love his neck. It’s tanned, and defined, and dark stubble just barely shadows it, from his cheek . . . down his jaw . . .
I clear my throat. No sex. “So what’s up?”
Finn shrugs, and stares at the television nearest us, currently playing a Padres game.
At first the silence is comfortable: I have my beer, he has his beer. He has the Padres, I have a couple of adorably dorky senior citizens cutting a rug on the dance floor. But when they go sit down at their table, I feel the weight of the silence at ours. I don’t have the sense that Finn asked me to come out so he could sit and watch baseball alone.
“So, is Oliver working tonight?”
He doesn’t seem to hear me.
“Do you want me to order us some food? I’m starving.”
Again, he seems completely lost in thought. The music is pretty loud, but it’s not like I’m whispering. Hello, I never whisper.
“I think I’m going to go over to the music booth and see if Kyle wants to get freaky on the dance floor with me.” Nothing. “Maybe bang him on the bar. Or maybe a little action in the back room.” I lean toward him. “And obviously ‘back room’ is a euphemism.”
“Hey now,” Finn says, pulling his eyes from the television. Finally, a reaction.
“Okay, so what’s going on?” I ask him. “If you wanted a quiet beer session you could have brought Oliver.”
“I just wanted to think.”
“And that you could do alone, or on a run on the beach. So clearly you need to talk. Do you need a sounding board, or a brick wall?”
Finn looks at me like he has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Do you need me to help you think something through,” I clarify, “or do you just want to talk it out without interruption?”
“Are you capable of that?”
My face right now. “In fact, I am.”
Finn rises from the table, holding out his hand when I start to protest. “I’m going to explain. I want to talk it out, no interruption. I just need another beer first. Or three.”
He starts to walk away so I call out, “Have Mr. Furley bring me some tater tots, too.”
FINN IS ALMOST half done with his second beer when he finally starts talking. “When I said I was here on business, I was telling the truth. I know it sounds weird, because our entire tiny business is centered up on Vancouver Island.”
I nod, inexplicably giddy to learn why he’s staying in San Diego for so long. I feel sort of special that he’s talking to me about this, but I absolutely don’t let that show. I am poker-facing it like a champ.
“But it’s not an easy business, and it’s one of those things where if you have a bad year, okay, you can pull it out the next. But if you have two bad years, it gets harder. A couple bad years, a big commercial firm comes in . . . then the boats need fixing . . .” He runs a palm down his face and then takes a deep drink of his beer, finishing it and then grumbling a quiet, “Yeah, so.”
I’m suddenly not quite as giddy anymore.
I can tell he’s not going to lay the specifics of his business troubles on me and really, it’s fine because I suspect I would be only marginally more helpful than Kyle the DJ would be in this situation. But I stay quiet, not only because of my inexpertise, but because I know he isn’t done. I still have no idea why he’s here.
“So about, I don’t know, maybe a month ago, some people called up, said they had an idea for . . .” He cuts off and looks at me for a long pause. “For a show.”
“Like a fishing expo?” I ask.
Laughing, he says, “No. Like a television show.”
Oh.
Oh.
I lean forward, my elbows on the table. “And by ‘some people’ you mean . . .”